# DIY light project on Garf's site, very cost effective



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Ran across this site the other day, there are several DIY projects, but it was the instructions for building your own tank and lights that caught my attention. Site sell corals and janitor stuff for marine tanks, and it's pretty interesting.

The lights are not pretty but they'd sure be cheap. He wraps solid copper wire around the pins of a flourescent tubes, and then wires them into a ballast. He gives the instructions with pics for most of the build.

A simple frame of PVC pipe supports the tubes. The neat thing is that he dips the ends of the bulbs, complete with wiring, into liquid plastic. Totally water proof, no risk of arcing or other issues with water contact. When the bulb needs to be replaced, you just cut the wire and do it again, he figures once yearly, for growing corals. I'd guess you could do something similar for growing plants.

He figures a set of reef lights cost him only few dollars each, not counting the bulbs of course. Uses 6500 K tubes to grow corals and stuff. The tank builder is very basic but if you put in your measurements it will give you a total materials list, complete with size and what to cut exactly, and what order to assemble them in.

Only thing he does not show or say is how he actually powers the those lights. Hard to tell whether he wires them to a cord and plug or wires them directly into the circuit he's using.

Light build is here. http://www.garf.org/-2011b/LIGHTADAM.html


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