Fishsticks
Member
- Joined
- 4 Jan 2013
- Messages
- 34
I'm designing an LED light for a 30 l cube and am having trouble deciding how high to position the lights.
Even though it's a small tank, I've chosen to use optics for reasons that probably belong in the DIY forum rather than here. But the effect of that is that I'll potentially end up with areas at the top of the tank that fall outside the beams and will be lit by only reflected light.
In designing the light I've aimed to have full coverage of the tank about half through its depth, which means that the greater portion of the surface won't be directly within the main 'beam' from the lights. The periphery of the tank in the upper half will therefore also not be directly lit. I'm planning to position the LEDs very close to the top of the tank - perhaps just 15-20 cm off the surface so in fact just about 1/4 of the surface will be within the beam cast by the optics.
I'm not quite sure how this will work in practice - is there any conventional wisdom as to how the field of light should hit the tank? Do people normally aim to 'just' cover the entire surface, 'just' cover the entire substrate or (like me) somewhere in between?
Significantly raising the lights and using narrower optics would of course help, but I'd like to avoid doing that because of where the tank will be situated.
Even though it's a small tank, I've chosen to use optics for reasons that probably belong in the DIY forum rather than here. But the effect of that is that I'll potentially end up with areas at the top of the tank that fall outside the beams and will be lit by only reflected light.
In designing the light I've aimed to have full coverage of the tank about half through its depth, which means that the greater portion of the surface won't be directly within the main 'beam' from the lights. The periphery of the tank in the upper half will therefore also not be directly lit. I'm planning to position the LEDs very close to the top of the tank - perhaps just 15-20 cm off the surface so in fact just about 1/4 of the surface will be within the beam cast by the optics.
I'm not quite sure how this will work in practice - is there any conventional wisdom as to how the field of light should hit the tank? Do people normally aim to 'just' cover the entire surface, 'just' cover the entire substrate or (like me) somewhere in between?
Significantly raising the lights and using narrower optics would of course help, but I'd like to avoid doing that because of where the tank will be situated.