Need suggest for illuminating a 10' tank

[HenryC]

So I installed my 320g, 10' long aquarium a month ago, but I'm  at a loss on how to illuminate it. Right now I got my old nicrew lights and a generic undercabinet led light, but it's clunky to have 3 separate, different temp lights.

I was wondering if anyone got any suggestions on how to illuminate this aquarium? Was thinking on fabricating one with led strips, but dunno where to start...

Doesn't have to be full spectrum, as I have 0 plants (american cichlids munch them all lol). Really like the look of warmer tones, easier on the eyes plus they make orange/red fish pop more, which are the majority here.

[ScottieB]

Wow, nice looking tank. I love the long slow swim they make from one end to other. I have an 8 foot long 300g and mount light on wall brackets every 2 feet. 

The ceiling looks too high to hang lights but that’s an option. You can get creative with 2020 extruded aluminum to make wall brackets that sit like the picture. 

The ones I have are specific to the lights and were designed to mount along the back of a stand but my tank is flush so I cut them and mount them in reverse against the wall. 

Not sure I’m helping just wanted to suggest you think outside the box.

 

 

 

 

On 9/20/2022 at 7:52 PM, HenryC said:

So I installed my 320g, 10' long aquarium a month ago, but I'm  at a loss on how to illuminate it. Right now I got my old nicrew lights and a generic undercabinet led light, but it's clunky to have 3 separate, different temp lights.

I was wondering if anyone got any suggestions on how to illuminate this aquarium? Was thinking on fabricating one with led strips, but dunno where to start...

Doesn't have to be full spectrum, as I have 0 plants (american cichlids munch them all lol). Really like the look of warmer tones, easier on the eyes plus they make orange/red fish pop more, which are the majority here.

 

[HenryC]

On 9/20/2022 at 7:03 PM, ScottieB said:

Wow, nice looking tank. I love the long slow swim they make from one end to other. I have an 8 foot long 300g and mount light on wall brackets every 2 feet. 

The ceiling looks too high to hang lights but that’s an option. You can get creative with 2020 extruded aluminum to make wall brackets that sit like the picture. 

The ones I have are specific to the lights and were designed to mount along the back of a stand but my tank is flush so I cut them and mount them in reverse against the wall. 

Not sure I’m helping just wanted to suggest you think outside the box.

 

 

 

 

 

Incredible looking tank! Thank you so mich, I was actually thinking on mounting several lights liek your setup but couldn't figure how to do it, never really tought about mounting on the wall itself! I will probably do this as it is much easier to do water changes without having to move a big light around.

[gardenman]

Cheap and easy would be to get a 10' long piece of gutter with two end caps and paint it all black on the outside. Inside of that put some of the T-5 LED shop lights (6500 K) daisy-chained to one another. (You can get six of the 4' long 6500K Barrina T-5 Shoplights at Amazon for $42.) They can connect end to end with an included cable so you only need one switch/smart outlet/timer to control the lot. For around $60-$70 you can have a ten foot long, very bright light for the tank that looks pretty good and is the right spectrum (daylight.)