Does anyone use moving lighting?

Areseebee · Feb 23, 2024

laverda said:
I did exactly what you thinking of doing on an 8' tank. LEDs did not even exist for practical purposes when I built it. I used a 250w DE metal halide light with T5 suplements. It worked well at keeping my electrical bill down snd controlling the heat in my canopy.
I used a light mover with the slowest ratio then available. It was much faster than what your invisioning. It would move back and forth across the tank a day while the MH was on. It was simple and reliable. I dont know how much benifit it would be on a 4 foot tank.
Amazon lists several. This one looks like what I used. Light mover

Sorry I just meant that the light itself would only be moving 4 ft. The tank itself would be 6 ft.

magallonbuckinbulls · Feb 23, 2024

I did this back in 2012 with MH to simulate sunset and sunrise.

If you need help designing the mechanical system lmk. I have ideas lol. Motion control is one of babies

. You can do a full motion grid system. Lights can be raised and hidden in ceiling. They can tilt, pivot, rotate, spin (commutator), you name it.

seamonster · Feb 24, 2024

Areseebee said:
I have been thinking hard about how to best light a tank I'm building. It will be 6'x3'x2'. There are two primary constraints: (1) I'm pretty cheap and (2) ok... there's no 2. Regardless, right now MH are pretty cheap and arguably the best lighting for corals. They do have some drawbacks though, mostly heat. So the conventional thing would be to put maybe 3 250W fixtures over the tank and some T5 or LED strips for support? That will definitely generate a lot of heat and require me to buy 3x fixtures and 3x bulbs every year. Not a huge problem. I think typical wisdom would say I should keep those fixtures on for 6ish hours a day and they'll cover, on their own, roughly a 24" to 30" square, with the correct reflector.

However, what I started wondering is if I could have 1 fixture that slowly moves across the length of the tank over the course of 12ish hours. The idea is that every spot on the tank will have a dedicated MH hanging directly overhead for a good number of hours each day. This would basically mean in a 6 foot tank moving 48 inches in 12 hours or 4 inches/hour. It seems like this would have so many nice benefits: (1) The heat is almost inconsequential now. You are turning it on longer but at a much lower intensity so it is easier to dissipate. (2) You get a very natural "sunrise/set" type effect as the light moves around during the day. The corals will experience light from all directions at some point each day and would hopefully help eliminate shading issues. (3) Your aquarium is lit for more hours of the day so you can enjoy it more. (4) It would (probably) be cheaper, depending on how to build the track that moves the light (I have no idea about this part). Also there are some things to consider, obviously if you run 1 fixture twice as much, you have to replace the bulk twice as often. I think there are certain fundamental things like that which you can not escape.

So I'm curious to hear opinions on this idea or if anyone has seen it done or has ideas on how to accomplish it.

This is a cool idea. I’m thinking maybe like a cable system that each end rotates on 2 wheels ( wheel on both ends, like a big circle.) but with just with one halide because of weight. Set it up like a gondala ride or ski lift. Ummm. But you would still need to run actinics (stationary) and get the brightest halide possible.

Areseebee · Feb 24, 2024

Yeah so after googling a little bit there's definitely products ont he market meant for pot farmers to move lights but they move very fast compared to what I want. The ones I saw moved 2 ft/minute at a minimum. In principle you could probably have a controller like apex turn it off and on but I still think it would look kind of janky compared to a nice, continuous change in position of the light source over the course of the day.

magallonbuckinbulls · Feb 24, 2024

bobnicaragua said:
I’ve done a lot of experimenting with different lights. LED supplemented with halides is a winning combo. Less heat than a primarily halide setup. The colors get deeper and the corals just appear healthier with halides in the mix.

On my 6 foot tank, I have 3 Reefi UNOs and 2 halides in the center, with some supplemental lights on the side.

Your moving light idea will work, but the moving part will eventually get stuck. Even when it’s working, the tank won’t be lit evenly.

Areseebee said:
Yeah so after googling a little bit there's definitely products ont he market meant for pot farmers to move lights but they move very fast compared to what I want. The ones I saw moved 2 ft/minute at a minimum. In principle you could probably have a controller like apex turn it off and on but I still think it would look kind of janky compared to a nice, continuous change in position of the light source over the course of the day.

You need a stepper motor to control movement. They have encoders, so you can program movements and speeds.

Troylee · Feb 24, 2024

This is when my halides come on.. each one comes on at seperate times across the tank.. same thing as a rail in the end if you programmed them to alternate off and on through out the day with no moving parts and longer lasting bulbs. Last photo is just the outters without the big one in the center on.