Coral Reef Tank Lighting Automation Using Arduino and LDD1000H

Hey there, In this Instructable we will see How to make simple timing based lighting system for coral reef tank

Before staring something lets see some basics and background

Many factors can affect coral growth; lighting, water temperature, feeding strategies, and water chemistry all have an affect coral growth and their appearance. Proper lighting is one of the most important ingredients for successfully growing corals in a reef aquarium.

I have made part of basic research on the lighting and included a sequence in the next step , which completely on test basis , make sure you do enough research before working on this reef lighting because corals are expensive

The Zooxanthellae that live in coral tissue depend heavily on specific types of light energy to flourish in a symbiotic relationship with the host coral. The Zooxanthellae provide food for the coral, and in return, the coral provides protection from would be herbivores.

The lighting we provide for the reef aquarium must closely mimic the wavelengths and intensity found on the reefs to offer the same benefit to the corals as in their natural habitat. Light is energy, and travels in light waves. The wavelength of light is measured in nanometers, with violet and blue at the lower end of the visible spectrum (400-470nm) and the red is at the higher end (at around 700nm). Wavelengths below 400 nanometers are considered UV or ultra violet. Above 700 nanometers light is considered infrared. The color spectrum is very important for coral growth in your aquarium because certain wavelengths are more beneficial to coral than others. i have attached some graphs with which says what color should have what percentage at what time

LED 5 W with Heat pad(for one matrix)

• Red(2 nos)
• Green(2 nos)
• Blue (8 nos)
• Royal Blue (16 nos)
• UV (6 nos)
• Warm White (8 nos)
• Cold White (6 nos)

Other supplies

• Power supply(24v 5Amps) --- -----1
• Arduino Uno----------------------------1
• LDD-1000H(Mean Well)-------------6
• DS1307(RTC)--------------------------1
• Aluminum Heat sink 15cm* 7 cm--24
• Enclosure -------------------------------As much required for You
• General Purpose PCB -------------- As much required for You
• wires (high current tolerance )----- As much required for You

First step is to create array of led according to the figure mentioned, these matrix forms a particular color according to sequences

The matrix consist of 6 row 8 columns ,6 * 8 - 48 led - each led has certain wavelength

Red ->660nm

Green -> 520nm

Blue-> 470nm

Royal Blue ->450nm

UV ->420 nm

Warm White ->12000k nm

Cold White->10000k nm

Make sure circuit is connected in series as per circuit diagram

Next we will add heat sink , since this led dissipate lot of heat

After soldering Led attach Heat sink (Don't forget to use thermal paste)

once soldering and heat sink setup done, verify the connection by powering up

check all the led glow perfectly

In this step we will how to dim led using basic analogwrite function , i have added Tinkercad circuit for testing the basics before connecting actual array , here led will be directly connected to arduino via a resistor(to reduce current) similar circuit is used in our main circuit , since we have lot of led and it consumes high current we use LDD1000H drive circuit (this circuit will be in the next step )

PS: i have used Fade code from Arduino IDE examples - u can find at arduino->examples->basics->fade

Now we will wire Arduino UNO and RTC as per the circuit diagram-

we have 6 led driver and 8 led per driver , make sure all led are connected as per the matrix list mentioned at making part 1

Enclosure is very important sine it need a body to hang above the reef tank

I have added the dimension used in this project, u can make your own design according to Tank dimension

material used-> acrylic 10mm thickness Black color

Step 4-

there are some library to be included before uploading the code, listed below

• RtcDS1307.h
• Wire.h

Make sure you compile and check all the necessary library included

We can add WIFI modele(ESP8266) instead of Arduino and modify the code accordingly to make it as IoTdevice and can be controlled through app (refer Blynk) - this will be shared in next version --

Happy making

Thanks