Smart Aquarium Lighting

Hey all,

So, I’ve been looking to make my main aquarium lighting smart. I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now, but couldn’t find the right smart light strip to make it perfect. Now I have. I used this video as my inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EYC3obFY4w

A little background first though. I have a 60 gallon African Chiclid (Malawi) aquarium. So, my lighting requirements are actually pretty basic. I want to simulate a morning/day/evening/night lighting similar to what they experience in the actual lake. There, lighting conditions aren’t bright, but they do get some light. So, with that said, I decided to go with the Sylvania Lightify (or Smart+ or whatever they are calling them now) outdoor light strip. It is water proof and completely sealed. Perfect for an aquarium!

In total, it cost me about $95 to make a fully ST controllable smart lighting system for my aquarium. I figured I saved about $25 (or more) for something comparable (without ST integration). This is what I was originally going to buy and hook up to my Harmony hub (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U0HMX1C/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER). But, who really wants JUST an IR based controlled aquarium light with a simple timer? :wink:

I’ll be using webCoRE to get all the timers in place along with creating various effects based upon the weather (getting darker when we have thunderstorms, etc) and also based upon who’s home. As an example, my wife likes watching the fish in the evening, so if she’s home, I’ll make the lights a bit brighter for her.

The last added bonus to all this is being able to control them with Alexa. :smiley:

Anyhow, here’s some pics of the project.

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Looking for ways to do this too. Getting back into the hobby and looking for lighting ideas and think this is a great idea. How did you connect to the hub?

I used two smart light strips (Sylvania Smart+ Indoor/Outdoor strips). I wouldn’t recommend this for a salt tank though unless you are doing something like a FOWLR tank. For freshwater, they put off enough light without allowing for a brown algae bloom. I typically keep them on for about 4 hours a day at 100% and the rest of the time at ~40%. On my 60g, I use one strip and with reflective silver tape in the canopy, it provides PLENTY of light. I’ve been working on a webCoRE piston that simulates weather effects as well (but it’s still not done, 6 months later lol).

I have a 75 gallon with Cichlids also.
You described exactly what I want to do. Would like to have the tank get darker when clouds go over and brighter with sun. Lightning effects during thunderstorms also.
I have a Current Lamp Timer Pro now ,but the programming never works right.

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I have two of the Current Marine Pros on my 75g saltwater tank and yeah, the programming rarely works. I can rely on the default M1 program to do sunrise and get it to 80% by noon, but beyond that, meh. Generally, I will set it to the partly sunny setting ~10:00AM and leave that running until 4:30PM. Then just actinic at 60% until 8:00PM. The lights have great output, but horrible programming.

You can accomplish what you want by using webCoRE. I never got the storm effects to work properly though because of the lag between webCoRE and the actual device, but for clouds and sun and such, that’s easy to do.

Id like to add a connector to my fluval sky light and control it with my google home any suggestions