News RSS

There are a lot of LED lighting options available on the market now, but one problem has always been around, how to get light all the way to the bottom of a tall vivarium?Spot lights obviously work well, but they can present some issues.  They often have a fairly focused beam angle so the light does not spread out much. The tall profile can also present some challenges or make for a messy looking top that just begs to be hidden, creating more work or costs for you. One option is to use large flat LED diodes. The problem is,...

The bigger the glass box, the tougher the lighting challenges become.  Adding just spot lights has its downsides -- usually some coverage issues.  Using only LED strips means the light at the bottom will often not be enough for many plant species. The obvious solution is a light design that mixes both technologies together, but this can create a kluge on the top of the tank, which might necessitate the need to build a custom cover to hide the mess. Especially if you're making a featured display tank.  By combining both lighting types into a single panel, a lot of...

I think everyone with a "glass box" knows what it's like to have inferior lighting at some point, usually when you first get into the hobby.  The most obvious symptom of this is having colorful bromeliads that "green out" once they've been under inadequate lighting for long enough. I had this problem for a number of years when running stock, off the shelf lights from the local Big Box pet store.  Those were all based on under powered T8 and T5 florescent tubes.  I switched to the store bought LED lighting when it first became available in those same stores,...

Thanks to everyone who dropped by my table to chat and purchase both lights, animals and art this past weekend. Thanks to Noah and Jeff for putting on a great show and making a smooth transition from The Bean Farm who did a great job all these years running a first class show. What I definitely learned is that there's a lot of people who either now run, or want, a night light option for their vivariums.  Since most of my animals are diurnal, it's not something that really crossed my mind, but it's on my radar now.  The good...

Some vivarium displays are laid out such that there's really no tough decisions to make about lighting because the sizes all line up nicely.  But if you're building custom enclosures, or just like sizes where nothing off the pet store shelf fits well, then you've got to make some choices.  Where you like to place the top vent in your vivarium also greatly impacts what kinds of lighting you can use -- front, middle or back vent?  It seems like everyone's got a different opinion about what works best.  It's often contextual though so having flexible options means that you're...