Real-Time View of the Paludarium V1.0

2 Responses to Real-Time View of the Paludarium V1.0

1. Samuel | February 20, 2012 at 14:10 | Reply

   Hi! I saw your Paludarium and I love it!! I’m making my first paludarium and I have some questions…please, can you help me?? My paludarium sizes 180cm high, do you think that if I put 50x1w Superleds, 12x3w Superleds, 5x1w RGB Leds and 14x20Halogeen Spots, it is going to be enough???

   Thank you soo much for your help from Spain!!

   • Erik Zandboer | April 17, 2012 at 11:49 | Reply

     Hi Samuel,

     Sorry for the late reply. Lighting in a paludarium depends a lot on what you want lit. Obviously you’ll want to put light over the plantlife. Do you have significant water inside? Most light will be required to properly light the bottom, especially if your water level is above 20cm.

     My new Paludarium is going to have 50cm of water, which is very hard to light properly. In my case, the water is going to be dim without an awful lot of plant life. My old paludarium had 30cm of water, and the lighting I used was 8x Halogen (middday), 52watts of LED lighting and two 38W tubes. That sufficed. Hard to say without knowing the details of your setup how much you’ll need.

     First off, I’d stay away from the 3W leds. I have them as well, and they have degraded significantly, much more than the 1W versions. In fact, the 1W versions burn brighter right now! The 3W’s are now very warm white, so I suspect the blue leds inside are dying. The number of halogen spots in your setup is immense; 14x 20W = 280 watts. As halogens get VERY warm, you’ll need something special to cool that down. Unless you dim them, that will give you a very warm yellow “sunset” color which is superb. I use halogens for two things: sunrise and sunset (both dimmed), and extra lighting during midday (full power). Those are 8x 20W halogens.

     Not sure what the new setup will look like, not too different from my old setup for sure.