New Guide: NeoPixel Aquarium with Submersible Color-Changing Lights #adafruit

Aquarium with submersible lights

Check out the latest guide from Erin St. Blaine: decorate your fish tank or aquarium with color-changing lights. This tutorial shows how to assemble and waterproof your NeoPixel lights so you can bury them under seashells or sea glass at the bottom of your fish tank. It includes Arduino code that allows you to change between animated color modes with a touch of your finger, using a decorative strip of copper tape as a capacitive touch sensor.

This build uses a QT Py microcontroller, a strip of 144/m NeoPixels as an above-water light, and a strand of NeoPixel dots submerged in the water for a unique underwater glow.

From the guide:

Decorate your aquarium with NeoPixels. Add a high density strip of lights above the water for a beautiful overall colored glow, with subtle color shifts and changes. Cycle between color modes to suit your mood, the time of day, or to signal feeding time.

For an extra special bit of underwater magic, attach a NeoPixel Strand and submerse the lights under the water. Diffuse the lights with seashells or bits of colored glass to complete the effect.

This DIY solution will cost you a lot less than the prepackaged aquarium LED light kits available at the pet store, and will give you a lot more control over brightness, color modes and customization. But it’s the addition of the submersible strand that really makes this project special, and will make your aquarium stand out from the crowd.

See the full tutorial here: https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-aquarium-with-submersible-lights/overview


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.