canopy help please.

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wckdkl0wn

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 16, 2008
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All cats love fish but fear to wet their paws
I want to make a canopy for my 125 gallon with mounted lights in them. I want to keep mid to high light plants in the tank. I seen a setup I like but I have no clue about the wiring. I dont know much about electrical. Maybe you all can give me an idea of what i need to do. Or a diagram for the wiring. Also someone mentioned something about 2x wiring? (double power to the bulbs?)

something like this.
http://www.tristan.homelinux.net/fish/tank/canopy/index.htm



I am clueless about how to do this. I can do the canopy no problem. Just any help with wiring would be helpful.
 
It's actually pretty easy. Dun be scared. The wiring on the ballast is not exactly 'common sense' but a little time studying the diagrams that come with them does wonders. usually:

white: hot
black: ground
yellow: one end of all lights
red/blue: other end of all lights (depends on ballast and how may bulbs you are running)

I retrofit a used hood for the 125 by taking apart a stand alone plastic 48" light strip and just using the reflectors and existing wiring. only took about an hour!
 
Current USA makes retrofit lights designed purely to be used with canopies. They use T5 bulbs and can be strung together to be used with timers. They are also very inexpensive compared to many of the ballasts and wiring kits that are out there. They don't come with reflectors but these can be added very easily. I have them on my Malawi tank and they work great! There are a wide variety of bulbs available to use for a planted tank. The heat output from them is very low too when compared with many of the other retrofit ballasts.

Plus there is no wiring needed!! Just screw the mounts in and your done. Can be used with or without glass covers.
 
Trippingpara;1841551; said:
Current USA makes retrofit lights designed purely to be used with canopies. They use T5 bulbs and can be strung together to be used with timers. They are also very inexpensive compared to many of the ballasts and wiring kits that are out there. They don't come with reflectors but these can be added very easily. I have them on my Malawi tank and they work great! There are a wide variety of bulbs available to use for a planted tank. The heat output from them is very low too when compared with many of the other retrofit ballasts.

Plus there is no wiring needed!! Just screw the mounts in and your done. Can be used with or without glass covers.
Click to expand...


Is this the ones your talking about?
http://tinyurl.com/69w4ls
 
Your black wire is hot your white is neutral your green wire or bare wire is ground.You hook your lights in parrallel if using 2 or more lights.Black to black white to white ground to ground.You switch your lights in series on the line side on the hot or black wire.Hope this helps.
 
wckdkl0wn;1841674; said:
Is this the ones your talking about?
http://tinyurl.com/69w4ls
Click to expand...

Yes they are. They're mighty cheap but they work really well. I have much more expensive sets of lights on my other tanks and the colors my Malawi cichlids have with these lights rival my more expensive lights.

Several places online carry them as well as my LFS.
 
Trippingpara;1843062; said:
Yes they are. They're mighty cheap but they work really well. I have much more expensive sets of lights on my other tanks and the colors my Malawi cichlids have with these lights rival my more expensive lights.

Several places online carry them as well as my LFS.
Click to expand...


How many of the 36" bulbs do you think I need for my 125 gallon tank. I want to put mid range plants in it.
 
wckdkl0wn;1843960; said:
How many of the 36" bulbs do you think I need for my 125 gallon tank. I want to put mid range plants in it.
Click to expand...

It really depends on how much light you want or will your plants need. I keep fish only tanks, so I'm definitely not a plant expert. I know that they need certain lighting. For a 6ft tank, I would at least have two to run the full length of the tank. The nice thing with these lights is you can string up to 10 lights together and the T5 bulb is pretty common now in a lot of color spectrums. I run 3 lights for my Malawi tank: a 10,000K, an actnic 3 and a full spectrum light. A bit of overkill but the colors are amazing. Someone with more plant experience could probably give you a better answer than me. The lights are really no different than any other T5 light.
 
T5 VHO run 39w @ 36"
125gal planted needs a minimum 250w (I recommend closer to 400w)
so I'd run four on each side of the tank, 6700k range

39w x (8) = 312w
312w / 125gal = 2.5watts per gallon
 
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