diy lighting for canopy

[fruitwerks]

I built a canopy for a 20L / 30gal and I used two cheapo wal-mart flouro's I put life-glo's in them, but no reflectors it looks horrible lol.

So I suggest reflectors! and I love LED's for that shimmer effect you get with MH and others.

Good Luck!

 

[KaiserSousay]

they have $10 48" double T5 fixtures at walmart. lowes, home depot

The only ones I`ve seen were T8, or T12..I had to give up a $20 for a single bulb T5. If I were to do it over, I would have gone for a T8, for the amount of locally available bulb choices. Size of the T8-T5 are so close, it would not have changed the diy hood size built.
I have run the combonation of the T5 and LED strips for a while now and have grown to really like them.
Next step is to put the T5 on a timer that will turn off the T5 at dusk. Another to turn on the LED strips untill "lights out".

 

[HypeMan808]

Did you happen to snap pics?

 

[Conner]

CFL daylight bulbs and outdoor sockets from the hardware store + one old extension cord + some plate mirrors from a dollar tree store for reflectors.

And there you go, you can build a lighting set up with more watts then you could ever need for less than 40 bucks.

I had a plan to build one i had seen on a planted aquaria site for my 125. I was going to use 4-5 100w CFL daylights and the mirrors but i have not started yet.

(5 sockets at $3 ea, 5 CFL bulbs at $3-4 ea, 5 6"x6" mirrors at $1 ea.= 500watts for 40 bucks) And takes very little skill to put togther. If you can change a wall outlet or splice a extension cord then you can do this.

i did build one for a my planted nano 2.5g. i used 2 10w CFL daylights which put out the same as a 40w regular bulb. And that turned out to be a algae growing monster with that much light. So I dropped down to one bulb and it worked fine for a year. And then i lost interest.

I still have it if you wanted some pics, but it was just a simple little 2 hr throw together project.

Let me know.

I second this motion . It's what I did for my 125g tank canopy. Very cheap, very simply, and easy to change bulbs. I have 8 x 75W bulbs in there. I just used bright aluminum roof flashing as reflector above the bulbs. It grows the plants like mad!
Here's some pics to show it:

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

I second this motion . It's what I did for my 125g tank canopy. Very cheap, very simply, and easy to change bulbs. I have 8 x 75W bulbs in there. I just used bright aluminum roof flashing as reflector above the bulbs. It grows the plants like mad!
Here's some pics to show it:

Thats awesome man

good job

 

[apisto]

8*75W is a lot of light for a 125g tank. Ok, your initial lay out is very little but they do use a lot of electricity. I have a 125g tank and 2*54W T5 over it that's 108w as compared to your 600W. This means your running costs are approx. 6 times as much as mine

 

[cypher1024]

I second this motion . It's what I did for my 125g tank canopy. Very cheap, very simply, and easy to change bulbs. I have 8 x 75W bulbs in there. I just used bright aluminum roof flashing as reflector above the bulbs. It grows the plants like mad!
Here's some pics to show it:

This is genius!!!! I've been thinking about how to do lighting for a canopy without breaking the bank and this looks like just the ticket!

How do you guys find the spread of the light from the CFLs? Does it look very concentrated under each of them, or is the spread reasonable?

 

[Conner]

8*75W is a lot of light for a 125g tank. Ok, your initial lay out is very little but they do use a lot of electricity. I have a 125g tank and 2*54W T5 over it that's 108w as compared to your 600W. This means your running costs are approx. 6 times as much as mine

Sorry, I should have specified, they are the 75w equivalents (approximately 23w of actual usage, I believe). So actually I would have 184w of light on my tank. But it grows plants like I have 600w of light over it....

 

[Conner]

This is genius!!!! I've been thinking about how to do lighting for a canopy without breaking the bank and this looks like just the ticket!

How do you guys find the spread of the light from the CFLs? Does it look very concentrated under each of them, or is the spread reasonable?

If you space them out evenly, it looks fine. There is no "spotlighting", because they spread the light evenly, not in a downward beam. The reflectors above them also help to diffuse it out more. You can get CFL spotlight bulbs, which would create more concentrated beams of light if you wanted to.

The only thing you have to make sure of is that you make the canopy tall enough to accommodate the bulbs without them touching the water. You can also place them horizontally from the back wall, but then the light will be more concentrated at the back of the tank. Positioned in the top, like this, you can put some at the front, some in the middle, and some in the back. You get much better light coverage over the whole tank this way.

 

[cypher1024]

Thanks for the tips Conner. My plan was to place them horizontally becuase I want the canopy to be as short as possible so it doesn't overpower the tank visually (since it's only 20" tall). I'm thinking about mounting the bulbs in a staggered fashion across the front and back of the canopy to try to achieve a reasonably even spread of light.

I've also heard that they cook their ballasts more quickly when they're mounted vertically. Have you had to do many replacements?