Lighting on small or odd shaped tanks

[Mr Cracker2u]

Some times and it seems more often then not in my case they just don't make what you need.
In this case it was lights for a 30gln tall hex tank. The tank design gave me about 18" of room to play. The depth made 12" t-8 flouresents obsolete for plants. I wanted plants and I wanted them in this tank. Off to the drawing board.
I came up with a cheap enough solution and as some of you may have read one of my posts last month I came across some 42watt and 90watt 6500k PC standard type screw in bulbs. I gotta give 1000bulbs.com a plug here because they made this project possible.
Remember these bulbs use 42watts and simulate 150watts iredescent. Compared to whats available in most stores typical 13watt same as 60watt irdescent these are monsters.

1000bulbs.com will deliver these to your door in about a week

At almost 13 bucks pluss 10 for sipping they are a little spendy. I bought 2 for a trial test. I will order a box if I like them as much as I think I'm going to they are cheaper that way and the price of shipping doesn't go up.
Next I need something to screw them into with a decent reflector I found these clamp lights at Lowes and stripped them down.

another 11 bucks brings us to $34.00 dollars and 42watts. Not to bad.
A few other items were needed to complete this as I found that the bulbs stick out of the fixture by about an inch. True tin 2" duct tape and cheap 1 1/2" inch strapping material comonly used in the a/c & heating industry. I did not buy these they were brought home from my jobsite so I can't give you a cost.

Using the strap material I cut enough to go around the bottom edge off the lamp to extend it's depth 1 1/2". I ended up with this. Not the prettiest but nobody realy looks at the light over a gorgeous planted tank.

So far I am realy happy with this. Price was reasonable, watts and color temp are good, and it adds very little heat. All in all it's a success.
6:30pm Taco says it's "DINNER TIME!!!"

Mr. Crackers old cranky cat "Taco"!!! Stupid thing won't quit whinning until I feed it. It's amazing btw this cat starts whinning at exactly 6:30pm every single night and it only gets louder until it gets fed!!!
Well I hope this helps some of you out. I'll be back later because I can't leave well enough alone.........LOL

 

[Mr Cracker2u]

As I said "I can't leave well enough alone!" and I didn't.
As I am a DIY fanatic and pushing the envelope keeps me excited I have decided to upgrade. After all I have this extra 42watt PC bulb collecting dust.
The obvious next step is 42watts x2 another $24.00 as I only paid for shipping once and here we go!
Tools required:
1 screwdriver flat or phillips
1 hacksaw with a standard metal cutting blade
1 compass
First disasemble the light fixture. The ceramic socket unscrews into 2 pieces. Back off the terminal lugs attaching the wires and remove the assembly. NOTE: typical of most fixtures and recepticles the silver lug is the white wire, or as sparky would call it the neutral. The brass wire is the hot and if your particular fixture has one, the ground will most likely be green.

Lets check them for fit by placing them side by side on top of the aquarium.

Yuck, hair algea---------------------------------------^ but thats a diffrent subject.
These don't fit but we have a hacksaw so we can dooo it. I also knew it wouldn't work because these are 9" fixtures. Thay come in several sizes so buy what suits your needs best.

We have 2 inches of over hang. Half of this will need to be removed from both fixtures. This will make a tight fit. I want to give myself more room and will take 2 or 3 inches from both.

I set my compass to 2 1/2" and used the flat surface of the tank to scribe the line I want to cut on.

I decided to make it thinner front to back but made a mistake on the second cut. I should have turned the bottom fixture 180% so the openings created would be on the same side. Hind sight is 20/20 but purfect is not worth 11 bucks.

Ugly cut, I used a die grinder. To much HP for thin aluminum.
I used the same tin tape as before and taped the two halves together. I did this on the inside and out. I also used the same strapping material to add the additional 1 1/2" to the depth. here a few pics of the progress.

reasemble the sockets and add the bulbs.

You could add even more lights by sandwiching them. Daisy chain the electrical and you could make this fit a 6000ft tank with a bulb every 6 inches.....theoreticaly.....LOL
So how did it work?????

I hope this gets my pigmy chain growing. These reflectors are not the best. If they were made of a good quality polished aluminum they would be much better. But like normal MR. Cracker wants somthing nobody makes......... Hmmmmm maybe .......... I do have a 20ton hydraulic press ..............................
DINNER TIME!!!!!!

Hope you enjoyed it!!!!!!! Questions always welcome!!!!!!!