Quick Background - You can skip
Alright, I bought a 150g tank, stand, glass tops + 48 strip light from a guy on a local saltwater forum for $150 delivered. He was moving from his house into his apartment and just really needed to get rid of it asap. The kicker was, it was far far from "show" condition...the guy I bought it from got it from some older lady and he was just going to use it as a grow out that never happened. The tank itself had several scratches, hard water stains all over, and the back was drilled with a tiny over flow box. The top and bottom brace were originally an oak trim but the previous owner made a poor attempt to paint it black and the stand was in the same condition. So it took a lot of hard work to get the tank into better shape, had to repaint the stand and the trim. I took off the over flow box and cap'd the hole. I managed to get the hard water stains off the front and the two sides easily enough but the back was still pretty ugly, plus the visual of the cap'd hole.
I'm on a budget so can do things gradually and when I can get a good deal on them. I have a 3D background from Designs By Nature coming which will cover the remaining water stains on the back along with the ugly cap'd hole. Then today I picked up a canopy for it for $20 - but it's plastic. It doesn't look too shabby at all and gives it a nice cleaner look.
Ok start reading again please
Alright, this plastic canopy doesn't open from the front, it has two sliders on the top and then it's open in the back. So from this I take it that it was designed to work without glass tops. My question then becomes what kind of light can I use that doesn't need glass tops?
Since it doesn't open from the front but directly on top, if I continue to use glass tops then I would have to take off the entire canopy when I want to feed my fish...this would become a PITA I'm afraid.
I assumed it opened from the front like the other canopies I've seen so today since it was slow at work I went to look at some lighting options. I was thinking in my head that I could mount like 6 of these on the canopy and because of the glass tops there wouldn't be much for moisture so I wasn't concerned. But seeing how the canopy works now I'm not too keen on the idea of all those batteries being directly exposed to the moisture and being above my tank water.
So I'm looking for an inexpensive alternative that would work with the canopy. Any thoughts?
Here's a pic of the canopy - I am mostly in my fish room/PC room at night so this is how I see the tank the majority of the time. I'm really pleased with my $20 purchase
Alright, I bought a 150g tank, stand, glass tops + 48 strip light from a guy on a local saltwater forum for $150 delivered. He was moving from his house into his apartment and just really needed to get rid of it asap. The kicker was, it was far far from "show" condition...the guy I bought it from got it from some older lady and he was just going to use it as a grow out that never happened. The tank itself had several scratches, hard water stains all over, and the back was drilled with a tiny over flow box. The top and bottom brace were originally an oak trim but the previous owner made a poor attempt to paint it black and the stand was in the same condition. So it took a lot of hard work to get the tank into better shape, had to repaint the stand and the trim. I took off the over flow box and cap'd the hole. I managed to get the hard water stains off the front and the two sides easily enough but the back was still pretty ugly, plus the visual of the cap'd hole.
I'm on a budget so can do things gradually and when I can get a good deal on them. I have a 3D background from Designs By Nature coming which will cover the remaining water stains on the back along with the ugly cap'd hole. Then today I picked up a canopy for it for $20 - but it's plastic. It doesn't look too shabby at all and gives it a nice cleaner look.
Ok start reading again please
Alright, this plastic canopy doesn't open from the front, it has two sliders on the top and then it's open in the back. So from this I take it that it was designed to work without glass tops. My question then becomes what kind of light can I use that doesn't need glass tops?
Since it doesn't open from the front but directly on top, if I continue to use glass tops then I would have to take off the entire canopy when I want to feed my fish...this would become a PITA I'm afraid.
I assumed it opened from the front like the other canopies I've seen so today since it was slow at work I went to look at some lighting options. I was thinking in my head that I could mount like 6 of these on the canopy and because of the glass tops there wouldn't be much for moisture so I wasn't concerned. But seeing how the canopy works now I'm not too keen on the idea of all those batteries being directly exposed to the moisture and being above my tank water.
So I'm looking for an inexpensive alternative that would work with the canopy. Any thoughts?
Here's a pic of the canopy - I am mostly in my fish room/PC room at night so this is how I see the tank the majority of the time. I'm really pleased with my $20 purchase
