light hood build

[jayci]

Thinking about building my own light hood.

Is it acceptable to use standard energy saver light bulbs. I was thinking of having about 8 20watt 6500k bulbs for a 3 foot planted tank.

Would that be enough?

Also does the hood need to be white or reflective?

Regards Chris

[John Rimbauer]

I've done something very similar for two tanks I've got. The 3ft tank I have in the office at work has 6 x 23W 6500K energy saving fluorescent lights in it.

They are run through standard batten fittings put together in series around the outside of a custom-made hood. The hood was painted white on the inside, left to dry, and then lined with mylar for the best reflection I could get.

The only down sides I've encountered where that firstly, wiring in around a hood is time consuming and awkward, and secondly, the high heat environment makes them fail quite quickly - I now swap them out at six months and use them around the house.

I asked a sparkie friend to wire up the second one I did - it took him about half an hour to do six, whereas doing 4 on another hood took me about 2 hrs! It also meant that he could test and certify the work when he was done, which is always good when you have power around water.

At the end of the day, the plants and fish are going great, and I have heaps of cuttings to give away. I guess that means it works.

Good luck with it.

[SpidersWeb]

Hey Chris,

8 bulbs is a lot and on a 3 foot tank you may find most of the light just hits other tubes rather than getting in the tank. If you need high lighting you are really going to want to either get a few T5s, or a single hanging metal halide fixture.

Having more than approximately 3 bulbs I found tended to give me beard algae, and the only two methods I've found to keep the balance was to use either CO2 continously or flourish excel. Flourish Excel (not normal flourish) is a fantastic product BUT comes with a not so fantastic price. Since using it I'm a total fan-boy now.

Hope that helps a little bit

Cheerio