Why are Hoods so expensive?

[Harry Muscle]

Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive? I'm hoping to
get a 55G All-Glass tank, which is a reasonable $130CND at BigAl's. But
they want $150CND for the All-Glass hood (this is the full hood, not just a
piece of glass). There's no way a hunk of plastic with a bulb in it is
costlier to make that a 4 foot tank. I'm gonna be replacing the lighting in
the hood anyway since no hood ever comes with enough for plants, but I'm not
in a position to make a whole hood from scratch, so I need to buy one and
gut it. Is anyone aware of any places or manufacturers (in Canada) that
sell hoods that fit All-Glass tanks at a slightly more reasonable price, say
50-100CND?

Thanks,
Harry




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[NetMax]

"Harry Muscle" > wrote in message
...
> Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive? I'm hoping
to
> get a 55G All-Glass tank, which is a reasonable $130CND at BigAl's.
But
> they want $150CND for the All-Glass hood (this is the full hood, not
just a
> piece of glass). There's no way a hunk of plastic with a bulb in it is
> costlier to make that a 4 foot tank. I'm gonna be replacing the
lighting in
> the hood anyway since no hood ever comes with enough for plants, but
I'm not
> in a position to make a whole hood from scratch, so I need to buy one
and
> gut it. Is anyone aware of any places or manufacturers (in Canada)
that
> sell hoods that fit All-Glass tanks at a slightly more reasonable
price, say
> 50-100CND?
>
> Thanks,
> Harry

Supply & demand, economics of high volume manufacturing. In a low volume
manufacturing environment, there are less parts, labour and mold
amortization in the construction of a 5 sided glass box held by silicone
than in the manufacture of a canopy. In a high volume manufacturing
environment, the situation reverses (due to the delay in getting silicone
to cure).

Assuming your 55g is 4 foot long, look into Home Depot's shop light
fixture, $12 to $19 depending on model. Sit this on top of sliding or
hinged glass cover ($<40) which you would need later anyways. If you
want something fancier, polo lights are single or dual tubes in a plastic
housing complete with ballast. These slip around the tank edges so a
perfect fit is not required, but they are about 6 to 8 times more
expensive than shop light fixtures. Glo-lights are also useful in some
applications (where you have some type of a box to retain the light).

IMO, it's not smart to gut a high-priced hood to built a custom canopy.
Easier to assemble the parts from shop fixtures, or even from loose parts
purchased separately in a hardware store. ahsupply.com is often
mentioned for CF, but if you are at a 4' tank or larger, this might not
be warranted.

NetMax

[Harry Muscle]

"NetMax" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Harry Muscle" > wrote in message
> ...
SNIP
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Harry
>
> Supply & demand, economics of high volume manufacturing. In a low volume
> manufacturing environment, there are less parts, labour and mold
> amortization in the construction of a 5 sided glass box held by silicone
> than in the manufacture of a canopy. In a high volume manufacturing
> environment, the situation reverses (due to the delay in getting silicone
> to cure).
>
> Assuming your 55g is 4 foot long, look into Home Depot's shop light
> fixture, $12 to $19 depending on model. Sit this on top of sliding or
> hinged glass cover ($<40) which you would need later anyways. If you
> want something fancier, polo lights are single or dual tubes in a plastic
> housing complete with ballast. These slip around the tank edges so a
> perfect fit is not required, but they are about 6 to 8 times more
> expensive than shop light fixtures. Glo-lights are also useful in some
> applications (where you have some type of a box to retain the light).
>
> IMO, it's not smart to gut a high-priced hood to built a custom canopy.
> Easier to assemble the parts from shop fixtures, or even from loose parts
> purchased separately in a hardware store. ahsupply.com is often
> mentioned for CF, but if you are at a 4' tank or larger, this might not
> be warranted.
>
> NetMax
>
>

Thanx for the suggestions, but the tank is gonna be in the living room, so
I'd prefer something that looks a little more finished (ie: a full hood) so
that none of the lighting, etc. is visible from the outside.

I did notice however, that hoods seem to sell cheaper in the US. Anyone
know of a online US store that ships to Canada?

Thanks,
Harry




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[Eric Schreiber]

"Harry Muscle" > wrote:

>Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive?

I ran into the same question with a strip light for my ten gallon.
About $25 at the LFS, for a lousy single fluorescent bulb without even
a decent reflector built in.

The fish, luckily, won't mind living by ambient light for awhile.


--
www.ericschreiber.com

[John]

I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood that
came with the aquarium...

I completely removed the ballast and florescent tube. I then
purchased 4 double bulb incandescent cieling fixtures each)
and 8 14watt twisty tube florescents which claim to be equivalent to
60 watts each or 900 lumens each per 4 bulbs or $18.00) ...

can I trust those numbers on wattage? IE: do I actually have 480
watts of light or 7200 lumens or am I really only getting the 112
watts of florescent lighting?

so what I ended up spending was $38 for about 112 watts of florescent
lighting.... it's a little bit on the yellow side of coloring and not
really close to full sun CRI but I am hoping it will work fine for the
plants....

I am hoping to find the manufacturors website to see if I can order
full sun or 65k bulbs... if not, oh well... for this cost savings, I
can afford to double the number of bulbs a second time and still come
out cheaper even with 'wasted' wattage...

IF this works for the plants, then I know exactly how I will build a
full hood for all of my newer tanks... right now though, I will be
just 'testing' to see if my plants do well with that sort of
lighting...

This whole project, including shopping at 3 different stores to find
the double bulb fixtures (finally found them at Home Depot) only took
2.5 hours to complete... would have been a lot less if I had just gone
to home depot first....

I will keep you informed on the status of the plants in the tank...


On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 14:20:40 -0500, "Harry Muscle" >
wrote:

>Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive? I'm hoping to
>get a 55G All-Glass tank, which is a reasonable $130CND at BigAl's. But
>they want $150CND for the All-Glass hood (this is the full hood, not just a
>piece of glass). There's no way a hunk of plastic with a bulb in it is
>costlier to make that a 4 foot tank. I'm gonna be replacing the lighting in
>the hood anyway since no hood ever comes with enough for plants, but I'm not
>in a position to make a whole hood from scratch, so I need to buy one and
>gut it. Is anyone aware of any places or manufacturers (in Canada) that
>sell hoods that fit All-Glass tanks at a slightly more reasonable price, say
>50-100CND?
>
>Thanks,
>Harry
>
>
>
>
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>-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

[John]

Well... ran into first problem with this 'new' setup... melted the
plastic 'white' insert on the hood... oh well, I was going to replace
it with aluminum anyway, just means I have to do it earlier than I
planned.


On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 16:35:24 -0500, John
> wrote:

>I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood that
>came with the aquarium...
>
>I completely removed the ballast and florescent tube. I then
>purchased 4 double bulb incandescent cieling fixtures each)
>and 8 14watt twisty tube florescents which claim to be equivalent to
>60 watts each or 900 lumens each per 4 bulbs or $18.00) ...
>
>can I trust those numbers on wattage? IE: do I actually have 480
>watts of light or 7200 lumens or am I really only getting the 112
>watts of florescent lighting?
>
>so what I ended up spending was $38 for about 112 watts of florescent
>lighting.... it's a little bit on the yellow side of coloring and not
>really close to full sun CRI but I am hoping it will work fine for the
>plants....
>
>I am hoping to find the manufacturors website to see if I can order
>full sun or 65k bulbs... if not, oh well... for this cost savings, I
>can afford to double the number of bulbs a second time and still come
>out cheaper even with 'wasted' wattage...
>
>IF this works for the plants, then I know exactly how I will build a
>full hood for all of my newer tanks... right now though, I will be
>just 'testing' to see if my plants do well with that sort of
>lighting...
>
>This whole project, including shopping at 3 different stores to find
>the double bulb fixtures (finally found them at Home Depot) only took
>2.5 hours to complete... would have been a lot less if I had just gone
>to home depot first....
>
>I will keep you informed on the status of the plants in the tank...
>
>
>On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 14:20:40 -0500, "Harry Muscle" >
>wrote:
>
>>Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive? I'm hoping to
>>get a 55G All-Glass tank, which is a reasonable $130CND at BigAl's. But
>>they want $150CND for the All-Glass hood (this is the full hood, not just a
>>piece of glass). There's no way a hunk of plastic with a bulb in it is
>>costlier to make that a 4 foot tank. I'm gonna be replacing the lighting in
>>the hood anyway since no hood ever comes with enough for plants, but I'm not
>>in a position to make a whole hood from scratch, so I need to buy one and
>>gut it. Is anyone aware of any places or manufacturers (in Canada) that
>>sell hoods that fit All-Glass tanks at a slightly more reasonable price, say
>>50-100CND?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Harry
>>
>>
>>
>>
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[NetMax]

"John" > wrote in message
...
> I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood that
> came with the aquarium...
<snip>
>
> I will keep you informed on the status of the plants in the tank...
>

The 3 obvious problems with the set-up you described (multiple
incandescent base fluorescent lamps) is i) limited spectrum (you get what
they have and it will probably be on the yellow end), ii) diameter of
base (ballast) can be very wide and restricts which hoods this will fit
into, and iii) the ballast heat is concentrated, and if in close
proximity to the hood, will cause the meltdown you described. With
regular fluorescent lights, the ballast can even be moved out of the
hood. Even if you construct a melt-proof hood, your ballasts may run too
hot (causing premature failure) and/or excessively heat your aquarium.
Just some considerations.

NetMax

[John]

>> I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood that
>> came with the aquarium...
><snip>
>
>The 3 obvious problems with the set-up you described (multiple
>incandescent base fluorescent lamps) is

>i) limited spectrum (you get what they have and it will probably be on
>the yellow end),
Yep it is yellow... was hoping to find a manufacturor of 65k or at
least 55k bulbs somewhere...

>ii) diameter of base (ballast) can be very wide and restricts which hoods
>this will fit into,
Fits just fine int the normal width, single tube hood if you remove
the aluminum section that protected the original balast and also
remove that ballast.

>and iii) the ballast heat is concentrated, and if in close
>proximity to the hood, will cause the meltdown you described. With
>regular fluorescent lights, the ballast can even be moved out of the
>hood. Even if you construct a melt-proof hood, your ballasts may run too
>hot (causing premature failure) and/or excessively heat your aquarium.
>Just some considerations.

Well, they are only 13 watt ballasts each... should not be too hot I
wouldn't think... my problem was I had drilled the holes too close to
the top of the hood. This resulted in the actual light tubes (those
twisted tubes) almost touching the internal white plastic reflector
built into the hood, which melted and burned out one of the bulb due
to soo much melted plastic sticking to it. I have since moved them
down about another 3/8 inch and the plastic is no longer warping...
the bulbs are now about 3/4 inch away from the top of the hood (since
I removed that internal reflector and added heavy duty aluminum foil
instead) The hood is now 'warm' but no longer hot.

the only real problem is the color which is apparently only about 4100
kelvin, way too yellow. total light output though does seem to be
working... the plants are already producing oxygen bulbles! It's just
that they look a little funny with the yellow light and of course,
since this is a single tube hood on a 13inch wide tank (55gal) the
light is more from the back than the front... which bleads the colors
out of the fish....

oh well, it's just a temporary thing anyway... my wife has already
complained about the color too much... which means that I now have to
build a complete wooden hood with 4 tubes of t8 bulbs to come close to
having enough light... I had read that I could over drive the bulbs
but that means that I would have to buy two balasts at $35 each, plus
endcaps and bulbs.... would mean about $125 or so in expenses not
including wood, hinges and screws...

[NetMax]

"John" > wrote in message
...
>
> >> I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood
that
> >> came with the aquarium...
> ><snip>
> >
<snip>

> oh well, it's just a temporary thing anyway... my wife has already
> complained about the color too much... which means that I now have to
> build a complete wooden hood with 4 tubes of t8 bulbs to come close to
> having enough light... I had read that I could over drive the bulbs
> but that means that I would have to buy two balasts at $35 each, plus
> endcaps and bulbs.... would mean about $125 or so in expenses not
> including wood, hinges and screws...

fyi
4 T-8 bulbs, $12.50 US
2 Philips F40-DX Daylight CRI 85, 6500K $3cdn each (Home Depot)
1 Sylvania F40/GRO/AQ/WS Gro-Lux $7.50cdn (Home Hardware)
1 GE F40C50 Chroma 50 Sunshine CRI 90, 5000K $7cdn (Canadian Tire)

2 complete dual bulb fixtures with ballasts, $25 US, (Home Depot)
ymmv

NetMax

[John]

Update:

I installed 4 6.5k 23 watt bulbs in the hood this pas week and left 4
of the original 2.7k bulbs... man are my plants 'pearling' now! The
newer bulbs cost $5.85 each, plus $9 shipping.

so that means that my total cost for the project (not including
initial purchase of hood 15 years ago) has increased by another $23.40
but I can remove / salvage $8.96 of that by using those original 4
florescents as standard light bulbs around the house so...
23.40 (4 23 watt bulbs)
8.96 (4 13 watt bulbs)
19.88 (fixtures)
9.00 (shipping)
0.10 (heavy duty aluminum foil relector sheet)
1.50 (various wires, wire nuts, elctrical tape, etc)
-------
62.84 total cost (tax NOT included)

gave me 140 watts on a 55 gal tank... easily upgraded to 184 watts if
I change the other 4 lower wattage bulbs.

Colors look fine now, the 6.5k bulbs are listed as bright white with
blue tint and boy are they BRIGHT! These bulbs are rated at 24,000
hours ea on a 3 hour cycle or 34,000 hours on a 12 hour cycle which
means anywhere from 5 - 7 years avg life. Of course, I expect them to
fade somewhat, but according to manufacturors specs, they will only
degrade by 10% of rated color and lumens over the lfe of the bulb.

You know... after looking and looking and browsing some more, I found
those bulbs listed in price ranges from $5.85 to $33.00 each... can
you believe the markup on that $33.00 bulb? I mean the guy selling
these things to me at $5.85 is already doing a markup and making
enough profit to stay in business... the guys charging $33 are just
raping their customers!

My next project is a 4 tube T5 or a 4 tube T8 system, two 4 bulb
ballasts driving 2 tubes each depending on what I find out there. Of
course this one will require me to actually build a hood instead of
just modifying an existing hood like I did this time. But I will be
building a stand in the future to match the hood, so I might as well
start with the easier part and get that hood built... 1 4'X8' sheet of
1/4inch plywood and 1 2"x2"x8' should do it, along with 3 or 4
hinges... this thing does not have to be strong or heavy since it will
be resting on the tank for support and only holding 4 tubes of
florescents...


On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 16:35:24 -0500, John
> wrote:

>I just built a DIY hood using the single tube Perfecto ligth hood that
>came with the aquarium...
>
>I completely removed the ballast and florescent tube. I then
>purchased 4 double bulb incandescent cieling fixtures each)
>and 8 14watt twisty tube florescents which claim to be equivalent to
>60 watts each or 900 lumens each per 4 bulbs or $18.00) ...
>
>can I trust those numbers on wattage? IE: do I actually have 480
>watts of light or 7200 lumens or am I really only getting the 112
>watts of florescent lighting?
>
>so what I ended up spending was $38 for about 112 watts of florescent
>lighting.... it's a little bit on the yellow side of coloring and not
>really close to full sun CRI but I am hoping it will work fine for the
>plants....
>
>I am hoping to find the manufacturors website to see if I can order
>full sun or 65k bulbs... if not, oh well... for this cost savings, I
>can afford to double the number of bulbs a second time and still come
>out cheaper even with 'wasted' wattage...
>
>IF this works for the plants, then I know exactly how I will build a
>full hood for all of my newer tanks... right now though, I will be
>just 'testing' to see if my plants do well with that sort of
>lighting...
>
>This whole project, including shopping at 3 different stores to find
>the double bulb fixtures (finally found them at Home Depot) only took
>2.5 hours to complete... would have been a lot less if I had just gone
>to home depot first....
>
>I will keep you informed on the status of the plants in the tank...
>
>
>On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 14:20:40 -0500, "Harry Muscle" >
>wrote:
>
>>Is there a reason why a hood is so unbelievably expensive? I'm hoping to
>>get a 55G All-Glass tank, which is a reasonable $130CND at BigAl's. But
>>they want $150CND for the All-Glass hood (this is the full hood, not just a
>>piece of glass). There's no way a hunk of plastic with a bulb in it is
>>costlier to make that a 4 foot tank. I'm gonna be replacing the lighting in
>>the hood anyway since no hood ever comes with enough for plants, but I'm not
>>in a position to make a whole hood from scratch, so I need to buy one and
>>gut it. Is anyone aware of any places or manufacturers (in Canada) that
>>sell hoods that fit All-Glass tanks at a slightly more reasonable price, say
>>50-100CND?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Harry
>>
>>
>>
>>
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