diy aquarium lighting

[K. Elliot]

I currently have a 55 gallon freshwater tank (48" long) that I am
looking to add plants to. The lighting I have is two 40W flourescents
(in a single light fixture).

In order to increase my lighting I am looking to add two more 40W
flourescents to my canopy. Can I just buy a four foot shop light (at
Lowes or Home depot) and bolt it to the top of my canopy (as long as
there is glass/plexiglass between the light ficture and the water
surface)?

or would this cause too much heat under the canopy or other problems
(the canopy itself has an open back).

Would I be better off buying a separate ballast and end caps and
hardware and remotely mounting the ballast? (I dont claim to be an
electrician, so I think this might be risky proposition.

Obviously, the reason for this DIY project is $$$ (light fixtures
specific to the aquarium hobby seem to so darn expensive).

Any and all comments are appreciated.

Kevin

[Jeff Pratt]

K. Elliot wrote:

> I currently have a 55 gallon freshwater tank (48" long) that I am
> looking to add plants to. The lighting I have is two 40W flourescents
> (in a single light fixture).
>
> In order to increase my lighting I am looking to add two more 40W
> flourescents to my canopy. Can I just buy a four foot shop light (at
> Lowes or Home depot) and bolt it to the top of my canopy (as long as
> there is glass/plexiglass between the light ficture and the water
> surface)?

That should be fine. flourescents don't heat up that much (as compared to
metal halides, etc.)

> or would this cause too much heat under the canopy or other problems
> (the canopy itself has an open back).

Just keep an eye on things for the first day or five. if you feel things
heating up, look at adding a small fan to increase air circulation.

> Would I be better off buying a separate ballast and end caps and
> hardware and remotely mounting the ballast? (I dont claim to be an
> electrician, so I think this might be risky proposition.

It's fairly simple, but you'll usually end up paying more for ballast and
endcaps than for a shoplight. So buy the shoplight, and if you want a
remote ballast, just remove it from the shoplight and mount it where you'd
like it (above the waterline please, that way spills, drips, catastrophic
tanks failures, etc. don't end up causing a fire).

> Obviously, the reason for this DIY project is $$$ (light fixtures
> specific to the aquarium hobby seem to so darn expensive).

Yes, they are. Especially considering that they're functionally the same
as shoplights.

> Any and all comments are appreciated.
>
> Kevin


HTH, HAND

Jeff

[RedForeman ©®]

"K. Elliot" > wrote in message
> In order to increase my lighting I am looking to add two more 40W
> flourescents to my canopy. Can I just buy a four foot shop light (at
> Lowes or Home depot) and bolt it to the top of my canopy (as long as
> there is glass/plexiglass between the light ficture and the water
> surface)?

That's the jist of it...as an FYI, I've switched from PCF to T8s... cooler
ballast makes the temp thing a NON issue... If you used T12s, you could
mount your ballast outside the canopy, maybe in the cabinet...

> or would this cause too much heat under the canopy or other problems
> (the canopy itself has an open back).

see above...

> Would I be better off buying a separate ballast and end caps and
> hardware and remotely mounting the ballast? (I dont claim to be an
> electrician, so I think this might be risky proposition.

got a friend who IS??? that's what worked for me.... I got the wood, the
ballast, tombstones, wire and took it to him when I had the canopy made, he
mounted the lights, ran the ballast outside the canopy...

> Obviously, the reason for this DIY project is $$$ (light fixtures
> specific to the aquarium hobby seem to so darn expensive).

You'll like the DIY route, because it's the way YOU want it....

[Surgicalrn]

I have a 55gal. setup and it sounds like the same you have. After
many trials and errors I ended up with 4 34 watt T8s with endcaps.
It's pretty hard to not get the ballast thing right because all you have to
do is get the endcaps and follow the color coded chart on the ballast. I
used wire nuts from Walmart to connect everything together which cost about
$1 for an entire box of them. Just make sure you get the ones that are big
enough for the wires as you end up putting three or four wires in a couple
of the
connections (I used the yellow wirenuts).
The T8s don't take up that much space in the canopy and the heat output
isn't all that
much with the back of the canopy being open like it is. I can send you
drawings or pics of how everything was put together if you decide to go this
route.
I got the endcaps at
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=6&pCatId=3880
and they are $10 each. They have 9' wires with them which is more than
enough if you want to mount the ballast somewhere besides the inside of the
canopy. The bulbs are full spectrum daylight bulbs from a lighting store and
cost about $7/each or you can buy them in bulk online and save money (you're
gonna want to keep nice bright bulbs over your plants anyway). The ballast I
got from HomeDepot for under $30 (I think). The open back on the hood let
alot
of light slip out so I covered it with some surgical gauze I got from work
(I work in the hospital) and even with the back covered with the cloth the
temp. is never that high in the canopy. I painted the inside of my canopy
white with latex paint to help reflect light back into the tank. Some
friends of mine in an art supply store said this was about the best way to
go as the reflective index in the white paint was almost as good as having
some sort of reflector made from shiney metal. They said mylar would
probably melt but if I wanted to make a reflector from heavy duty aluminum
foil I could do that.
I tried the shop light thing but I would have never been able to get enough
in the canopy in order to get enough light (4 bulbs at 34 watts= almost 2.5
watts per gallon of light which is almost enough to grow all but the most
demanding plants).
I now have a heavily planted tank with 3 anubias, a huge patch of cabomba
and anacharis, microsword, hairgrass (which isn't doing all that much for
some reason), pennywort, moneywort, hornwort (for fry to hide in, which has
to be thinned out
every couple of weeks as it covers the entire top of the tank), a gorgeous
red melon sword that's about the size of a dinner plate, several apogentons,
2 amazon swords, a couple of large crypts and a few other plants that I
can't remember the name of at the moment but they may be radican swords. I
have to prune the cabomba and anacharis every couple of weeks and can
actually see the O2 bubbles rising from some of the plants as they
photosynthesize!
I have been so pleased with the results and am glad that I decided to go
with the T8s!
If you have any questions I would be glad to help as I wish someone had done
with me! I tried several times before I finally came up with this solution
and I wish someone had just told me about doing the T8s before I wasted all
my money on shop lights and stuff.
Sorry this is so long...

[Surgicalrn]

Sorry... take the "and" off the end of the link I posted and it will take
you to the correct page. Don't know why it stuck "and" on the end of the
link :-P

[K. Elliot]

Surgicalrn > wrote in message >...
> Sorry... take the "and" off the end of the link I posted and it will take
> you to the correct page. Don't know why it stuck "and" on the end of the
> link :-P


Everyone,

Thanks for your input....I do appreciate it. It has given me some
ideas.

SurgicalRN-

I would appreciate any drawings, photos of your lighting set up. Can
you post them to the web ? or send them to my email address (listed
above)?

If anyone else has any other ideas or concerns please let me know....I
would not want to do anything "stupid" and cause problems down the
road.

Thanks again.

Kevin

[Surgicalrn]

I took some pics of my setup tonite but when I plugged the camera into the
USB port it wouldn't load the pics to the computer for some reason. I'll
work on it this weekend and see what I can do. If I can't get them to load
so I can post them I will draw something up and post it on
alt.binaries.aquaria I'll let you know when I post them one way or another.

[K. Elliot]

Surgicalrn > wrote in message >...
> I took some pics of my setup tonite but when I plugged the camera into the
> USB port it wouldn't load the pics to the computer for some reason. I'll
> work on it this weekend and see what I can do. If I can't get them to load
> so I can post them I will draw something up and post it on
> alt.binaries.aquaria I'll let you know when I post them one way or another.

Has anyone had any experiences using this web store
www.hellolights.com ?

I have been looking around for lighting options. This website offers
a number of different retrofit kits & DIY kits that dont seem to be to
outrageously priced (compared to other sites).

Here is a kit that I am thinking about
getting....http://www.hellolights.com/2lampvhokit.html

Let me know if anyone has any suggestions or comments.

[Surgicalrn]

in article , K. Elliot at
wrote on 10/6/03 8:19 AM:

> http://www.hellolights.com/2lampvhokit.html
Wow!!! That's a pretty expensive set up for just two lights and they don't
even have bulb clips. I set up four lights and spent about the same or less
than that! I still can't get the camera to download so I'm working on
drawing it up on Photoshop. Let me know if you're still interested in seeing
it.

[coelacanth]

I use them as a source for CF bulbs (I inherited a strange Panasonic-style
reflector and can't get bulbs locally). Hellolights has been good and
really fast and the best prices I could find.

-coelacnth

"K. Elliot" > wrote in message
om...
> Surgicalrn > wrote in message
>...
> > I took some pics of my setup tonite but when I plugged the camera into
the
> > USB port it wouldn't load the pics to the computer for some reason. I'll
> > work on it this weekend and see what I can do. If I can't get them to
load
> > so I can post them I will draw something up and post it on
> > alt.binaries.aquaria I'll let you know when I post them one way or
another.
>
> Has anyone had any experiences using this web store
> www.hellolights.com ?
>
> I have been looking around for lighting options. This website offers
> a number of different retrofit kits & DIY kits that dont seem to be to
> outrageously priced (compared to other sites).
>
> Here is a kit that I am thinking about
> getting....http://www.hellolights.com/2lampvhokit.html
>
> Let me know if anyone has any suggestions or comments.

[K. Elliot]

Surgicalrn > wrote in message >...
> in article , K. Elliot at
> wrote on 10/6/03 8:19 AM:
>
> > http://www.hellolights.com/2lampvhokit.html
> Wow!!! That's a pretty expensive set up for just two lights and they don't
> even have bulb clips. I set up four lights and spent about the same or less
> than that! I still can't get the camera to download so I'm working on
> drawing it up on Photoshop. Let me know if you're still interested in seeing
> it.

It is expensive but the two bulbs put out 110 watts each for a total
of 220 watts (the ballast is of the VHO variety...I dont know if the
link i posted actualy takes you too the setup I was thinking about...i
tried clicking on it and all it did was take me to the hellolights.com
home page).

This may be a silly question, but how do i get to
"alt.binaries.aquaria"???? I don't see the binaries alt.binaries
newsgroup.

[Surgicalrn]

Well depending on what newsreader you use...
I use OE 5.0.6 for Mac and all you do is go to the "news" folder and click
on that (it's the little icon that says "news" and has a down arrow to the
left of it... all the subscribed newsgroups are listed below it). A listing
of all available newsgroups comes up and I type "aqauria" into the "display
newsgroups containing:" field in the upper right corner and it list only the
newsgroups that contain "aquaria" and just click the one you want and then
select "subscribe" when it's highlighted. I don't know how other types of
newsreaders work but that's the way OE works and I would assume it's the
same for OE for other systems too. If you need me to send it directly to you
let me know your address and I will do so.