diy lighting

I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly
an LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too
familier with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know
what I will need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!

Checkout hellolights.com or AHsupply.com for decent stuff used in
aquarium lighting. Very reasonable especially if you canfind ballaasts
etc on clearance. They had electronic ballasts that will power up to
65 watt PC bulbs for 22 bucks each. They worked with 24, 32, 55 and 65
watt PC bulbs. The ballasts even came with PC square pin sockets,
power cords and switch. Hard to beat for the price.

On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:42:54 -0500, "
wrote:

I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly
an LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too
familier with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know
what I will need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Tristan wrote:

Checkout hellolights.com or AHsupply.com for decent stuff used in
aquarium lighting. Very reasonable especially if you canfind ballaasts
etc on clearance. They had electronic ballasts that will power up to
65 watt PC bulbs for 22 bucks each. They worked with 24, 32, 55 and 65
watt PC bulbs. The ballasts even came with PC square pin sockets,
power cords and switch. Hard to beat for the price.

On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:42:54 -0500, "
wrote:

I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly
an LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too
familier with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know
what I will need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!


thats all well and good and i appriecate the response. I will deffinitly
keep those places in mind. however, its hard to buy something when you
dont know exactally what your buying. lol

Its not hard to figure out.,

They have retro fit kits listed. NOrmally a retro fit light kit is a
kit with all thats needed to upgrade standard OEM lights or add
additional lights to a canopy / hood. Typically they include:

1. Ballast
2 .Reflector
3. Associated wiring between bulbs socket(s) and ballast
4. All associated wiring between plug and ballast and a switch
5. Socket(s) and bulb clips

Its basically a screw to ther inside of the hood and connect the wires
according to inclosed diagram type of deal. Very simple.

YOu can get some good deals on PC (POwer compact) lights to fit your
tank since you have decent length to work with. YOU can get PC bulbs
in lengths that yu can gang them up into sections or just go with one
bulb lengths. Conventional tubes are also available in NO, HO or
VHO...NO is normal output, HO is high output, and VHO is very high
output.

I don;t know what to tell you buyt a little reading on the hellolights
website will give recomendations, bulb colors ./ Kelvin , spectrum
length etc . Its easy to match up ballasts and sockets with their pull
down menue as well as the info they give. They even have a desigin it
yourself program so yu can put in what yu woul dlike in regards to
type of lights, wattage etc and it will display a list of materials
needed and a price......The thing that will limit your choice on your
lights is how much you want to spend. Work with the length adn width
of the space in side the hood you have available to mount the lights,
and its easy to see what bulb lengths and watts can then be used. YOU
could go with regular tube type in 36 or 48 inch lengths or even the
power compact type bulbs. BOth types are readily availble in spectrums
for fresh as well as sal****er requirements.


On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 10:39:59 -0500, "
wrote:

Tristan wrote:

Checkout hellolights.com or AHsupply.com for decent stuff used in
aquarium lighting. Very reasonable especially if you canfind ballaasts
etc on clearance. They had electronic ballasts that will power up to
65 watt PC bulbs for 22 bucks each. They worked with 24, 32, 55 and 65
watt PC bulbs. The ballasts even came with PC square pin sockets,
power cords and switch. Hard to beat for the price.

On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:42:54 -0500, "
wrote:

I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly
an LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too
familier with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know
what I will need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!


thats all well and good and i appriecate the response. I will deffinitly
keep those places in mind. however, its hard to buy something when you
dont know exactally what your buying. lol




-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:42:54 -0500, "
wrote:

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!

I use energy saving spotlights. They give off good light and last much
longer than "normal" lights.

Steve

--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software

EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
http://www.easynn.com

wrote in message
. ..
I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly an
LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too familier
with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know what I will
need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!

Like Roy (Tristan) said AH Supply and HelloLights are good choices. I've
used AH Supply several times, as I usually build my own hoods. If you're not
sure what you're getting, ASK! Kim from AH supply is very helpful. You said
your father is building your hood, so order the lights before he starts.
That way you can be sure the lights will fit the hood. You could go with
2x96 or 4x55 and two ballasts to give you separate on/off times. I'd
probably go with 4x55 to give you more even illumination.

Another possibility is something like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/T5-HO-6-X-54-wat...QQcmdZViewItem.
I have one sitting here waiting for me to get off my ass and build the new
hood. They can also add moon lights to these.

wrote:
I got a 75 gallon freshwater thats got a mixture of flourite and gravel
with all live plants.

currently i know i am way under lit...my dad is making me a nice wooden
hood to replace the perfecto light strip.

i want to wire up a better light setup for my live plants and possibly
an LED moonlight setup..

what is the best way setup that i can possibly peice together maybe with
parts from a local home center or LFS???

i am very handy and can wire about anything, however I am not too
familier with the various types of aquaria lighting....nor do i know
what I will need for my 75 gallon tank.

any ideas would be a huge help thanks!!!

I am jumping in a little late here and my thoughts may not at all be
what you have in mind, but here they a

I noticed that you mentioned a wooden hood. I designed and set up 90 +
aquariums for a restaurant called the "Bahooka" in the LA area. We used
wooden fiber glass aquariums with wooden hoods. I was able to make my
own fixtures with ballasts from my aquatic suppliers or hardware
stores. I did not use the short lived electronic ballasts (I still use
tar ballasts with starters for the UV Sterilizers I build as they last
sooo much longer).
I do not recommend the pre heat shop light ballasts, they tend to burn
out the bulbs fast, and rather I use the tar ballasts that require a
starter. These are economical albeit bulky. I have used the proper
wattage ballasts to run even 55 watt PC lights.
For PC lights I would use clamps and pin connectors to attach these.
For someone who is relatively electrically handy, you can build your
own lighting fixtures from easy to find parts and all that is left is
to purchase the proper lights.

Carl