Some inside pics of my new canopy

[perpetual98]

Ok kids, I decided a couple weeks ago to redo my canopy over one of my 120G tanks. The old one was rather large because I used to have 500W of halide and 260W of PC in it. I've long since duped twkenny into swapping his IceCap 660 setup with 4x54W for my halides, and I don't use the PC's any more.

I ended up having to scrap the entire old canopy because it was about a half an inch too short for the way I wanted to do the T5s, but I did rip it apart and was able to use some of the wood. The new canopy cost me about $15 in wood, so it's not too bad.

Anyway..... I decided to add another 2x54W setup so I can run the dawn/dusk effect. I also need to pick up another couple of new bulbs because I need some more blue. I might just pick up a couple of those new URI actinics when they come out in a couple weeks.

After reading a lot of the T5 posts and trying to glean some of the knowledge from Grim and others, this is what I came up with...

The canopy itself is about 9" high. I'm running the 4x54W on the 660 and the 2x54W on a Sylvania spec ballast. In order to keep things ventilated, I picked up a couple of ebay auctions for some 80mm PC fans with heat sensors on them so they'll ramp up in RPM as the temperature rises. Pretty slick and they came to like $3 a fan with shipping. God bless ebay... There's 3 fans on each side of the canopy blowing in. There's a fan for every pair of T5 bulbs, probably overkill, but oh well.

Here's some pictures!!







I don't have any pictures of the outside of the canopy yet. I'm still waiting for my other ebay auction of the black 80mm grills. More pics to follow!

Later!
Eric

[davejnz]

Looks good Eric,are those all CV bulbs?

[jojo22]

LOOKS NICE

[mummra]

very nice. clean cuts on the fan ports.

[perpetual98]

Yeah Dave, those are all CV bulbs right now. I would like to get it set up with the following bulbs from front to back...

CV 10,000K - 660
CV Blue - spec ballast
CV 10,000K - 660
CV Blue - spec ballast
CV Blue - 660
GE 6500K - 660

I'm not terribly sure about the second CV Blie in the back though.

mummra, thanks for the compliment. I used a 3" hole saw which is just about the perfect size for the 80mm fans. That hole saw has cut out many a fan hole on various projects, so I retired it. It was starting to wobble too. After I had the holes cut, I ran around the outside of the holes a couple times with a 1/4" roundover router bit. I then coated the insides with a poly. Black 80mm grills will cover it all up once my ebay auction arrives.

One thing that I need to do is move the ballast. The tank is pretty close to the wall and I didn't realize that the ballast would be right up against the wall. I think I'll order the extension cable from IceCap this week so I can move the ballast under the stand.

[mummra]

very nice man. i know cutting through thick wood like that can be a pain in the you know what.

[lReef lKeeper]

looks good eric, you must have seen my DIY canopy thread ... lol

[perpetual98]

Yeah, short of the fact that the only thing they have in common is that they hold lights over our tanks, they're exactly the same.