I have been all over the place with how I was going to do the canopy and lights. Each one affected how to do the other.
I had a 6 ft fixture with 3- 250w halides, 4 80w T5s and some moonlights. It never worked right with my 8' long "CONCEPT" (hint hint) built tank. Trying to find an 8ft fixture was futile and 2 4' just did not work for me
Ever since seeing Slyguys tank and how the corals popped, I have tried to get the same effect. I have changed bulbs, type of lights, height from top of tank, added led, took away led, added lots of T5s then took some away etc etc.
The final decision came a few weeks ago after the GF hinted about finishing the canopy etc for the one millionth time...
Metal halide pendants were the choice as was the decision to rip apart my existing fixture for the 4 80w T5 setup.
After pricing everything out, it was cheaper to just rip apart the 5 month old fixture, rather than buy everything new. Add it the fact of having three extra HQI ballasts and all was good.
Gutted..
I found 4 pendants on canreef and scooped them all for 200.00. Cleaned them up and swapped bulbs. Ready to put above the tank.
Of course nothing is that easy around here. After measuring the height of the pendant lights, I was not happy with how close they would be to the top of the tank....So....
Only one solution...Cut the drywall ceiling out and install them between the floor joists of the floor above the tank..Oh the GF is not impressed now...
Not too bad. 2.5 hours and the holes were laid out, cut and cleaned up...Now I had to vent the heat from between the joists. Off to Home Depot to get a bathroom fan and vent cover...
I cut a hole in the soffit to cut the boxer out and then installed the fan, so it would suck out the heat into the roof jacks and voila... Ready for the next step
I put hooks in the floor sheathing and hung each pendant. Ran the cords thru the joists and down to the Galaxie ballasts, which connected to the Apex..The pendants fit perfectly within the floor joists. Left about 3" to the floor sheathing and I made the openings about 3 inches larger. The pendant glass was flush with the drywall. This gave me about 8" above the tank now.
The T5s were installed as well as some strip led lights from Home Depot. The LEDs were for the moonlights.
Lights done, now for the canopy