DIY Stand for Nano tank (picture intensive)

[mseepman]

Bummer...sorry about that. I should have bought them when I saw them.

[mseepman]

Well I continue to work on my nano stand. It seems less nano every day though...especially when I have to lift it...lol.

So the top got laminated black...not necessarily the best color for salt splash, but I thought it would look the best.



After pre-treating the wood, I gave it the first coat of stain. It didn't go as dark as I wanted but I will give it another coat shortly. Once it reaches the color I want, I will verathane the inside with gloss and the outside with semi-gloss...hopefully after enough coats it will last for a while.



I also picked up the last of the materials to my canopy...now I just have to put all my jumbled ideas on the canopy into something that looks good and works.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by mseepman

I also picked up the last of the materials to my canopy...now I just have to put all my jumbled ideas on the canopy into something that looks good and works.

My first thought after seeing your laminated top would be to laminate the canopy too. What were you planning for it? I'm waiting to see what you're going to do with yours...you're doing a "floating" canopy too eh?

[mseepman]

Well...as for the floating canopy...maybe, especially if you share some ideas you have for how I could do that. As for laminate on the canopy, I have white laminate which will be go on the bottom where the lights are so that splashing water doesn't show so easily and so that it is as reflective as possible.

I'm imagining a box about 18" x 18" x 6" with a white laminate bottom, birch sides and top. I will make it out of 1/4" plywood. Inside, it will have a 70w DE DIY MH, 2 x 20W T5HO bulbs (1 actinic & 1 10k) and a lunar light for the night. I will have dual fans in the canopy wired to a variable adapter so that I can control their speeds (and noise level). What do you think?

[Myka]

I'm not sure where you mean to put the white laminate, but if you can actually see it, I don't think it will look very good. I'm kind of against white.

My idea is really just to use small posts on three sides of the tank. Nothing fancy.

20w T5HO? I think the smallest T5 bulb is 24" and the HO version is 24w...? Can you get 18" then being 20w??? Never seen them that small...only T8s.

I can't forget to put a lunar light on my tank...

[mseepman]

Okay, well the light will be only about 6" over the tank so unless your short, you shouldn't see the while laminate facing down.

As for the T5HO, yes I already have an 18" Current T5HO light with 20W bulbs. Current is the only guys that make it so far, but I saw an article online somewhere for UVI stating that they are working on 20W and 14W versions for nano tanks so I'm hoping there will be more choices soon. Ocean Aquatics sells the small one Nova Extreme X2

[mseepman]

Okay, so I thought it was time to bring this tread up-to-date.

I've completed work (exept for staining) on my DIY Nano canopy that I will be hanging over the tank so I thought that I would give a quick view of how it went.

Began work by building a basic box. I plan on the unit being sealed so you don't see all the equipment. Since it will be sealed I needed to make sure air-flow around the lighting would be good...thus the fans. One pushes air in and one sucks it out. They are off-set so that the air has to flow around the equipment before just getting sucked out.







Another concern I had was that being a seal unit, I needed to have some quick way to turn off the MH and my choices were a switch or just make it easy to unplug from the fixture. I chose the latter...I used a PC power connection out of an old PC power supply. This allowed for me to just use a PC power cord for the MH ballast. It also looks really clean.



Next I needed to prepare the bottom panel and do cut-outs for the various lighting I would have. 1 x 70W MH, 1 x Current T5HO dual bulb fixture and 1 Current Led Lunarlight.
I laminated the bottom panel with white laminate for better reflection and so that splashing didn't look so bad. Here I'm just sizing up the holes for the various lighting.


Here is a pic of our efforts to fit everything how we wanted it. You can see the two holes drilled for the Lunar lights. The Ballast is raised so air flows all around it.



Here you get a better view of how the lights will be from the bottom. I put trim around the T5HO light because it's recessed, while the MH will go from the bottom up through the panel so no trim was required.



Here's everything in place and bolted down. I strapped the T5 light in as I couldn't figure any other way to hold in in place without screws from the bottom and I didn't want that.



Here's the wiring mess before it was done:


and after it's complete:


From there, I attached the top to the box to get ready for the finishing work.


Trim pieces were added to match it to my stand.




And here it is with the lights on.



Now I have to figure out how to hang this beast. I have a sun-light supply hanging kit but I haven't yet figured out how to attach anything in an attractive way to the canopy. Any suggestions would be great.