DIY canopy... When PC goes bad...

[Rikko]

Well, thought I'd post this here as well as on my nano contest thread on reefs.org since I think it's fairly interesting...

The tank is an 8 gallon tempered glass cube:

The light you see in front of it is a 125W Terra Gro compact fluorescent bulb from the same folks that supply those self-ballasted T5 units in town. It's a full spectrum 6400K bulb. My rep says he sells them mostly to film companies to use for night shoots.



I built a box out of polycarbonate and put in 2 sloping pieces for help with reflection. There's no science in how they are in there - while I could have spent some time playing with sizes to get the optimal light returns, I'm far too lazy. The lump in front of the box is where the mogul socket for the bulb fits. It's a commerical mogul so substantially wider than your typical desk lamp kind of mogul. Because of the substantial weight of the bulb and even the socket, I wanted to make sure the canopy would be able to support it. To that end, I cemented 4 pieces of 1/4" polycarbonate together with a hole that very tightly accepts the socket. With 1" of material holding it in place, I think it'll be good for a few years.


The other end of the canopy. I cut a hole for a PC fan to help cool this bad boy, and later drilled several 3/8" holes in the other end where the socket is to let the heated air exit.



Inside view as the project was winding up. I used mirror tile for my reflector and siliconed it to the polycarbonate. With little heat I don't expect there's any reason the mirror will let go. Note the splices - the tiles are 12"X12"... My canopy is larger. Doh.


I also wanted some supplemental lighting in case the light wasn't blue enough for me. To that end, I got 10 ultra bright LEDs (6 blue, 4 UV) and made this little rig out of polycarbonate. It functions as a moonlight in effect.



And there's the finished project. The LED array is cemented to the side of the canopy and more mirror silicones around it to add to the reflection back into the tank. I'm really happy with it.. It's extremely solid and visually much more appealing than anything else I've ever built (should I be admitting that??). To boot, after 10 hours on, the light bulb is barely warm to the touch - I may even step the fan down a little bit if evaporation becomes a side effect.
Sadly, the LEDs aren't noticeable at all with the main light on. That's ok though, I like moonlights anyways.



Tank has been running all of two hours at that point. I'll update this thread from time to time and let everybody know what corals fared well under that. It's horribly bright in the room.. I had my overhead fluorescents in the room on and the photo makes it look like a dark room.