Lighting

There are tons of lighting options out there and if you have the money to spend its easy
I was recently looking for cheap light upgrade and ended up installing 4 screw-in CFLs (compact fluorescents) in a canopy, but you could retrofit your light strip with some sockets. all the parts including bulbs cost me about $40 and I have about 2wpg now.

I was also considering a double 36" strip available at Home Depot for $24 and running 2 30w bulbs in there. I did find however that the selection on cheap daylight tubes is very limited in that size. they have 24" and 48" galore but I was only able to find 36" in petstores or online.

some people on here overdrive their light tubes. google ODNO and you will find many references on that or search on this site. I decided not to go that route as it seemed a little risky for me.

honestly, if it wasnt for my father I would never get it done myself. the only thing you can do with the strip you have is retrofit it with either AHsupply kit or DIY CFLs.
here is the link on the latter.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147012&highlight=CFL

I retrofit my 46g tank's hood w/ a single 96W PC kit from AH-Supply.com. It works well. There are also T5 options in 30" lengths (I think).

for me I built a hood, took 3 standard sockets, bolted them to the wood, wired in parallel, plugged it in, watched the growth . When I had my 20g High I gutted the original light, attached 2 sockets to the the end, enjoyed .

I suppose difficult is a matter of perspective, I'm a whiz at electrical theory and practice (and its fun ) so for me its easy. Wiring isn't hard, as long as you know what parallel and series and series/parallel circuits are you shouldn't have any issues. For our uses we want parallel.

Parallel circuits are just that, parallel. Say I wanted to wire two loads (light bulbs) and both needed 120v (v=Volts, or electrical pressure). So, take your source cord (what plugs into the wall) and attach two wires to each wire, with a total of four wires, so that that each wire branches off into two wires, coming to a total of four. Attach the two black wires to each of the brass screws on each of the sockets, so that one wire attaches to each socket. Take your white wires and attach them to each socket. Plug in your new hood, check for arcing (sparks) and shorts, if none, your done.

my head is spinning now Cory. LOL