Log of building my 30gal custom lighting hood

jmhart

jmhart

Revolutionary
Sep 8, 2007
2,746
0
36
Atlanta,GA
I'm in the process of building a custom lighting hood for my 30 gal and I wanted to include log(Log's I've read have been very helpful, so I wanted to contribute). I'm building with goal of creating a custom hood capable of delivering 3 wpg. To do this, I will be using 6 15 watt, 6500K, CFL's. This is a custom hood for a 30 gal, mixed community tank. See my signature for stock information. Additional, plants include Amazon Sword, Java Sword, Java Moss, Val, and a stem plant that I can't identify at the moment.

I've attached pictures of my planned custom hood, my current hood(original All-glass), and my collected supplies.

Hopefully it won't rain here tomorrow and I'll make some progress.

Hood Design 001.jpg Picture 006.jpg Picture 002.jpg
 
Looks like a plan
Are you going to use a deflector of sorts ????
What about ventilation ???
 
That plan now is white paint on the inside. If I feel that isn't working, later, I'll ad mylar wrap. The white paint should work great from everything I've heard/read.

I'm not too worried about ventaltion. I've modified my plan slightly so that there will be an 18 inch gap in the back panel for my filter and automatic feeder(which I leave on all the time). I believe this will allow for enough heat dispersion.


redswi said:
Looks like a plan
Are you going to use a deflector of sorts ????
What about ventilation ???
Click to expand...
 
I just might be following in your footsteps on this one! I've got a 30g as well with the same crappy lighting (36" hood with a 24" bulb...dang false advertising!). Details will be MUCH appreciated as I'm not much of an electrician.

Good luck, thanks for the thread, and I'll be watching! :)
 
So, today was an adventure. Either cordless saws suck, or my batteries are having issues. After a trip to Home Depot and a conversation with my upstairs neighbor I borrowed a cord circular saw. Worked SOOOO much better than my cordless.

It also became clear that I am not quite the carpenter I thought I was. However, below is my progress: all cuts made(Well, mostly) and stain.

On the good side, I really like the stain.

Best laid plans and all that...

Stained Wood 007.jpg
 
you might want to clean up some of that stain on your joints,,,,may cause an adhesion problem with some glues
 
Should look nice...

I believe I would have put it all together first then stained it......this way you could have sanded down any extra glue that gets squeezed out and used some filler putty in any places that might need it and sanded the whole thing smooth then stained it. And like mentioned above the glue might not get as good of a hold on the edges that are already stained.
 
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