Yet another lighting question!

Penfan66

Penfan66

Posticus Rareus
Sep 22, 2005
298
1
0
Sylvania, Ohio
Let me preface this post by saying I have been keeping FW for about 20 years now but I've never had live plants. I will fully admit to being ignorant of the lighting nuances. This may be long, but please bear with me!

I recently purchased an All-Glass 46 gallon bowfront with the typical plastic hood and the small glass section under the light. The lighting for this set up is a single flourescent tube - 25W I believe. Now, to achieve the 2-3 WPG I need for good plant growth I obviously need to upgrade.

Do the retro fit kits from Big Als or AH supply fit directly into this hood, or do I need to get rid of the light portion of the hood and do something DIY?

If I have to do a DIY hood, can I take a 4' shoplight with a 4 bulb T-8 setup and reduce it down to a 36" while also modifing the hood with more glass to accept this setup?

I'm somewhat lost......help please!! :eek3:
 
I have same tank (click sig for FTS) and went w/ a 96W retro from AH supply. I like it a lot and it grows anything short of Cabomba well. I did have "issues" due to heat, so I rigged some little legs to prop the AGA shell up some, after I had installed the reflector, bulb holders, endcap & vents into the AGA shell.
lightlegs5ys.jpg


That said, if I had it to do over, I'd probably opt for 2x39W T5 bulbs w/ TEK reflectors in a DIY hood. If you don;t want to make a hood, the 96W AH Supply route is almost as good. A bit more heat, bulbbs a tad pricier, but still a good option.

Here's another "just below grade" shot... Yes, it's an old shot... Cabomba grew for a while, dropped lower leaves & died - possibly because it was getting shaded by the sword, possibly due to allelopathy from another plant, probably due to insufficient light intensity.
20070131fts46gft4.jpg
 
I am curious as to how extensive your heating issues were. What I would like to do is fit the 96W retro kit into the existing hood mostly for asthetics. That is to say IF the kit will actually fit directly in the hood.

Your set up is great since you can vent is quite easily, but I don't think my wife would care for that much since it stands somewhat above tank.

I had to do a lot of comprimising with her to let me have a tank in the living room as a showpiece. So above all it has to look good! :thm:
 
Penfan66 said:
Do the retro fit kits from Big Als or AH supply fit directly into this hood, or do I need to get rid of the light portion of the hood and do something DIY?
Click to expand...

If you want to retrofit your existing hood, what most do if possible is to gut out the area where the bulb goes and mount the new bulb and reflector. You can mount the ballast where ever you want, usually there isnt room in the hood so it goes on the outside of the hood, like mounted on the rear facing part that sticks up, but evey fixture is a little different. Before you do anything though, measure the length of the cavity your existing bulb is in to make sure you can fit whatever kit in it you want, the ahsupply ones for example have dimensions labeled on their website.
 
Thank you, I will check that out. I guess that would be the best solution. I just hope it doesn't get too hot!

It seemed like a silly question to ask, but I just wasn't sure if people were putting the retrofit kits in the smaller one bulb hoods.
 
Another option would be to overdrive your lights. Considering that you only have one light you still won't really get enough light for anything but low light plants though. This is done by getting an electronic ballast for double or 4x the number of tubes you have, and hooking it to only one tube (hooking two or four wires to one connection instead of the regular two or four bulbs). It works but theoretically it should reduce the life of your bulbs. But they should be replaced regularly anyway.
 
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