building a hood

RockabillyChick

RockabillyChick

Kilt-lifter
Nov 5, 2005
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Washington state
since i need custom lighting for my 45 for plants, i have decided to build my own hood. it came with one, but it only supports a 20 watt flouro.

i want to go with the little 15w compact flourecent lights, and i want 8 of them. i know how to go about building the actual frame of the hood. what's stumping me is how to wire the light fixtures together so that they all run off one cord and switch. i know i can buy lamp kits, and they sell lightbulb fixtures singly, but i don't know what kind of wire to use, or how to wire them together.
 
did you check out ahsupply? i was thinking about getting one of those retrofitted ones.
 
i did, but i don't want to go that fancy. this is going to be a low light, low tech tank. i want it to be very dark, actually, since the main fish in it is going to be my spotted climbing perch, and that's the kind of tank he likes, but he also likes heavily planted. so there's going to be a lot of floating plants, and a lot of crypts, java fern, etc.
 
8 15w CF's isn't really low lighting. 120w = 2.6w / gal

Are you thinking of controlling them independently? AHSupply is a good suggestion. I wouldn't call them fancy per say. I think you would fare better going with them than trying to source the correct parts and assembling them yourself. Maybe they can get you just the bits & pieces you need?

Wiring would be standard insulated electrical wiring (NOT lamp cord). 12/14 gauge wiring. Solid core works good.

You should wire them in a parallel circuit to keep the voltage the same to each fixture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_and_parallel_circuits
 
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most floating plants like full sun. they will shade the rest of the tank and make it mostly low lighting, but i want the light to be relatively strong so that some of it penetrates the floating plants.
 
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