bluephish's t5 creation.

so some of you were helping me with some t5 retros ? recently. so i got my shipment in, and here is what i got so far.(should finish wiring tonight)

6 bulbs, aquactinic refletors, IC water proof ends, aquactinic stand offs, 3 sunpaq ballasts(gutted from nova fixtures). 1 2" fan to cool ballasts,1 4" coralvue temp sensor fan to cool bulbs., (upgrading to 2 IC 440 & 1 660) when my bank account refills.

6 bulbs with SLRS in a 11.5" space. my tank is only 12" wide. so this should be a lot of light.

 

thats awesome! good work

 

Awsome work man!!! K+

 

Nice work! One question though, those last two bulbs on the left don't seem to have waterproof end caps, how will you stop them from corroding?

 

seams will be sealed and even thou i have water proofs on the other bulbs i will still be using a acrylic shield over all the bulbs. yes possible tiny loss in par, but much easier to wipe off acrylic, than bulbs and reflectors.

so i am pretty confident they will stay free of corrosion. plus im pretty anal about keep things free of salt and water. my entire tanks gets wiped down almost daily. i like it clean.

them 2 bulbs and reflectors are from a brand new 2x54 slr nova fixture.

using them reflectors and ends, i was able to squeeze the extra bulb in there. if i used all aquactinics reflectors, and IC ends the most that would fit over my tank is 5 bulbs.

still not sure what im gonna do with the outside wood color but i got the idea to fiberglass the outside, sand and paint it too a glossy new car shine, and then airbrush it with some sick designs.

 

Looks very nice. Are you going to put the coralvue fan so it blows over the cold spot on the bulbs (label end)? If you keep the cold spot around 35 C it will give you the max output of the bulbs.

Kim

 

If you don't mind me asking, how much money do you have in that setup so far..??
It's going to be NICE !!
I'll be doing an upgrade in the future..

Thanks, Larry

 

whats bulbs are you goin to be running in that ficture?

 

Very nice, work well done...

 

well i have been working on it for a week every sec of my spare time. its on the tank right now!!! and looks sick. still needs a few things done to it. (painting touch ups, new legs and moon lights installed). wiring and building of the fixture went smoothly. my only set back was when i was working on it late one night with a few in me, and i sat down on my new uvl AW bulbs.


i ended up making the fixture only 12.5" wide, with the aquactinics standoff's there was plenty of room to tuck the ballasts under the reflectors.

i filled all the screws and blemishes with wood filler then sanded it all.


cords come out the back and the hole is sealed with liquid electrical tape, as well as all the wire nutz inside are filled with liquid e tape. pic also shows small fan in the back.


switches mounted


vent


coralvue fan(blows half across the water and half into the fixture.) i love this fan!!


acrylic splash guard and my own clip design.(wire staples)


finally the lights, g-mann and UVL's,(brightness is turned all the way down on my camera, in reality its too bright to take a normal picture.



and just a lil extra eye candy.( deep water acro )


this unit stays cool to the touch all day long, no joke. not even warm.COOOOOL.. fans and vent work perfectly.

ill post some of the wiring pics later, and of the unit as a whole when i finish it completely.

i would love to see what kinda par i am getting.whats cheapest way to find this out.