My 150G canopy build

I bit the bullet to upgrade my lighting in my 150G tank. Originally I had a 4x65w CF over it, then purchased the Hamilton 250w MH with 130w CF supplements. I figured I didn't need really strong lighting since it's an aggressive FOWLR tank. I never used it since having a MH over a plastic center brace is never a good idea and just kept using the 4x65w CF fixture the whole time. It was time to replace the bulbs and figured it was the right time to upgrade the lights to better, more efficient ones. Marine Depot had an awesome sale on Geismann retrofits, so I picked up a couple 48" 2x54w kits. I decided to build a canopy as a part of the upgrade and did some digging online to find as many ideas as I could find. Credit goes out to every person that had a build that had a good idea/design that is part of my canopy.
Anyhow, this is my diary of my canopy and retrofit build. It's not done yet, as I only get to put in an hour of work a day if I'm lucky. I'll keep taking pics as I work on it.

 

Cool. I will be building one in the near future so this may give me some ideas.

 

After I bought my materials, I took 1"x3"x48" planks and cut them in half lengthwise to get the wood for my frames. I would have bought 1x2" but it would have been more expensive.
I purchased 1/2" oak plywood for the top of the canopy and 1/4" oak plywood for the side skins.
If I didn't have all the tools that I have, I wouldn't have done this project. Getting the right tools is expensive, and I don't even have the best quality ones either. The only good tools I invested in are my routers. My lovely fiancee bought me my miter saw, which came in real handy on this project already. ;D

 

So, I first made the side frames out of the 3" planks that I cut in half and some 2" planks. The 2" wide planks made the vertical parts of the frames while the 1.5" made the horizontal.
I used my Kreg pocket hole jig to make the pockets to join the framing together. I used one pocket hole on one side and decided to use 2 instead on the other frame.
I had to let the glue dry before I moved on, so that concluded my one day's worth of work.

 

After the glue died, I went back to work on it the next day. I took the frame edges and put them on my tank to see exactly how long the back brace needed to be. I cut it down using my truster miter and screwed it in place. Everything measured up great and I realized I should put a rear center leg to support the center of the canopy. That ended my day of work.
Next I put the horizontal brace in the middle, which will help support the top of the canopy and will help brace the lighting when it gets mounted. The pocket holes I made for that splintered the wood slightly, so I had to glue it and block it down. I had to let that glue dry, so I ended the day by cutting the top of the canopy. My preference is to have a 75/25 split top. But I don't want the entire front half to open up, I want the framing to stay intact, so the front skin of the canopy will open with the rest of the top, if that makes sense.

 

I was able to work on my canopy some more last night, so I decided to work on the lighting a bit.
I cut little mounting pieces that my T5 endcaps will mount to. Geismann aren't typical to IceCap standoffs. I could have mounted these directly to my canopy, but I decided not to. Personally, I don't want to drill through 1" of hardwood framing to mount the endcaps. So I made 8 of them out of a 1/4" solid oak hobby wood sheet. Keeping the size consistant wasn't important to me, nor is it structurally important, so I just cut them out about 2"x3.5" I routed a small section out for the wires to feed out from the endcap bottoms. Those will them get screwed into the 1" boards which will get attached to the canopy. Those boards I cut into 12" long pieces, which will be long enough for the 4 lights and SLRs.
More to follow when I get more work done. Thanks for reading.

 

I was finally able to get more work done...
I cut the top parts and completed the front hinged frame.
I glued the top piece onto the frame and used clamps to secure it. Once it dried, I screwed it securely in place with the center brace.

 

Then I glued and screwed in place the front face frame to the top section of the hinged section.
After that, I decided to work on the lamp wiring a bit. I decided to mount the endcaps onto acrylic strips, then that will get mounted onto the piece of wood that will be secured on the canopy. I figured this will make it less of a headache if I ever need to change the lighting in the future. I drilled holes in both the acrylic and the wood pieces for the wires to feed into. I also routed out a wire raceway channel in the wood for the wires to to to the ballast. It will be more safe so it won't be exposed to the water.
After I mocked up how it will mount, I realzed I still needed to coat the wood with sealer and paint it, so all that work was a complete waste of time.
So anyhow, I got back to work on this tonight and cut the skins for the sides and the front face. I gled the sides and clamped then down for it to bond. I am using just 1/4" thick oak plywood for the skin. Unfortunately, the wood I used wasn't perfectly true, not the framing or the skin. There are slight gaps here and there, but that's fine by me. I'll fill in the gaps with epoxy before I coat it with polyeurathane and latex paint.

 

looking geat Mike..

 

Looks good.I wasn't expecting it to be an Oceanic type 48" 150g tank. I was thinking a regular 6' tank. In any case the build would be mainly the same just different dimensions.