My 350watt custom corner hood

Here is a photo journal of my corner hood.
Here is the dual 175 w MH.

I started by laying out and cutting all the pecies for the basic structure.

I then glued and screwed the pecies together and painted the wood with a marine primer and black paint and sealed it in a non-toxic water sealent.

I then layed out the reflectors and drilled the holes and bolted in the first fixture.

I made a gap between the hood and the reflector to promote better cooling

I installed two 100 cubic feet per min silent run cooling fans.

and the last fixture

after I installed a "Thermo Switch" for the fans and put all the wires in jackets and brackets.

I also built a DIY moon light and instaled it in the hood.


and last I built a lip with trim. (Older tank shot)

The END

 

Very nice! 8)

I like that you raised the light off of the hood. Good idea.

 

Very nice!! Where did you pickup that thermal swicth? Also what 175 lights are you running?

 

Very nice job!:2thumbsup

 

+2 on that one

Good job on the fixture.

 

Thank-you
I'm running dual 175watt MH 10k and 20k Ushio with PFO ballast.

As for the Termal switch it is a PT6 Master Flow adjustable thermostat switch. I installed it under my hood away from direct airflow and wired it up to my fans and set it up to come on when the air space under the hood is just under 80 F it works really well the fans are only on when they are needed. This cut my evaporation in half and cut down on power consumption. I found mine at Home Depot in the roofing section, It's usally used in hot spaces in homes to hook up to ventilation fans. Just ask for a reverse thermostat. also I don't think this will work for 12v DC fans I think it only works with 112v AC and up.

 

I think you did a great job. It was wise to install the stand offs. One thing you might want to look into is, your fans blowing on the lights. I read on RC that it works against the efficiency of the bulb.

 

In order to effect the lights output the arc tube's temperature would have to be changed, and since the arc tube is running at such high temperatures, any ambient temperature variations around the outer glass are insignificant and won't change the efficiency of the bulbs.

 

I decided to add Attinics to my hood to bring out some fluorescence in the corals, I did not want to add much seeing as I am running one xm 10k and one xm 20k MH so there is already enough blue hue in the light being emitted. I tested 2 x 24 watt T5 fixtures the light was too strong and I would have trouble proporly installing the retro-fit kit in my already tightly packed hood. So it was time for a fully custom DIY attinic setup.

I went with two 9watt power compact attinic bulbs because of their small size and low heat generation. The total 18watts was perfect and brought out the colours of the fish and corals really well without changing the colour of the light to much.

 

Here is all the parts I used to build the setup. I was able to get everything including the digital timer and bulbs for a total of around $70.00

Here is the ballast I made in a water tight junction box.

Here I wired everything up and added the digital timer.

and here is the equipment I will mount in my stand for the lights, everything is watertight and will not be affected by humidity.


And here is my hood with the attinics on.


I will post pics of my tank in the "show your tank" thread I have with the attinics on.