My first attempt at a canopy

[lightningfront]

Thought I would share my first attempt at a canopy. It's nothing fancy, just functional.

Lights include 6 x 80W T5 bulbs running on workhorse 7 ballasts and using Icecap encaps and SLR reflectors, also 3 12" strips of blue LEDs for moonlights.





I put the light rack on cabinet sliders so I could slide it back out of the way for when I need to reach into the tank.

[Arcade_Guy]

very nice as usual man, you deffo go all out lol

what thickness plywood did you end up using?
can't wait to see the tank up and running

[lightningfront]

Used the 3/4 inch cabinet grade plywood. The light rack is 3 1x6 planks joined together though.

Ya I was being dumb toward the end of the night trying to get the cabinet hinges lined up right and still had the bulbs in the sockets from when when I tested it to see if they all worked, and managed to break one of the bulbs in half.

Skimmer gets here tomorrow, after I put it in the stand the tank will be ready to go back on the stand.

[Blown76mav]

whats the length on the bulbs?  Looks great btw.

[lightningfront]

The bulbs are 60" bulbs. They do not make T5s any longer so it was use 6 bulbs and reflectors of these and have a little low light areas on the ends of the tank or spend the extra money to have 12 bulbs and 12 reflectors on 36" bulbs.

So I decided to do the 60" bulbs with 6" on each end of the tank with low light where I will put mushrooms and other low light corals.

[jake]

Or just buy halides.lol. Looks good man. I like the ballast set up the best. Nice and handy if they ever need messed with.