Hi Guys,

a quick introduction from me first I think. I joined the forum a couple of days ago after lurking for a while. I've been interested in creating a small reef tank for a while now and I've been reading pretty intensely both online and from good old fashioned paper books. As usual with any new and complex subject it was all a bit bewildering at first but now I think I've got my head around it bar the odd thing so don't worry, I'm not going to clog up the board with questions that have been asked a million times already!

However, one thing is puzzling me. I have a Clear Seal tank knocking about that I plan to use, it's a 30 gallon I think (36"x15"x12") but the hood is just one of those standard ones that only houses one bulb with no room for any more. I really like T5 lights as I use these for my dart frogs and they give excellent plant growth but I don't know how to set them up over a fish tank. I can't seem to find any generic hoods for sale that you can plug x amount of lights into, do these even exist? For a tank my size I think I'll need about 120 watts and I'd like some sort of moonlight effect too such as leds. The hoods that I've seen that house that much T5 power seem very expensive but I appreciate if that's how much it costs then that's how much it costs!

I don't want anything hanging off the ceiling so what's the best way to go about lighting my tank with lights mounted over the water and hopefully a closed top, plus some leds too?

Cheers.

Hi

I presume you mean 15" high and 12" wide?

To be honest in either case I suspect you will struggle to get that amount of T5 light under there. A 39w bulb is about 35" in length but including control gear I doubt it would fit in a 36" hood. So then you have to use 24w bulbs which means you will need 5 bulbs to hit 120w.

I have a juwel rio 125 which is 15" wide, what I did was purchase 2x twin T5 ballasts, took out the T8 stuff and DIY'd 4x 24w bulbs into the original hood. If you're very careful you might squeeze 5 into a 15" wide tank, but 4 bulbs with good sized reflectors compared to 5 bulbs with compromised reflectors would be more efficient and cheaper to run.

As you've already realised you have 2 choices.

Purchase a luminaire which go from around £60 second hand up to £200+

Or get a hood and DIY it in. You could go with compact flourescents (google interpret compact flourescent ballasts), or as mentioned T5HO. The usual going price for 1x second hand twin 24w ballast is around £20-£30 plus you have to factor in 4x bulbs (around £10 each). A hood in a 30x12 footprint can be had from pets at home for around £25, so you're looking at a total cost of around £125. Not as cheap as it initially looks.

Have you considered MH? What's nice is the high amount of light over a small area, just 1 bulb to replace which can be had cheap, and a second hand luminaire can be had from £50-£60 no probs. What's not nice is the light cast and more heat.