AI Hydra in a canopy

lost66

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Hi
I made a canopy for my 75g tank and currently I have those cheap chinese LED mounted on top of canopy. What I did is just removed 4 screws (2 for each side) and replace them with long ones so the whole fixture can lie down inside the whole in the top of the canopy. After 2 months I noticed that both of my lights are broken (issue with regulators and suddenly I lost blue channel) so I tried to investigate what happened and I disassembled them. There was a lot of moisture accumulated inside the body LED.
So it is time to change light. I want to buy hydras. 26,32 or 52 if I find a good deal. Because I have cats and I don't like hue in the evenings I would like to keep my canopy.

So I am afraid when I mount new lights in the same way I may have moisture problem soon and it may end up with a dead light in a few months or so.

Question is, would 120mm fans solve the moisture problem? I read that people mount those fans to cool down the air inside canopy but I don't know if it solved moisture problem. If I fan in the air I will cool down and people say it should be fan in instead of fan out because fanning out will damage fans and increase evaporation.

Any hints?

IMG_20200110_110611.jpg
IMG_20200110_110602.jpg
 

crusso1993

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Hi
I made a canopy for my 75g tank and currently I have those cheap chinese LED mounted on top of canopy. What I did is just removed 4 screws (2 for each side) and replace them with long ones so the whole fixture can lie down inside the whole in the top of the canopy. After 2 months I noticed that both of my lights are broken (issue with regulators and suddenly I lost blue channel) so I tried to investigate what happened and I disassembled them. There was a lot of moisture accumulated inside the body LED.
So it is time to change light. I want to buy hydras. 26,32 or 52 if I find a good deal. Because I have cats and I don't like hue in the evenings I would like to keep my canopy.

So I am afraid when I mount new lights in the same way I may have moisture problem soon and it may end up with a dead light in a few months or so.

Question is, would 120mm fans solve the moisture problem? I read that people mount those fans to cool down the air inside canopy but I don't know if it solved moisture problem. If I fan in the air I will cool down and people say it should be fan in instead of fan out because fanning out will damage fans and increase evaporation.

Any hints?

IMG_20200110_110611.jpg
IMG_20200110_110602.jpg

First of all, nice job on the canopy!

Secondly, adding fans will definitely help with moisture issues inside the hood. While I am not always in the majority, I prefer having an "in/out" layout. One fan sucking air in and the other pushing air out on opposite sides of the hood. I realize that this layout might cause the "out" fan's life to be shortened for the moisture build up that may happen on it. However, I woud think this layout would provide better condensation removal than two fans blowing in. Especially with a fully enclosed hood. Additionally, I don't consider it a big deal with the low cost of fans. Now that I think about it, I do not know of any testing that has been done between "in/in" or "out/out" or "in/out" layouts. If you do decide to use fans, if it's not too much trouble, maybe you could run week long tests, measuring internal hood humidity and heat with the different layouts and report your findings.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
 

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