Building a canopy for my tank

[Waboss]

I want/need to stop the light bleed into my living room from my lighting, so I'm thinking about building a canopy for my 40 Breeder.

I guess I'm looking for suggestions or maybe some learned lessons so I can maybe avoid some "gotchas". It's going to have to be pretty tall I think, around 14-16" so I can mount my lighting, be able to adjust the lighting height some, and have room to work on the tank when I need to get into it.

 

[doubleohwhatever]

What size tank would this be for and what lighting are you using. A photo of the tank would help.

For smaller tanks, I've seen some build where the whole canopy including the lights can just be lifted off an set to the side for tank maintenance. For larger tanks I've seen fancier systems with counterweights so that the canopy can be effortlessly lifted up.

 

[Waboss]

What size tank would this be for and what lighting are you using. A photo of the tank would help.

For smaller tanks, I've seen some build where the whole canopy including the lights can just be lifted off an set to the side for tank maintenance. For larger tanks I've seen fancier systems with counterweights so that the canopy can be effortlessly lifted up.

It's a 40 breeder. I'm currently using an Aquatic life hybrid light (T5 + XHO LEDs) but might swap that out for some T5's I can mount in the canopy......not sure yet.

FTS of my tank can be found in my build thread HERE.

 

[doubleohwhatever]

Ah. Yeah, I'd look into a canopy that just sits on the tank and can be lifted off for tank maintenance.

 

[jd371]

Last month I built a floating canopy for the same fixture as you. I made a simple box out of 1 x 10's with 1 x 3's for the moulding and used 1 x 2's along the bottom edge of the canopy for the fixture to rest on. At first I was going to attach it to an articulating TV mount so I could move it out of the way but after thinking about it and the work involved I decided to go the easy route and just hag it from the ceiling. Hung it at 8" at first but it made it hard to work in the tank, moved it up to 11" and it's much better, not perfect but better. It's easy to unhook and remove the canopy if I really need to get a lot of work done in the tank.

Put the power strip inside the canopy so all the wires are enclosed and
not hanging off the back except the single cord for the strip.