Onewolf
Active Member
About a month ago I had started theorizing about the possibility of a larger saltwater aquarium (current is 90 gal) and then I found one on Facebook Marketplace with a "make it go away, now" price (it was neglected and they were moving). I decided to purchase the whole aquarium system which had all nice components for about 1/3 the $ cost of new. The only issue is that it's a "rimless" style aquarium and the issue I have with rimless aquariums is that they tend to have huge amounts of 'light spill' with the very bright reef lights (and no hood/canopy to contain the light).
Cornea burning "light spill" would be a bad thing in the location I would like to place the aquarium in the family room so I decided to build hood/canopy to try to contain the light spill.
I used 'select' pine boards from Home Despot and T-track rails to mount the lights. Once I am ready to setup the new aquarium I will suspend the light canopy from brackets on the wall or from the ceiling.
With the five Radion XR15 G4 lights installed it weighs 34.5 lbs. Not light, but workable.
It's 66" long, 13.5" wide, and 7.5" tall (1x8 boards).
Filling screw holes, sanding, filling, sanding, etc.
A prototype of how the lights will mount to the T-track. These are 45mm bolts, but I ended up using 18mm bolts to get the lights up higher (keeping in mind it's upside down in this photo).
"Paint it Black". Great song
T-tracks mounted.
5 lights fit comfortably on 14" centers.
I need to add some cable management mount points.
This shows how the lights sit up in the canopy.
These lights put out a lot of heat when running in "daytime" mode so they need ventilation. No problem with ventilation here...
Cornea burning "light spill" would be a bad thing in the location I would like to place the aquarium in the family room so I decided to build hood/canopy to try to contain the light spill.
I used 'select' pine boards from Home Despot and T-track rails to mount the lights. Once I am ready to setup the new aquarium I will suspend the light canopy from brackets on the wall or from the ceiling.
With the five Radion XR15 G4 lights installed it weighs 34.5 lbs. Not light, but workable.
It's 66" long, 13.5" wide, and 7.5" tall (1x8 boards).
Filling screw holes, sanding, filling, sanding, etc.
A prototype of how the lights will mount to the T-track. These are 45mm bolts, but I ended up using 18mm bolts to get the lights up higher (keeping in mind it's upside down in this photo).
"Paint it Black". Great song
T-tracks mounted.
5 lights fit comfortably on 14" centers.
I need to add some cable management mount points.
This shows how the lights sit up in the canopy.
These lights put out a lot of heat when running in "daytime" mode so they need ventilation. No problem with ventilation here...
