DIY Hood and Lights

[andresdeo]

Here is my latest DIY proyect: Hood and light (no fancy bulbs just energy saving from philips) two 20 watts 6500K. The hood is made out of pine and it has hinged top. Here are some photos of the process.

 

[andresdeo]

Here are 2 more photos, they show the finished hood, but still without the lights. Closed and opened. Lol.

 

[andresdeo]

Thanks for the hood ideas to ryan-peddle and Mr. Limpet.

 

[aaronalam]

Looks good!

Nice work.

 

[huma-huma]

Looks awesome! You going to build some small shelves inside the hood to store food/chess/etc? And wheres the led light fixture going to go?

 

[andresdeo]

Thats actually very intresting, hadnt though of that! I do have some spare wood so I might give it a go, that way I can use part of the bottom cabinet for books n stuff. Thanks.

 

[Smitty]

That looks great! If you are going to mount the lights to the top of the hood remember to turn them off before opening the top or it could blind you! (figuratively, not literally) lol

 

[andresdeo]

Lol, yes I'll be carefull with that and actually I installed the lights yesterday, just havent had the chance to take photos yet. Im very happy with the end product.

 

[andresdeo]

Here it is lights in and fully functional lol!

 

[Smitty]

Looks great! Can you get a shot of how you have the lights installed?

 

[andresdeo]

Sure give me a sec.

 

[andresdeo]

As mentioned nothing fancy, aquarium bulbs are jinda expensive over here so I went for philips rated 20 watts but thats consumption and produces 90 watts each. Color temperature 6500. Dont know much about plant requirements thats why I went with the 4 sockets so I could add some more bulbs if needed. Any comments?

If they dont work out I can always unscrew the sockets and upgrade to better lights. The whole light/electric component was like 25 Bucks. ( bulbs included)

 

[Smitty]

For low light plants it should be fine. I like the way it is set up, looks good! Nice and clean. Do you have all the lights on one plug? Running series or parallel?

 

[andresdeo]

For low light plants it should be fine. I like the way it is set up, looks good! Nice and clean. Do you have all the lights on one plug? Running series or parallel?

Series, why low light plants? Watts wise or where is the problem?

 

[Smitty]

I really don't have a good answer for you as to the type of plants. Perhaps low and medium level? The high light plants (like carpet plants) need a lot of light usually produced by either a LED setup or T5HO setup.

I'm not familiar with the spectrum put out by the florescent bulbs. 6500 is going to be the color of the light but doesn't really say how good it would be for plant growth.

I'm sorry I can't help more on that, I could be totally wrong and they would work great.

 

[huma-huma]

Just watch your plants carefully trust me you'll know if you got good lighting ...your plants will tell youI converted my single -bulb MH hood over to a dualhood..in thethe process i hadgot to removethe the reflection plate..needless to say my plants starting dying like crazy, when I swap my blacklight nighttime bulb out for a full spectrum. So now im running a 50/50 and a full spectrum ....within 2 days, my plants have turned around and started growing again.

 

[andresdeo]

Right now everything is growing except the cabomba on far right. Vals, egeria, sword, hidrofila all growing and of course the Java moss, but if that doesnt grow I would be in real trouble lol.

Maybe in some time I could add a plant spectrum bulb, but since CO2 is no where in the near future I dont know how much more lights would benefit.

 

[huma-huma]

You'd be surprised how much lighting can do... question is which would you rather do? Stick with tour current lighting and perhaos lose a few plants here and there as you go..or upgrade your lighting and have excess plants due to growth?? Id personally take yhe second one..because noone ljkes going back to thier lfs multiple times for the same plant lol

Edit*** youve got a decent platform for an led setup..you could mount them in 1"x1" aluminum tubing and secure the tubing to the underside of your new hood.....just a thought though.

 

[Smitty]

I really like the setup now as-is. Give it some time and see how the growth goes. You already wired in two more spots so it you see issues, add in those two bulbs.

If you were to add CO2 you would need to upgrade your lighting IMO. LED is an option but instead of the normal route, you can look into the Gu10 bulbs... (you would need to make a higher canopy for them though).

 

[andresdeo]

Yes, Im going to see how it goes, probably add the remaining two bulbs. CO2 is not really an option right now, but maybe further along the road.