hows it look!!!

[ohio reefer]

just finished my hood, what do you think. constructive critsism welcome.

thanks

mark

[ohio reefer]

one more shot, different angle

[ohio reefer]

the little blue ones are my moon lights which are really deck lights from lowes. i got those for $3.95 ea.

2x 400 watt [acronym:0ed0b7df29="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:0ed0b7df29]
2x 65 watt [acronym:0ed0b7df29="Compact Flourescent"]CF[/acronym:0ed0b7df29]

the fan is a desk fan 7" (i did that because i'm horrible at electricity and if it only works for a couple months i can change it out)

what do you think?

mark

[Thaiboxer]

I like it! I'm going to steal some of your ideas for my own hood. I'm finishing the doors for my stand right now, putting them on tomorrow or Friday. I'll post finished pics soon.

Then the only thing left on this tank is building a hood, which will be nice fiinished wood. Questions for you -

1. How much did the [acronym:1a06df7133="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:1a06df7133] cost? I like the setup.
2. Did you paint the inside white to reflect light?
3. Are you going to wire a surge-protector and timers into your hood, or have that external?

For fans... I have this thought about using an old computer power supply, and computer fans like the pic below. You can get big "stealth" fans (meaning VERY quiet) for $10 each. If I go that route I'll send you pics of the wiring, etc. It'd be more compact, and easy to wire.

I like it!

[ohio reefer]

thanks!

1. How much did the [acronym:f5ba09ea61="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:f5ba09ea61] cost? I like the setup.

i got the reflector with mogul base at hellolights for $29.95, the bulbs also a hellolights for aprox $120, the dual ballast at aquadirect for $149.00

2. Did you paint the inside white to reflect light?

yes.

3. Are you going to wire a surge-protector and timers into your hood, or have that external?

yes, i got some weather resistant timers from [acronym:f5ba09ea61="Home Depot"]HD[/acronym:f5ba09ea61] and two surge protectors.

You can get big "stealth" fans (meaning VERY quiet) for $10 each.

yeah, you'll have to send me the schematics. the fan i'm using is a little loud but i did garound the edge with insolation foam tape. so that helps a lot!!!

thanks

mark

[BBReef]

[acronym:25314d34d4="Laughing out loud"]LOL[/acronym:25314d34d4] I thought about using those computer fans as well. im just stuck figuring out a way to plug them in. they dont have a normal plug. you would actually have to put a motherboard into the hood as well to power them up from a computer power supply. i havnt looked into it all that much tho. if you figure out a way to do it, be sure to pass on the info

The hood looks great [acronym:25314d34d4="By the way"]btw[/acronym:25314d34d4]. what size tank is that for?

[ohio reefer]

120 [acronym:ff9ea08525="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:ff9ea08525]

[JProx]

reef
i assume your talking about the fans that have those little 3-wire harness ? if that's the case you can get a converter (at radio shack and all computer stores) that turns the 3wire harnes into those big 4wire harnes (the ones that power harddrives, and optical drives, and some new vid cards) then you could use a computer power supply to run the fans.

more info.. some of the fans that have a 3wire harness have a thermal detection circuit built into them. they change the fan's rpm depending on heat. (more heat = more rpm's, less heat = less rpm's) if you get a 4wire harness that will usually cancel out the thermal circuit.

thai -
what's the wattage of the ps your using? it might cost more to use it, to power fans. (good power supplies, have an eff of about 70%, so you were wasting 30% before you begin) you might want to shop around for 50-150watt micro atx power supply,

Food for thought: typical computer fans use 12v and .09 a (90mA) [R= volts/amps] so fans have a load of 133 (R). so Power (w) = (volts x amps) = 1.08 watts. Why run a ps with 200watt rating to run 2 fans that use 2watts ?

[oscarbreeder]

Looks great.
Good job.

I really like the moon lights.

[yaksplat]

just use a 12VDC plug in wall transformer from radioshack. Cut the wires and resolder it to the fan's wires. In this case you should be able to use some trial and error. If the fan turns the wrong way, switch the polarity. I'm not sure if the yellow or red wire is th hot lead, but i believe that the black wire is the ground.

Jim