Using Aluminum foil as a reflector?

[Absinthena]

Hey. I am tired of buying standard flourescent housing units....
I have a 20L with currently no live plants or anything special. I intend to put, at most, two 24 in T-8 bulbs, using my ballast and crap. I make wood canopies.... and on my saltwater I spent 30 bucks to buy a "reflector" .. but I was wondering- could I live the inside of my wooden canopy with aluminum foil to reflect the 2 standard flourescents? I was trynig to look around on the board and I kept egtting bogged down with information I don't understand about big-time lighting. This is a baby application compared to everything else I had read.

So someone let me know... the foil wouldnt be touching anything metal, by the way.

Thanks!

 

[reefrunner69]

I think you will get better results from painting the inside ot the canopy white, I've done this before and it works very well.

You might also consider tin roof flashing.

 

[GrndHog]

Another option is aluminum flashing from HD, pretty cheap and you can polish it.

 

[Absinthena]

What is "flashing" exactly? Aside from the key word "roof", I don't know where I would go in the store for that!

 

[GrndHog]

At my local Lowes, it was in the roof supply section. It comes in different size rolls.

 

[yaksplat]

flashing is the aluminum material that builders use around a chimney, parts of siding, sometimes between brick and roofing material. It has plenty of uses, mostly to wick water away from holes cut into the house.

Jim

 

[Guest]

I'm not a very good diy guy, so I stuck with painting the inside of my canopy. The brightest white outdoor paint I could get, works very well for light-reflecting purposes. You need to use outdoor paint due to the very high humidity and occasional splashing you'll get inside the canopy.

 

[GrndHog]

Hers a couple shots of the flashing. I also wrapped a 1x4x4 in flashing and installed 5 LED's for my moonlighting. I dont if that helps the moonlighting at at all but it looks uniformed in my setup