Buillding a lighting fixture...

[jaycie]

Hey everyone, I got a few questions on building a lighting fixture for my 29 [acronym:84721d9331="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:84721d9331] [acronym:84721d9331="Fish only with live rock"]FOWLR[/acronym:84721d9331]. Could I buy a flouresant fixture from Home Depot (2x20 watt T12 I believe, or T15 if there is such a thing) and a Metal Halide fixture that an electrician friend of mine hooked up? I'm not too sure if there are different types of metal halide bulbs, but I know that it's 35 watts. So it'd be a total of 75 watts. I know that I could just buy a whole new system, but i'd rather spend $25 on the florescent fixture and $20 on the wood and make it myself.(the metal halide unit was free) Also if this will work, do I need a fan? And what kind of florescent bulbs should I use?By the way, the lighting that I have now is just a single 20 watt with a 10K bulb. I know that was a lot of questoins, but thanks anyways for your help!

[Reese]

Yes. You can go the Home Depot route and build your own. You can disassemble the ballast set up and just mout the endcaps to your hood so as not to take up space.

Based on your question about wattage and using a metal hallide, are you considering keeping light dependent animals in the future? I don't know much about [acronym:e540806a4d="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:e540806a4d] lighting, so that aside, if you are thinking of keeping an anenome for example, you might want to forego the Home Depot project and just purchase a [acronym:e540806a4d="Very high output fluorescent"]VHO[/acronym:e540806a4d] ballast for your 29. That way you could mix an actinic blue and a 10,000K giving you 50/50 lighting at 130 watts. This unit is a good deal and worked great in my 29: http://www.hellolights.com/2laaroasbaki.html

Also, hellolights.com has the best deal on bulbs I've been able to find. My [acronym:e540806a4d="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:e540806a4d] sells [acronym:e540806a4d="Very high output fluorescent"]VHO[/acronym:e540806a4d] bulbs for almost double the price.

But, again, I'm just assuming that this might be something you are interested in. If not, please disregard...

As far as a fan goes, I believe that if your hood is open you don't need one but it couldn't hurt. But definately if you have a closed hood I would, especially since I'm under the impression that [acronym:e540806a4d="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:e540806a4d] bulbs give off a ton of heat.

Good luck...

[ccCapt]

I never heard of a 35w mh. [acronym:35b41f96d0="As far as I know"]AFAIK[/acronym:35b41f96d0] the lowest wattage mh is 150.

[jaycie]

The store that I manage had all the lighing replaced my electrician friend made me the setup from the leftovers. I know that it's a 35 watt metal halide because I was given the specs for when I have to reorder bulbs. So, I don't know if this is a different TYPE of [acronym:5dce7aceda="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:5dce7aceda], anyone know if it'd be okay? And Reese, thanks for the heads up on the [acronym:5dce7aceda="Very high output fluorescent"]VHO[/acronym:5dce7aceda] ballast, it's good to have other options. However, if the Home Depot setup and the [acronym:5dce7aceda="Metal halide light"]MH[/acronym:5dce7aceda] fixture I have will work, then I'll prob. stick with that. And I'm not getting anemones, just fish and whatever grows on the live rock I have. Thanks a lot for the feedback.

[ccCapt]

If this is what you have, they are going to be extremely yellow looking. 3,000K is way to low in the color spectrum. You want at least 6500K.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.ph...l-Halide-Bulbs

[jaycie]

[acronym:7133a211d3="Normal Output Fluorescents"]NO[/acronym:7133a211d3], the bulb doens't look like that. It's like a small tube that has pins on the bottom to plug into the fixture. It's not a scew on type. I'll try to get the specs when I go to work tomorrow. Thanks for the reply though.

[jaycie]

by the way, I wasn't trying to capitalize no like I was yelling.