Eclipse 3 Hood possible mods - These going to be ok?

[Leader of Men]

Hey guys, thinking about making a few mods to my Eclipse 3 System hood on my 29 gallon aquarium.

They'd be some fairly small mods, and would barely cost anything at all, but could give me a little extra kick in my aquarium. First of all, right now I have gravel in there, and I think I'm going to switch it over to sand, which will be tricky considering all the fish in there. But that's neither here nor there, here's what I'm thinking of doing...

-I want to cut a part off of the filter tube making the filter's hose shorter and allowing me more room for rocks in that area
-I want to make it reflective behind the lights making the aquarium brighter
-I want to find a way to add moon lights

I may not go through with the moon lights, but if I could find something that would reflect the lights back forward that might be really good for getting more light into my aquarium. Not that my aquarium is too dark, but I would like more light, who wouldn't? That one does scare me a bit, though. I don't want anything to overheat or anything in there...

The moonlights probably wouldn't be too hard, I think I would put them on the other flap that covers the hood, not the one with the lights on it, and I'd just hid a switch in the back. But what do you guys think? Would these create any risk in my aquarium?

 

[HooKooDooKu]

I've been working on a 5 gallon corner Eclipse myself right now.

One of the things you can do to improve the lighting without worrying about overheating anything is to apply "Duck Foil HVAC Tape" on the various black surfaces inside of the hood (with the exception of the light housing). (A roll cost about $7 at places like Lowe's.) The idea is to basically change all those black surfaces to light reflecting surfaces to redirect more of the available light into the tank.

Basically, HVAC Foil tape is like aluminum foil with a sticky backing. You just cut the tape to fit the various nooks and crannies (it will take a while, so take your hood off the tank and sit down in front of your favoriate TV show or DVD with the tape and a pair of sissors). The tape has a wax backing, so it's easy to cut the tape to fit somewhere, then peel the wax backing off. One of the tricks to getting the wax backing off is to bend a small corner back away from the wax side. What basically happens is the foil retains the bent shape, but the wax will try to straiten back up pulling itself away from the foil.

If the lamp is an Eclipse tube that came with the hood, you might also consider changing that out. The reason I say that is because I used my digital camera to effectively measure the light comming from my tank using an Eclipse 10 watt CFL vs. a 9 watt Daylight (5000K) CFL from Lowe's. The Lowe's CFL beat the Eclipse CFL by a full F-stop, even though the Eclipse CFL was 10% larger in watts.

 

[Leader of Men]

I've been working on a 5 gallon corner Eclipse myself right now.

One of the things you can do to improve the lighting without worrying about overheating anything is to apply "Duck Foil HVAC Tape" on the various black surfaces inside of the hood (with the exception of the light housing). (A roll cost about $7 at places like Lowe's.) The idea is to basically change all those black surfaces to light reflecting surfaces to redirect more of the available light into the tank.

Basically, HVAC Foil tape is like aluminum foil with a sticky backing. You just cut the tape to fit the various nooks and crannies (it will take a while, so take your hood off the tank and sit down in front of your favoriate TV show or DVD with the tape and a pair of sissors). The tape has a wax backing, so it's easy to cut the tape to fit somewhere, then peel the wax backing off. One of the tricks to getting the wax backing off is to bend a small corner back away from the wax side. What basically happens is the foil retains the bent shape, but the wax will try to straiten back up pulling itself away from the foil.

If the lamp is an Eclipse tube that came with the hood, you might also consider changing that out. The reason I say that is because I used my digital camera to effectively measure the light comming from my tank using an Eclipse 10 watt CFL vs. a 9 watt Daylight (5000K) CFL from Lowe's. The Lowe's CFL beat the Eclipse CFL by a full F-stop, even though the Eclipse CFL was 10% larger in watts.

I got a new light, and that tape sounds like a great idea. I'll try that out and I have to fix another light somehow... It seems that one of my lights is broken. I haven't had much experience with the corner 5 gallons, but if yours is like mine -- I have an idea for moon lighting as well. I'm going to run the cord through the back where the cords for the light and filter go in and then put it on the flap that comes up when I feed them. If I do it right enough light should still get down there to be effective and it will be safely out of the way. The switch will probably just go on the back, that way I can have either light, both lights, or no lights.

The problem with my lighting right now is that something seems to have failed. A small little switch inside the hood that's not quite like anything I've seen yet. Hopefully I can get that all fixed up without much worry...