Will my plastic hood still work?

[DRVNFAST]

Hi All!!!

I am about to retro-fit by 28'' plastic light hood with the ahsupply.com 1x55 kit. I will be using a 5300K bulb.

I have your everyday plastic petsmart cover. My full-spectrum 20W bulb gets pretty warm already, is this new set-up going to be too hot?

 

[tsonnenl]

I made a DIY hood for the ahsupply 2X96 kit out of oak recently, and you might be able to get away with just mounting the lights and reflector in there, but there's no way the ballast will take it. It will burn your hand if you touch it for more than a second. I can't imagine attaching it to a plastic hood and having it hold. You might be able to mount it somewhere else, but that would be a pain.

With that said, my LFS has 2x55 kits installed in 4 plastic hoods over a 125g tank, but I didn't poke around underneath to see how they set it up.

I'm extremely happy with how mine DIY hood turned out, and all I did was follow the directions that are sent with the kit. I was nervous before I started, but anybody can use glue and nails. Trust me, its not hard. I'm retarded and mine looks awesome.