light height?

[Treadingwater]

I'm going to be using three 250 watt MH's (PFO retro's w/Ushio 10k bulbs) on my 180 gal (24" deep) tank. I want to be able to keep clams and SPS corals on the bottom if I choose to. How high off the top of the water can I go with the lights?

Jack

 

[reefsandrotts]

6-12" always worked for me.

 

[mfisher2112]

I'm going to be using three 250 watt MH's (PFO retro's w/Ushio 10k bulbs) on my 180 gal (24" deep) tank. I want to be able to keep clams and SPS corals on the bottom if I choose to. How high off the top of the water can I go with the lights?

Jack

I'm glad you asked that! ;D I'm going to be putting 2 x 250's on my 90, that helps with the canopy planning.

 

[Treadingwater]

That's why I asked

I'm trying to figure out how to hang my lights since I don't really want to go with a full enclosed canopy. I'm planning a roll-away type mounting since the tanks going in my basement and I have a low ceiling height down there. With my stand being 37" tall and the tank adding another 25", I only have another 18" or so to play with and I prefer not to have to lift off the whole canopy everytime I need to get into the tank.

Jack

 

[mfisher2112]

I'm looking at a couple of different options with my hood.

I won't have any space behind the stand to speak of, so I am toying with the idea of making the lid in multiple pieces. The front will fold up to allow for feeding, but I am thinking of coming up with some way to rig the panel the lights mount on to some kind of locking hinge so that the entire top will lift up to a vertical position and lock in place to allow me to get full access to the tank without removing the entire hood. Should also make for easier bulb changes.

I'm also looking at some way to the lights so that they can slide left or ride on some sort of rail.

Still all in the research stages right now, but I should be able to come up with something.

 

[mikem]

Here's my canopy on my 125gal. I used drawer slides to slide the lights back out of the way to work in the tank.

 

[mfisher2112]

Nice canopy. Hell, nice tank! ;D

Great idea with the drawer slides. I think I have a few sets left out in my shop from a previous project, maybe I will give that a try.

That's the beauty of building it yourself. If it don't work, tear it apart and start again! ;D

 

[mikem]

Thanks. I've built quite a few different ones. Got the idea from Merve.

 

[Treadingwater]

Nice canopy. Hell, nice tank! ;D

I agree!! Very nice Mike.

I'm not looking to make this stand and canopy realy pretty as it's a temporary set up until I can get my custom tank and redo the room it's going to go in. I don't want to completely enclose the top of the tank so that I can have free air flow between the tank and the lights. My basement stays at a pretty decent temp, so I'm hoping that with just this space the tank will stay cool enough. If not then hopefully just a fan blowing across the top of the water when the mh's are on should keep it at a good temp.

 

[camz28]

I have my 250 MH 8" from the top of the tank in a 72 BF , this is about the distance that everyone pretty much put them at .