Lighting Canopy

Figuring out how I wanted to do the lighting turned out to be a huge headache. I had a 24" power compact fluroescent retrofit kit built into an old Eclipse 3 "all-in-one" hood. I had several options: place the light on the glass, hang the light from the wall or ceiling, build a full canopy for the tank, or figure out some box to put it in. I finally decided to make a wood box to sit on top of the glass. This would allow the light to be raised from the glass while not having it shining in the eyes of someone on the couch beside it. Using a jigsaw, I cut two 29"x6" and two 6"x5.5" pieces of 1/2" oak. After using 2" decking screws I had laying around, next wood working project I will use proper cabinet joints. After a light sanding, I stained with "Black Cherry" and satin polyurethane. Using a pvc spacer, I screwed the reflector/heat shield to the top-inside of the box. In the center I screwed in the ballast and a 8cm computer fan. I attached the fan to a universal AC-DC power adapter. I've found that 4.5V pushed plenty of air while remaining silent. If I ever run into problems with too much heat, I can easily switch to 6V or more. Power plugs for the adapter and the ballast were then plugged into a dual outlet digital timer switch. I replaced the old 6700K light with a 50/50 10,000k natural daylight and true actinic 03 blue 65W compact fluorescent bulb. In the near future, I hope to add LED moonlighting. I ended up with a great looking lighting canopy that can be easily moved to the floor when cleaning and has plenty of room for an additional compact fluorescent or LED light strip.