Help with DIY Lighting - 10 gallon

[pos_user]

Hey guys,

 

I want to know if anyone has ever successfully completed a DIY fixture from scratch. With parts bought at home depot or the like.

 

I have time tonight to get to home depot, and I would rather do things myself than by the 96w power quad for 100 bucks. I wanted to know if anyone knows exactly what I would need and if I would be able to get atleast 3w per gallon for my 10g new nano. And also if i can fit the lights in the standard housing area that came with the 10g tank. I see a lot of people/and threads that have done a lot of DIY for MH. But nothing really for flouresant, unless its too way back and I cant search for it.

 

I was wondering if I needed to get special ballasts, or special clips for the light connectors to connect to...perhaps even home depot sells 10k flourescents. Let me know guys, thanks. I could always go the easy route and by the quad 96w...but you dont learn much from buying other peoples work.

 

I will be doing research after I post this, hopefully one of you guys have the time to help this newb

[SaltyDawg]

I have several times. Just takes a good imagination a little skill and some patience. With a 10 gallon tank you are definately gonna want to go with compacts though. It is the biggest and brightest bagn for the buck. Home depo compacts are el-cheapo peices of doo-doo that are rated at less than 4.5k. You can only find the 6.5k compacts in bulbs under 13w. at Home depo.

I would spend the money on just the bulbs and the ballast som,e where else if I were you. Then I woul revisit the home depo and get all I needed to "build the hood around the lights". You dont need fancy shmancy connectors either. Pig tail connectors work great for the task. I would how ever buy the correct clipssomwhere for your bulbs to be held in place in your new hood.

[emarti20]

Check out the lighting and DIY forums and you'll see tons of examples of total DIY hoods. Generally speaking you'll need to get a retro or diy kit from somewhere like ahsupply.com or hellolights.com. That will get you the ballast, end caps, basic wiring, clips, etc. From there it's up to you get your choice of wood, paint/stain etc.

[pos_user]

yeah, i've been doing a lot of reading this past couple hours.

 

What I did do is buy 2 (75watt 6,500k) bulbs for my freshwater tank which will be a lot better than the 15w aquarium stock light that it came with. they are 7 bucks a piece and the sockets are 2 bucks. They are 19w bulbs, but the output is 75 watt since its compact flour.

 

Does this mean by adding the 2 bulbs which I just did, i now have 150w of CF, and 6,500k lumens on each one? Or is this just a number and not relative when we are talking about these bulbs from home depot.

 

I have 1 19w/75w output 6,500k daylight bulb on each side of my stock hood. Drilled some holes, and some pieces of ply to drill the sockets in nice and tight and it seems to be ok . I used aluminum foil as a reflector in the hood, and the light is about 2 inches from the top of the hood and 1 inch from the glass seperator. That should be fine.

 

My only question is how many actual watts and lumens did I add by adding these two bulbs. Anyone know?

[USFnano]

Actually, they put out 19 watts of light. That's just comparable to the light output of a 75w incandescent, which puts out most of it's energy in heat.

[pos_user]

yeah, i was reading more and saw that. I have 2 of these at 6,500k lumens. So thats a total of 40 watts.

 

My next question is those 13w actinics from hellolights.com.

Do u need a ballast for those lights or can you just hardwire them in and plug them in like i did with the 19w CF lights from home depot. Sorry for the newb questions, gotta start somewhere brotha. Thanks all in advance.

[SeaSide]

6500K is not lumen. It is color temperature, which is color of light to human eyes, to long stroy short. 6500K means it produce white color light. nothing more nothing less.

 

Lumen is the energy output that bulb produce. So, that is what tells you how much light this particular bulb can put out at its best condition.

[SeaSide]

Your 19w curly light from HD includes ballast curcuit inside the bulb. So, you can just screw it into the socket, and it will work.

13w Pc bulb and other ordinary non-screw-in type bulbs does not have ballast curcuit inside. You will nedd a ballast to run it.

[pos_user]

i see, thanks for the info. Could you point me in the right direction as to where to get the ballast from? Can i use the ballast that came with my stock 10 gallon hood? It states "simple reactance ballast"?

 

thanks again for your help seaside.

[SeaSide]

I guess your best bet is ahsupply.com or hellolights.com.

They have all kind of PC bulbs, ballast, and other components.

I recommend you visit ahsupply.com even if you don't buy from them. The site has some info about PC lights, and also some DIY project by its customers.

[pos_user]

also looking into the 96w PC quad. Seems to be 20 or 30 bucks over what I will be spending anyway. This should be great lighting for a 10g. I would just have to stay away from anems.

[ODOG]

When I had my 10 gallon nano set up I purchased a kit from www.ahsupply.com that gave me 72 watts, 1 white bulb and 1 actinic.

 

I think it came with everything I needed and was still pretty "do it yourself" in that I had to do a little wiring and attach it all in my DIY hood. As for doing it cheap, I'm not sure you can really do it any cheaper than what it can be done at AH Supply or I've heard others say Hello Lights is good.

[DSparks]

I went down the same path you are taking. Waste of money because pretty soon I changed over to a DIY Metal Halide setup. Actually, it wasn't a complete waste because I still used the 13W PC setups in the hood with the MH for actinic supplementation.

 

If it's not too late, I'd go with the MH.

[pos_user]

yeah, i havent purchased anything yet. but im not looking to spend over 150 on my new 10 gallon. I see the pendant is 199.99 with bulb included, but then i would not have actinic light or room for another bulb as well. So along with spending more money than i want, it also limits my options when I want to add other bulbs. So im still not sure what to do.

[USFnano]

My lighting cost me about $110 total, 70w DE MH and 36w PC actinic, but I had the materials to build the hood already(would only cost a few $$ anyway).

[pos_user]

yeah, plywood comes in 4x8 sheets and i would have enough wood to make 4 hoods...if i had the experience that is. USF, do u have pics of your hood setup so I can see exactly what you did ?

[SeaSide]

USFnano, what items you bought with that $110?

If you got all of them off e-bay with good luck... then $110 makes some sence though... its your good luck. Good for you.

 

pos_user.

You may not lucky to find cheap like USFnano, or you don't have materials that he has. So, do not expect the same thing will happen to you. You'd better take a look at how much usually need for the setup. That'll give you more practical idea.

 

70W MH cost normally about 140 without pendant when you buy retrofit kit form LampDr. (If you buy off e-bay with good luck, this could be under $100 + S&H) And you may need Hood or pendant to mount it. So, there's some extra $$. If you want 32w PC, then you will need PC and ballast, which is extra $$ too. And, shipping and handling... other misc items (if you don't already have'em)... will add up. I would say about $200 is the cost for "70 MH +32w PC combo light" unless you are extremely lucky.

It is not bad still.

[alistair]

I just bought a 42w CF (150W incandescent) from HD I think this may be only 5100K. Is this any good for reef keeping?

[jojomichael]

i bought a 2X36 bright kit from ahsupply.com... total is close to $100. i bought some wood and made a simple, cheap hood.