36 inch tank 80 watts of light

[lelover]

I just picked up a used 40G tank that I'd like to make into a beautiful planted community aquarium. Does anyone have experience or resources that they could share for the cheapest way to get 80 watts on a 3 foot tank?

 

[endparenthesis]

You could buy a 4 foot shoplight with two 40 watt bulbs and set it on top or suspend it a few inches above the tank. $15-$20 total at Walmart. Get a "sunshine" tube (5000K) and a "plant & aquarium" tube (kelvin of mine wasn't labelled... it has a red tint) and you know you have your spectrum covered and the two balance each other out to make an eye-pleasing white light.

 

[lelover]

Cool website end parenthesis. Did you design it yourself?
Thanks for the idea. That certainly sounds like the cheapest option. I'd would however, like to be able to fit the bulbs inside the hood so that it still looks nice. I don't have any electrical skills, but I'm wondering what it would take to be able to fit four 20 watt bulbs in the current hood. Another option would be to replace the two bulb set up with one long high wattage bulb. What do you think?

 

[endparenthesis]

Cool website end parenthesis. Did you design it yourself?
Thanks for the idea. That certainly sounds like the cheapest option. I'd would however, like to be able to fit the bulbs inside the hood so that it still looks nice. I don't have any electrical skills, but I'm wondering what it would take to be able to fit four 20 watt bulbs in the current hood. Another option would be to replace the two bulb set up with one long high wattage bulb. What do you think?

My site? Yeah, that's my old portfolio site. It's long out of date... up for nostalgia more than anything else. Thanks for the kudos.

4 20-watt tubes is probably a good plan if you want them inside the hood. It's tricky finding small high-wattage tubes... you have to start looking into compact fluorescents and the like. I haven't really done any DIY lighting so I probably won't be of much help... but there are a lot of plans for DIY hoods online. Maybe another member can help, or a google search. All you really need is the electronics and the enclosure to hold them all in... maybe you could find a 4-tube shoplight that uses the shorter bulbs and nail together a little wooden box for it all to go inside.

Hopefully someone else has better input than I do.

Good luck.

 

[Bol]

but I'm wondering what it would take to be able to fit four 20 watt bulbs in the current hood.

Probably, the ability to bend space.

A 20W Normal Output bulb will be 24" long. You'd probably want to stagger them, like this (edit: ascii artwork doesn't work too well here:

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Or, use two twin-tube strips, like this:

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But. those options would probably take a lot of front-to-back room. Prboably about 9-10 inches. Certainly wouldn't fit into your current hood (unless it's custom made).

If you want to use your current hood (I assume it has a single, 36" long light strip), then I would say your overall best option would be to buy a retrofit kit (many people highly recommend those sold by AH Supply, particularly for their excellent reflectors and good prices). You could retrofit two 36W compact fluorescent bulbs end to end fairly easily. Using AH Supply's web site, the retrofit kit (reflector, ballasts, end caps) costs $63, and the bulbs will cost about $16 each, so the total cost would be about $100, and you'd have 72W of CF light over your tank, which would probably be a very good solution for low- and medium- light plants.