# nano cube diy lighting?



## scream-aim-fire (Oct 20, 2009)

anyone ever do a custom diy lighting for a nano cube hood? i think that i need more wattage over my 12gal nano cube, i currently have a 27watt 65,000k compact florescent bulb in the hood.


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## scream-aim-fire (Oct 20, 2009)

lol sorry didnt mean 65,000k, i ment to say 6,500k. has anyone done l.e.d lighting on thier tank


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## scream-aim-fire (Oct 20, 2009)

anyone?


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## Ovrkill (Nov 18, 2009)

You could make a custom hood and add additional light bulb sockets like I have done in the past. With a little bit of wood working skill and electrical know how you can make a pretty nice hood with adequate light.


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## scream-aim-fire (Oct 20, 2009)

yeah i thought about that, you have any pics of any of the lighting that youve done?


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## Ovrkill (Nov 18, 2009)

No pics right now,,, soon though.

I am making a new hood now for my new Betta tank and when I am finished I am going to do a journal and post it up here and when I get a chance to finish it (I am hoping for tomorrow) I will post up the pics and send you a link to my photobucket folder.

For my crab tank I basically had 2 porcelain light fixtures (from Lowes without the light switch on it so you wont have to reach into your hood to turn the lights off lol) attached to the sides of the hood. I bought a cheap extension cord and cut the head off of it and then wired it into the fixtures. I also got a switch from Lowes that I connected to the wire so I could turn it on/off without having unplug the cord. The crab tank hood is kinda messy at it was my first real DIY hood and built in a hurry in one night, my new Betta one will be 10000000000% better lol. The Betta tank will also have a 67watt halogen bulb that will shine during mid-day for a couple of hours, provided that it doesn’t create an algae problem. If so then I will just use it for my 29gallon hood in the future. All together I think I spent around 50$ maybe for my Betta hood. Crab tank I think it was around 30ish. I know I could have probably gotten a hood from the local pet shop for less but this way I can alter it any way that I want to, I can tailor it to my needs and,,,,, because I just wanted to make it.

Right now I have the crab tank hood on the Betta tank which is in the bathroom. Its running 2 Daylight (6500k) 23W CFL bulbs and its enough to make the tank uber bright to the point we are not even using the bathroom lights anymore lol. 

As for your question about LED’s, the only thing that I ever did with them as far as a fish tank was just some “moon lights” that I threw together. Worked out great till we had a power surge that blew the cell phone charger I was using to power it. Still got the string of LED’s around somewhere. Speaking of which,,,, I could probably add “moon lighting” to my Betta hood,,,,, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……..


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