# Help me figure out to suspend light fixture, 3d images for planning included



## longhornxtreme (Feb 20, 2007)

Hi all, I'm about to start a new leg of my life (law school) and I want my 29G to stop looking like a haphazard biology experiment and turn it into a genuine piece of furniture to show off. I've got a 2217 eheim for filtration, pressurized co2 running into the filter intake, and currently not so much light.

I had a great time with an AHSupply 1x36w kit for my 10g that I've decided I'm going to go with their bare wood 30" enclosure with 2 of their 1x55w kits. Why 2 1x55s? So i can run 1 of the 55's throughout the day with a 3-6 hour brighter spurt in the middle. Dosing is PPS-Pro by hand currently, with metered peristaltic pumps in the future.

I want to hang this enclosure, above my tank and go open top. Lily pipes from the side with inline heater, and inline reactor.

Here's a few pictures of my plans to hang it. I know for sure that hanging it from the cieling is a no go as it's an apartment, so basically I want to hang it from the wall without anything showing behind the tank. Model is only relative scale, and I really threw it into 3d over a period of about 10 minutes so no art critiques  I just like visual prototyping 

What do you think about hanging it that way? Is there a better way to do it? I also will have to deal with 2 power cables that can run into any part of the rear of the box. Also, is there a convenient way to raise and lower the fixture to make maintenance easier and to alter the intensity of light on the tank?

Thanks in advance for any replies.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Beautiful 3D sketches! I haven't mastered that skill yet, but this sure encourages me to try.

Your hanging scheme should work fine. The trick will be to find or make the brackets so they are the right length from the wall to hold the light centered over the tank. There are some nice looking metal shelf brackets available now that you could use too. For the power, you could run the cord wrapped around the "chain" at one end of the light and down along the back side of the shelf standard to below the tank. Adjusting the height could be as simple as lengthening or shortening the "chains" holding the light. That isn't very convenient but it would work. To do maintenance you could carefully wind the "chains" around the brackets to pull the light way up, or have a stud sticking up slightly on the top of each bracket and hook the chain link on the stud to hold it up high. Fortunately the AHS enclosures are light weight.

I used the same amount of light - 2 55 watt AHS lights - on my 29 gallon tank, and found it was more than I wanted. The plants really grew so fast it was a chore to keep them trimmed, and if I did anything at all wrong the algae took off growing rapidly too. Your idea of keeping only one going for most of the day should solve that problem. My lights were right on top of the tank, too, so raising them will help a lot.


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## longhornxtreme (Feb 20, 2007)

Thanks for your reply Hoppycalif, I appreciate the advice.

Shelving brackets were almost exactly what I had in mind. I figured that I could use something like container store Elfa type stuff, to where the 2 triangular pieces would be easily moved up and down an inch at a time.

As far as 3d goes, it's really quite easy once you learn the interface to a program. I used Silo, a wonderfully cheap (well, around $100) program that lets you do all sorts of polygon, subdivision, surface, and even sculpting in 3d. Fun stuff, and very useful as you can see 

Keeping one of them going most of the day would be about equivalent to the ghetto lighting my tank currently has. I.e. 2 18w T5NO's and 1 18 watt AGA light fixture crammed onto the top. I can run that setup with PPS pro about 11 hours a day and I barely have some GSA on the glass come weekly water change. I do dose Excel quite regularly though which probably helps me a bunch. I really only have 3 or 4 species of crypts, straight vals, 1 anubia, and some java moss in the tank currently as stemmies just don't do so well with my current lighting. I'm looking forward to growing some rotala and diplidis, lobelia, and maybe HC after the lighting upgrade is complete.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Be sure to get a little drop checker - the e-bay one is not too expensive and looks good - and use it per the thread in the stickies here. If you provide adequate CO2 and other nutrients that much light should let you grow just about anything you want to grow.


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## mhoy (Jun 12, 2007)

Can't think of an easy way to raise/lower the light, but be really sure it can't fall into the water. It's also possible the light will be tippy, you might want to think about two cables on each end forming an inverted V for more stability.

You can try out 3D modeling with Google's Sketchup. The price (free) can't be beat for a quick test of a layout.
http://sketchup.google.com


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## IbnOzn (Mar 16, 2007)

What if you did it this way?
It'd be a cleaner look without all the brackets.
You could use thin pipe and run the wiring through from the wall out to the light.
They make those great wall anchors that screw right into sheetrock and hold 75 lbs. so you don't even need to find studs.


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## IbnOzn (Mar 16, 2007)

Even better:
http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=13395&PRODID=60615
Use glass for the shelf.


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## longhornxtreme (Feb 20, 2007)

I really do like the look of that last solution, but I don't have the option of running the power cable through the wall as I'm in an apartment and renting type situation. I can put holes in the walls provided I fix them up before I leave. But running electrical leads is pushing my lease agreement.


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## longhornxtreme (Feb 20, 2007)

I like the idea of a glass shelve from container store as well... 

The problem come with being able to manipulate the height of the light above the tank. I'm going to have to find an ideal balance between light height and photoperiod.


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