slickwillislim

I just finished building a hood for my new 6g tank.

This whole project started when I won this 6g tank and a light fixture at a raffle at the last SCAPE meeting. The fixture that was given to me was a 55w cf 50/50 saltwater bulb. I am not up to the financial requirements of a nano reef so I decide to make a small-planted shrimp tank.

At the moment it just has a few rocks that I was thinking about using and some gravel I had lying around.

The hood is made out of scrap pieces of 1/8in plywood that was used to line the bottom of our cabinets. I also used the scrap edging and corner pieces from our cabinet installation to build the rest. It is structurally held together with small finishing nails and a lot of glue. I managed to attach a 20w 24" t8 fixture from my 29g tank inside my newly built fixture with the use of a few wood screws and some more scrap wood. I found the hinges used for the flap on a small balsa wood jewelry box I had lying around. I also used part of this box as corner supports since I couldn’t nail together 1/8in plywood. I used the clips to hold the pieces while the glue dried.

The whole project was 0 cost to me and I think it looks pretty good and best of all (according to my mom) is it matches the kitchen. I realize it isn’t perfect but I am 16 and not very experienced with making straight cuts with a saw and I tried circular saw than a saws all and finally the hand saw. I must admit this was a learning process and I would do a lot of things differently if I did it again but it was fun.

cwlodarczyk

Lookin' good! It'll be nice to see it with something other than rocks in it.

John N.

Great looking hood. Better than anything I could ever make. Nothing like making things out of things "found" around the house.

-John N.

slickwillislim

Those where some fast comments. I to cant wait to put some live things in the tank. Thanks for the compliment on the hood. I love making things out of stuff I find lying around. I usually end up making a mess and wasting far more time than the project is worth but I do have fun doing it. Atleast with this project I dont think I broke anything or glued anything to anything that it shouldnt be glued to, but I wont be sure until I finish cleaning up tommorrow.

turtlehead

NICE haha too bad you aren't using the 55watt knock off. The thing about this tank is that it's long 2 feet is a lot of room for some shrimp. Good luck with this and your other project with the tek lights, I just got mine today and I'm so excited..

slickwillislim

I cant wait to see some pictures of your tank turtlehead. Did you get starcoats for the tek, where did you end up buying it.

turtlehead

Yea, I was going to buy some ATi Sun bulbs too, but I haven't hear much about them so I just went with 4 Starcoats for 59$ shipped at aqualuxlighting.com. The ATi were also 2$ more and I had a budget so I went with the GE since everyones raving about them. They are the cheapest I have found thanks to Gomer who suggested it to me.

hoppycalif

That's a nice looking hood, for a very reasonablel price! Good job!

turbomkt

I was looking for that 55w light as well!!!