I have to admit that I have left the hobby for the last few years, but after receiving this tank, the aquatic fever came back with a huge power.
I plunged myself into a quest for refreshing and enriching my knowledge in the field of aquaristics and soon I realized that I have missed a lot for the time being busy with other things :)
After reading a lot and seeing the achievements of Mr. Amano and all his followers, I felt, this will be the filed of the hobby, where to concentrate my effort.
So I had to find or make a lid, that will support a decent light fixture.
I decided to made the lid myself, which would give me the advantage of constructing and fixing a light fixture I choose.
I made a project and this is what I came with:
The apertures on the backside serves as a passage for all the hoses and cables passing out of the tank.
For material I have used 5 mm PVC Forex for the sides and front lid, 1cm tick PVC for the top part (the one supporting the lights), some plastic edges, 2 magnets, silicone, glue, 2 glass strips, lolly pop stick and two pins.
The glass strips is used for reinforcing the PVC lid, which tends to bend in time, because of the heat emitted of the lights.
I have decided, that for a 100l tank I will need unless 50-60 W of lighting. Considering the supply of specialized aquatic lights in Bulgaria in that time, this amount could be only provided by T8 fluorescent tubes.
So I decided to use 3 tubes of 18W. For the purpose I needed a good reflectors for distributing the light in the best possible way.
I have used the shape recommended by Tony Gomez:
This shape seems to provide the best light reflection with the lowest energy lost.
It was quite tricky to achieve this shape, thou, but its worthy!
Two pins and a lolly pop stick have been used for creating the axis for rotating the upper part of the lid, where all the reflectors and lights are placed.
Here you can see the sockets, lid holders and the magnet lockers I have used.
This simple DIY lid has been doing the job almost a year and a half and still doing it!
