Canopy Mod

[lnevo]

I have one of those crappy canopies, you know the ones... Too short, not enough room, and has one of those lids on the top instead of the front.

 

Anyway, i eventually want to build a new one, but in the meantime a few bucks a bit of elbow grease and I made a few improvements.

 

I installed a new piece of 1x2 molding to hold up the frame for my light fixtures. It's not a lot but its the most I could fit considering the height of the canopy. That allowed me to consider the next idea.

 

I actually had to do this step first, but what I did was make a mitered cut about 7 inches from the front of the canopy. I used L brackets to connect the lid to the new loose piece of canopy. Now the front and sides flip back along with the canopy.

 

I did the miter cut to have some overlap so there would be no light leakage on the sides. The few inches made a nice little difference. I can now get underneath and clean my center brace and reach to my overflow. The whole canopy can now slide back to the wall and the light fixture goes back nicely. I have a lot more room to work since now i can access from the rim of the tank instead of 8" higher on a step ladder.

 

[ReeferMadness]

Nice

[YHSublime]

Awesome! Well done!

[DuffyGeos]

Great idea! I like the miter cut to keep the light from bleeding out

Oh, and we will need pics of a FTS since it looks awesome!

Edited December 10, 2014 by DuffyGeos

[lnevo]

Thanks Duffy. The mod has been working great and overall has really made access and maintenance soooo much better. However, the tank had some serious problems and I've lost a lot of coral. Just finished doing a reset. Full sandbed cleaning. 50% water change, rescape, and dead coral removal. I'm really happy with how well everything has responded so far. I have also removed the optics from the lights and the tank feels so much brighter and the light is so much crisper with better blending and spread. PAR measurements are coming. Here is the latest FTS.