Easy way to canopy mount a Radion/LED lights

[Jgoal55]

I recently added a canopy to my tank because it's right next to my daughters play area and toys kept finding their way inside.

Long story short, needed a way to mount my radion in the canopy and didn't have much height to work with because a tall canopy would have looked ridiculous on this tank.

I didn't want to drill through the top of the canopy either because it's low enough to where you could see it and the screws would look bad and I also wanted to be able to remove the light to clean it, etc.

Anyway, walking through the aisles of Home Depot I came across plumbing solder. Then this occurred to me.

4 stainless steel eye hooks and the radion cable mounts with plumbing solder "wired" through. Worked like a charm. Not the prettiest thing, but inside a canopy not a big deal. Definitely function over form here.

Here's the product. Super sturdy while still being extremely malleable. And no need to worry about rusting.

 

[dakar]

A better route... I have mine bolted through the top of the canopy. They screw right into the four threaded holes on top of the Radions. Super clean.

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[Jgoal55]

Right. I considered that but...

I didn't want to drill through the top of the canopy either because it's low enough to where you could see it and the screws would look bad and I also wanted to be able to remove the light to clean it

Also, the canopy has a Formica skin on it and it's pretty easy to crack Formica when drilling through. That combined with the fact you could see the screw heads pushed me towards not going that route. I guess they could be countersunk a bit, but then you still have the Formica cracking issue

 

[serkel]

A way to resolve the Formica problem is the lay down masking tape and just drill a tiny pilot hole first then just keep up sizing it till you the to the right diameter. The tape will help you from the bit walking everywhere and also protects from cracking. The kicker is that you need to do it with sharp bits and go slowly.

 

[Jgoal55]

A way to resolve the Formica problem is the lay down masking tape and just drill a tiny pilot hole first then just keep up sizing it till you the to the right diameter. The tape will help you from the bit walking everywhere and also protects from cracking. The kicker is that you need to do it with sharp bits and go slowly.

Ah. good to know! Thanks for the tip. I'll keep that in mind in case I decide to drill through the formica at any point.

Funny enough (well, crappy enough), my Radion died on me last week. I had to take the whole thing off and send to Ecotech. I was sooooo happy I had mounted it the way I did. I removed it in about 2 minutes.

 

[nivram]

Jorge can you just use one of the hanging cable kits from Home Depot? The solder stuff just seems soft.


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[Jgoal55]

Jorge can you just use one of the hanging cable kits from Home Depot? The solder stuff just seems soft.


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The hanging kits lowered the light about another half inch to an inch which was too much. Needed to keep light as high as possible because of it being such a short/shallow canopy. Since the solder allows me to go straight through the eye hooks and through the mounting threads on the radion, It keeps the mounting threads and eye hooks parallel.

The original plan was to use stainless fishing leader clamped around the eye hooks. But again, I wanted to be able to remove the light to clean the fan and pucks when necessary. The clamped fishing leader would not have allowed that.

Believe it or not, while it is malleable, the thicker gauge solder is actually very sturdy. It's held the ecotech perfectly in place. It's definitely not going to hold a halide or t5 fixture in place, but for these light LED fixtures, it's perfect.

Again, it's definitely not the prettiest solution, and if you have space to spare, it's not the best solution, but for a situation like mine, the combination of wanting to remove the light, having limited height, and it not being visible, it's worked great so far.