Halides on top of canopy or inside

[dadummy]

Hey there,

Going to build a canopy for a 150g 72x18x29 and the lighting will be three reef optics 3 pendants driven by blue wave M80 magnetic ballasts.

I like the idea of building the canopy so the pendants will sit outside, on top of the canopy. The canopy will be tall enough to hide the pendants, with the "top" of the canopy being about 7" above the tank.

My reasoning for this is the tank will stay cooler, a fan could be placed on top of the canopy to blow the heat away from the pendants and fans inside the canopy to vent the heat

does this sound reasonable or am I being a numbskull?

Functionally a square box with a flip face/top would allow better access to the tank, however I would settle for limited access( no flip top) if the heat dissipation would be substantial

whatcha think?

thanks

 

[theatrus]

Sounds totally reasonable - I've seen this setup before. Just make sure the hottest parts of the lamp are not resting on any wooden structures and enough cooling can flow where it needs to go.

 

[dadummy]

ok cool, thanks. was thinking of trimming the inside of the cut out for the pendants with aluminum angle. Now that you mentioned it, I could probably figure a way to stand the angle off of the wood to allow airflow around the angle as well. Think I have some 3/8 stainless tubing, could cut 1/4" spacers to put between the wood and angle with screw running through the tube