sea swirl too close to t5 lights?

lark

New member
Apparently, I didn't measure correctly -- I didn't take into account a lip on my canopy. My retro lights in my canopy end up sitting about 3/4 to 1" above the top of a sea swirl that I just got for my system. Any problem there? t-5 lights normally driven (54w) with slr reflectors.

The bulb will be just about 1 inch above the tube that feeds my sea swirl. It's not going to melt the sea swirl, I wouldn't think. Should I use opaque tubing to sea swirl? Will it heat up the water or anything. Any other concerns?
 
lark,
I would make a heat sheild, shade out of some type of material, maybe take a piece of black plastic or some type of thin metal, and mount it between the ss. and the lights. Make sure it is large enough to shade as much of the ss as possible. Most imortant.. it has to be floating between both items. Don't let it touch eiter. This will dramatically reduce any concern of heat build up, as the air, and shade from the sheild in the space between is a great insulator from heat. Just my suggestion.
 
I had to do it to mine,
It can be as easy as a few cable ties around your plumbing to hold the plastic heat sheild, but you might be better actually attaching it to someething else, like your lighting fixtures mounting legs, or from your hood. Do you have any pics of the area in discussion?
 
It's really hard to take a picture, because the clearance situation is only apparent when the canopy is closed.

There is room in my canopy between the lights, though, to put a piece of wood that would come down vertically from the middle of my canopy with, say, some L brackets. If there were some kind of rigid shield I could attach to that piece of wood that went straight back, it would be fine. It would have to be very thin, though.

So, from the side of the canopy if you could see through the side, it would look like the diagram below The top line is the top of the canopy. The 1s are the piece of wood (or even some other material so long as it can be attached to a wood canopy) that could be attached to the canopy by L-bracket. The second parallel line is the shield. "SSI" is the SS input, and the other "S"s are the SS. If it could screw into the butt end of the piece of wood and be rigid so that it wasn't attached to anything on the left side of this picture, it could work. What could I use that's very thin, and rigid? It could be really narrow, I think, because only the input of the sea swirl is that close to the lights -- so like 2 or 3 inches wide should be fine if it provides protection. The back of my canopy (the part to the left) is open.

________________________________ < Top of Canopy
Light 1 Light
Light 1 Light
____________
Tubing SSI
SSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSS
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - < Water Line
SS
SS


EDIT: Picture doesn't publish like I intend it. Basically, imagine that there is about 4" between the lights, and the 1s extend down vertically to the second parallel line, which is the proposed shield.
 
I had the same issue. Its as simple as a piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil and just glue it to the top of fitting via some hot glue or silicone. After a year or so it may get looking bad and you simply replace it. You need it just large enough to be sun shade over the swirl.
Good luck, Jerry.
 
I can't really see it being a problem, the end caps are PVC and they don't melt, plus running my lights all day I can still grab a hold of the tube with out burning myself, so with that said there should not be enough heat transfer to melt plastic.
 
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