open top vs. canopy

The canopy is about 14 inches tall. Maybe 15ish with the crown moulding. Bottom of the fixture is about 9-10" to water. What size tank do you have? The tall canopy looks great with my 90 gal.

 

For the price, I like the panorama's and I don't plan on hard corals. Good luck with your lights!

 

IMO...
If you want the best looking fixture - Radion
Best all around fixture for the price - ReefBreeders
I have Radions in a canopy and REALLY want to get my hands on the new RB fixtures coming out in a few months.

 

Sidebar - Arkaeus, I LOVE your reef-cam and tank. I am so doing this on my set-up!

 

+1 my set-up also, I have a single Radion over my 70g cube with BRS custom screen.

 

Annie, I am letting my canopy dictate my lighting. I just upgraded to this tank a few months ago. I really dont think i can have a new canopy made for $100. but I will call a few places and get some pricing. I hope they can match the canopy to my stand. What would everyones perfect canopy look like? picture would be great!

 

installing leds would be super easy in just about any canopy. I just built a canopy for my LEDS (ecoxotic) and I used spacers between the heatsink and top of the canopy. My current fans are built into the canopy and are aimed right at the space between heatsink/canopy. I will be upgrading with in the next six months and when I do the new canopy will have holes in the top and fans right over the new lights.

 

I really like this Canopy, with a matching stand is similar to what I will be building for my new tank. Though if it were up to me I would just use pendant lighting and rimless.

 

Here's my hanger's and by open top canopy that keeps the scatter-side light out of my family room.

Hanging them from my ceiling was not practical. The ceiling over my DT in my family room is 18 feet high!!
Post # 9 shows the pic of it:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/led-aqu...d-my-chinese-120w-leds-post-164-a-131959.html

Wow!! Just looked at my FTS in the 4th pic on Post #9,
It was so empty compared to now!!
Now over 50 different species of coral!

 

Mine was a pretty simple DIY made with pretty common tools. The only expensive part of the canopy were the cabinet doors which I had custom made. I wanted it to look professionally made and the doors accomplished that while the rest was made with materials found at lowes. Oak hardwood for the front and trim. Oak playwood sides to save $. The only tools I used were a miter saw and drill. Low cost, low skill, high reward .


If u already have a canopy u like, show us see a pic of it and maybe we can help u with ideas for modifying it to work with new lights. Chances are with some modification it will work. You can also reuse parts of the canopy that u are fond of, like the doors or trim. U can find stain to match your cabinet with some simple trial and error on some scrap wood. There are lots of fairly simple DIYs on this site too that will give u good results.