DIY Aauarium

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DIY Aquarium

By Blane Perun

PVC Hood

by Grant Tokumi

Here's a picture of my hood that I made out of 1/2' PVC pipe and plastic rain gutters. The hood can hold up to four full length bulbs and the bulb connections are all water proof (safe from splash but maybe not submersion). When the hood is open, there is lots of room to clean the tank. I soldered the wires to the bulbs and slid part of a 3 - 4 inch strip of bicycle inner tube (the BMX size tube, 1.75 is around the right size) to cover the ends and make a water proof seal. You can use pull straps to close the other end of the innertube around the wire but I didn't do that in the pictures. Holes were drilled in the appropriate places on the PVC

fittings to run all the wires inside the PVC pipe to the opposite side and then back out to the remote ballast. One last thing. I had to cover the inside of the gutter with tin foil and run a wire from there to a ground (the third prong in the middle of some plugs). The bulbs wouldn't go on if I didn't do this. The lights are controlled by timers.