My 12 year old daughter talked me into putting a 10 gal in her room. Here are some pics from the build tonight. I call it an experiment because we had some of what it took to coble it together already sitting around and also because we are trying a real DIY lighting setup. We are using 3 standard 26W twisty bulbs. 2 are 6500K and I made 1 blue using a special anodize spray which is translucent. The color with a good coating mimics the color of actinic quite well. I also gave her LR, LS and water from my big tank, so the cycle should be minimal. It's fun to do a project like this with your kids. She is really getting into researching fish and corals trying to decide what she wants to put it in. She even got an official initiation tonight when I made her start the siphon out of the bucket and she got a mouthful of saltwater. She was really worried that she swallowed some of the pods we saw swimming around in the bottom of the bucket!
Anyway, on with the pics.
In the beginning:
Basic hood thrown together to house the twistys:
Hood in place with all bulbs lit:
Only the fake actinic lit:
In goes the water:
And finally all done for tonight...still a little cloudy, but not a bad start:
Keep us updated on how it goes.
