New lighting what thype of suspension

[Jamie McGrath]

Hello , im new too aquariums. Ive noticed in all of the pictures ive seen of the beautiful aqauscaped aquariums the lights are suspened above the tank. My tank has a hood over the top which contains the lights. The hood makes it hard to work inside my aquarium because it has to be removed than I cannot see what im doing because its now dark. The suspended lights also look much more attractive. I have looked online for aquarium pendants but can only find them for about £300 plus. Is buying one like this the only option or are cheaper but not inferior choices out there?

Thanks Jamie.

 

[James D]

Hi Jamie

How about a bit of DIY? I made my own as you can see in this thread here. Basically I bought an LED bar (grobeam 600, although there are different ones you can get) and went to a local metalworker who bent a sheet of brushed steel into shape for me. I drilled a couple of holes in it and attached it to the ceiling using a cable kit that can be bought from any shopfitting website (although you'd be better off getting one designed for the purpose). Actually fitting the light to the shade, depends on what sort of lights you want to use, you might need to improvise a bit.

 

[Jamie McGrath]

Thanks for your advise James. Can I ask,
1 my tank is 120cm long, will a grobeam 600 be long enough?
2 dose it have mounting holes in the top or will I need to build a housing for it?

I looked through you thread and I think you did a great professional looking job and the tank looks great as well, nice one.

 

[Lindy]

You can get tmc led aquabars that are 100cm long. You would need tmc mms rail and then some cable to hang it by. The other option is the brackets that sit on the aquarium top, I just slide them to the back of the tank when I want to do stuff. The Aquabars are the most affordable lights done by tmc and you can also get dimmers as well. One of the aquarium sponsors, aquariums online, sold me my aquabars, dimmers and brackets. The mms rail was bought online from swelluk.com. To use the brackets the mms rail needs to be 20mm longer than your tank length.

 

[NC10]

Have you had a look around eBay mate?

There's always plenty of second hand luminaires/pendants available. Depending on exactly what you want, you're looking at anything from £20 and up for a simple luminaire with T5's. Obviously LED's are going to start a lot higher.

 

[PARAGUAY]

I had exactly the same trouble finding a suitable kit to raise my APS 4 tube 3ft luminaire which sat about 4 or so inches above the tank,it was a case of only made for a certain make or expensive, because my tank back is against the wall I used b&q adjustable shelf brackets,in silver, put the lighting at whatever level you prefer.Mine are about 14 " above tank. They look like they are made for it, just get shelf brackets wide enough to suit your tank. Just 4 screws and plugs is all that holds the vertical struts.

 

[Jamie McGrath]

Wow thanks for everyones helpful suggestions. Im not sure what im going to do at the moment but hopefully I will post a picture when it is done for anyone who is intrested.