There are a lot of ways you can do this. I just stripped the ballasts and wiring out of the metal frame portion of the shop light kits. This was easy, and only required me to unscrew the ballast from the frame (3 screws). Then I used wood glue to glue the endcaps onto a piece of wood that was the same dimension as the top of my tank. I had the flourescent tubes temporarily taped in place in the end caps when I did the gluing so that the distances would be right for changing bulbs. I stapled the loose wires down to the wood as well. After the glue dries, you have the top part of the new hood. Then all you need is 4 pieces of wood to build the "walls" of the hood. Make sure to leave an opening in the back for filters, heaters, and equipment. The front piece of wood can be attached with a hinge so that it flips open.
If you use 4ft shop lights, and your tank is exactly 4ft long, then you do need to accomodate this by making the hood kinda' hang out an inch or so on each side to allow the 4ft bulb to be over the 4ft tank.
I am by no means handy with wood working, and have no tools short of a hacksaw and sandpaper, but I built my hoods and saved tons of money in the process. My wife, who is very particular about how things look in the house even gave them her "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval".
Here is a
link to a thread about the DIY hood on my 20gallon river tank. With this tank, I wanted to keep the original hood that came on the tank, so I basically built the 4 sides of the hood, and then simply sat the original hood on top of my 4-sided frame. This way I did not have to design another hinged door, and I did not feel like I was wasting a perfectly good hood. I was able to get away with this because I mounted a single 24-inch flourescent bulb on each of the long sides, overdrive them, and get about 4.5wpg total, including the original normal output bulb in the stock hood.
I searched for the thread on the hood on my 29gallon tank, which resembles the description I mentioned here first, but am unable to find it. Instead, I found the pics, which I posted to my server, but apparently never made a thread for.
Here (below) is the 29gallon tank with DIY hood, as I roughly explained earlier:
And here (below), is the best shot I have of the ballast mounting and wiring inside of the 29gallon DIY Hood. The flip-up door on the front of this tank is nice because it gives me a good palce to keep my pH/KH/CO2 table and LFS business cards!
And here (below) is the DIY Hood I built for my 20 gallon tank:
Here (below) is how I hooked up the ballast and wiring on the 20 gallon DIY Hood.
SO, after all of that, to answer your question: "Should I get rid of my current hood?", I would say, whatever works best for you. You may want to incorporate your current hood INTO the modified hood design. If you choose to do this, then you end up with a SUPER ULTRA LIGHTWEIGHT hood, as you are drastically cutting down on the amount of wood that you may use (if you choose to use wood int he first place). I think you could go either way, but if I were you, considering what I have learned about making a hood as easily and cheaply as possible, I would go with something like I did on the 20 gallon tank. I would mount tubes on the front and back walls, and then mount 2 directly to the bottom of the original hood. Superglue would work well to attach the endcaps and wiring to the underside of the stock hood. Or you could have two slender braces going front to back, one on each side of the tank, and "hang" the endcaps under the braces, again using crazy glue.
Feel free to PM me as I'd be more than happy to sketch something up for you with dimensions, or just brainstorm. I am ALWAYS eager to help a fellow DIYer!
. Or you could get some Normal output flourescents and overdrive them, that way you only need like 2-40w tubes and that'll give you about 160w. Are you saying you can't fit the 2-40w right now? on a 55g theres supposed to be plenty of room for the 2-40w tubes even with 2 HOBs unless theres some other reason?
