Quality tank hood/canopy/light?

[FreshyFresh]

Any brand-name recommendations?

The LED hood for my 29gal fits nice and is very bright, but it's flimsy, not able to be modified (for larger HOB filter) and it has to be removed to fit anything larger than your finger in the tank. The 7 LED pods (3 LEDs in each) are snapped to the underside of the hood and are in direct contact with water spray. This hood came with my Petsmart Top Fin 29gal kit. I am impressed with it's brightness. My little Java Fern at the bottom of this 29 is doing well and appears to be getting lots of light.

The LED hood for my 10gal is designed a bit better. It came with my Marineland 10gal kit. It is hinged to the rear of the tank so you can easily lift it open for tank access and has a larger filter slot in the back. The LED light bar drops into the top of the hood and has a clear plastic panel between the water and the light unit.

The light bar has 24 small LEDs, 2 of which are blue for the moonlight effect. You have 2 modes. All LEDs on or just the two blue ones.. and of course "off". The Marineland LED hood is nowhere near as bright as the LED hood for my 29gal. This is funny because the Marineland light has 24 LEDs, compared to the 21 on the Top Fin. This goes to show you the variances in these fixtures.

FWIW, the LEDs on the Marineland are tiny button style, where the Top Fin are larger, square LEDs.

Joel

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Probably the best bet would be a hinged glass hood (like a versa-top), over which you can get a quality light. The versa-tops have a strip along the back where you can customize the cut out spaces for things like filters and cords. They are available for any standard size aquarium and compatible with pretty much any light you want.

The "deluxe" type hoods (like an all glass aquarium flourescent hood type) fit and work well as far as the hood go, but the lights that they come with are usually wimpy - that's what you get with the single flourescent strip light. These are the hoods that are included with the tank a lot of the time. I haven't ever tried to swap the light out with a more powerful light, but for non-planted or (very) low light tanks, these work fine. The AGA ones are all that I'm using right now. Mine have lasted years, and were actually purchased used. Had a few light strips with dodgy switches eventually; using a timer prevents this problem.

 

[FreshyFresh]

I was wondering about the hinged, glass covers. You could probably place any strip-light you wanted over it, as long as you had room to slide it back so it didn't interfere with opening the front section (I presume).

 

[FishDad]

Thats the versa top - those are the best, imo.