Hi, welcome to my web-based chronicle of the evolution of my 55 gallon saltwater reef tank. In this installment, I convert my lame 18 watt lighting system to a state-of-the-art 480 watt combo actinic power-compact & metal halide setup.

I ordered a PCMH48 from an online store. The price was somewhere in the $500 range including shipping. The fixture is a retrofit (reflector, fixtures, ballasts and bulbs) minus any enclosure or fans. There is another version with the enclosure for about $150 more but it's not what I wanted.

About a week and a half later, my package arrives. Big box!

And here's what's inside!

My first priority was to test the fixture and the bulbs to make sure everything was shipped ok and working. The power compacts lit up without any problem. I actually ran them on the tank for a day to see how they looked - they seem to run pretty hot.

At first I couldn't get one of the metal halides to light but I think it ended up being the result of not having the bulb screwed in tight enough. Since you don't want to handle these things without gloves or some sort of protection (to avoid getting any substance/oil from your skin on the glass) and they're so expensive, I was overly gentle in screwing them in and I don't think I had one tight enough.

I thought I knew what a bright light was until I fired these babies up!

Now that I knew the lighting setup was working, the next step was figuring out how to install them. Since I was running a basic 55g with a 12" canopy, I was concerned about having the MH too close to the top of the tank. The instructions with the lights say they need to be 6" from the top. With my canopy, and allowing for cords and such, the lights may end up with the bulbs no more than 4" from the top of the tank. I was concerned about this, having heard rumors that bulbs will explode if splashed with water, or run so hot they can seriously heat up the tank.

Originally, me and a friend fabricated a canopy extention but the design kept having issues. I decided to take everything home and think about it for a day or so. I came up with an alternate design involving mounting the fixture in the canopy and testing it first to see whether we needed to raise the lights higher over the tank.

The first step was installing bracing along the top of the canopy. The power cords for the MH fixtures come off the top of the reflector so I had to allow a 3/4" gap between the top of the canopy and the reflector. I used some lightweight pine and cut it into 8-10" sections and used stainless steel screws to attach the bracing to the canopy.

Next I use a Dremel to cut out holes on the side for the fans. I am installing 2 IceCap temperature-controlled, DC fans in the unit. They run nice and quiet and alter their speed based on the operating temperature of the canopy.

I know the cut-out for the fans is pretty sloppy but the wood was much lighter and thinner than I thought. I had to hold on for dear life because the Dremel wanted to eat the entire canopy! It won't matter anyway as I have a grill that goes over the hole and nobody will see the cut-out.

Also, you can see in the picture below that my canopy is one of those 3/4 openings, with the hinges on the top, and therefore when you open the top, you also hinge part of the ceiling of the canopy up. This presented a challenge in installing the reflector as I couldn't attach the front 1/3 to the roof of the canopy and be able to open the door. I also had to make a cut-out for the inside corner bracing.
After adding a few more braces, I begin to attach the reflector to the canopy bracing. I used stainless steel screws with washers on the aluminum hood. You can see there is a protective plastic cover over the reflector.

Here's a close-up of the fan installation. I trashed the crappy mounting hardware that came with the fan (funny, they give you 2 bolts to attach the fan - like most people are only going to attach two of the four corners?? I chose #8 stainless bolts with locknuts - after all, this is a vibrating, moving thing. It seems obvious we want to attach it nice and sugly.

And here we have the completed reflector installation!

Here we have the canopy/reflector sitting on top of the tank, open. You can see the bracing and the fixtures. I did away with the old plastic tops and got glass covers - some people say to not cover the tank but since I was concerned about temperature and water splashes, I felt at least at first, this would be best.

And here it is with the 2 65w PC Actinics lit up. And then there was light!

Serious blue glow on the tank, further emphasized by the digital camera. You'll also note that I added yet more live rock to the aqarium. 3 pieces today. I think I may be getting close to the recommended amount of LR needed, if I haven't exceeded it already.

Here is the tank open with just the PCs running

And now let's plug in the MHs and see what they can do!

These next 3 shots show the MHs coming up. I think this is just the LEFT bulb!

It's amazing how beautiful the rocks and life look under the new lighting!

And here we have the whole puppy fired up! Woo Hoo! The new lighting rocks!

It does not appear to me that I'll have any problem with the height of the lights. In fact the IceCap fans may keep the tank cooler than it was. The MHs don't seem to generate nearly as much heat as I anticipated. Since I have an open-back canopy. I set up the fans to blow inside at either end and use the rear of the canopy as the exhaust - this seems to work well so far.