Re: AH Kits

[jmarella at attbi_com]

Thanks for all of the responses! Here's what I decided to do for now at least:

I have a wood canopy that someone on this list was kind enough to 
give me several months ago. I've been looking at it for months now 
and considering splitting the top, but I don't have a band saw. A 
band saw would guarantee a better, straighter cut. I decided to try 
to get a nice straight cut using a hand saw and it worked out very 
nicely. The trick was to saw very slowly and carefully. I split just 
the lid, rather than the entire front of the canopy. I installed 
three brass hinges on the top and it folds over itself quite nicely.

I took a shoplight apart and mounted that inside the front half of 
the canopy and used to spacers to allow room for the cord that 
happens to be situated on top of the fixture, rather than exiting the 
fixture through the side as most shoplights do. This should allow me 
to get a little extra light into the tank while still using my 
existing 4x55 watt. I prefer this as I can always lower or raise the 
wattage depending on how things look later on.

The down side to mounting shoplights is the weight involved, which is 
why I opted for adding just one. This way it's still manageable and I 
don't need an engine hoist to get the whole unit off the tank when 
it's time to change water. (I'm a scrawny little weakling ;)

Eventually, I'll be building something that's a little closer to what 
I have in mind, but for now this should be functional and doesn't 
look too bad either. I appreciate all of the ideas that came out of 
this discussion. Those should come in very handy later on.

Thanks again!

JoAnn

By the way, on another unrelated note, if anyone is familiar with 
parasites found in Figure Eight Puffers and has any clue at all about 
what the parasite is that I've found (described here at 
http://boards.tomgriffin.com/topic.cgi?forum=5&topic=149 ) please 
email me off list. I can't seem to ID this worm through any of the 
material I've found. Take a look at the photos I've posted. If 
nothing else, it'll make your skin crawl.