# My DIY Canopy Project



## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

For a standard 55g AGA tank.

There are a couple reasons I am building a canopy for my tank.

Firstly, my cat likes to jump up on the tank, and I'm afraid that over time he's going to eventually break the center brace. Secondly, I want to upgrade my lighting so my mainganos will look their best, and the stock dual plastic hoods with 24" AGA lighting fixtures do not allow me to do that to my satisfaction. Thirdly, the tank is my display tank in the living room and it will improve the overall looks. And fourthly, I like to tinker and this will give me something to do 

So first, the concept. I decided that I want the canopy to open at the front, rather than have the entire top hinge back. Reason is that I want to be able to feed the fish and do light maintenance with the aquarium lights on, and that wouldn't be possible if the entire top including the lights hinged back.

My preliminary idea involved constructing most of the canopy out of 1" nominal (3/4" actual) poplar wood from home depot. I even went out and bought the poplar I would need today. However, the top part of the canopy would have to be cut from an entire 4x8 sheet of plywood, and more than 3/4 of the sheet would not even be used - not a very cost effective use of materials. So tomorrow, I might return all the poplar and I should be able to construct the entire canopy out of 1 sheet of 3/4" or 1/2" plywood.

(spend an hour in home depot trying to work out what to do while having the materials in front of me to look at and I don't think about using all plywood until after I return home :roll: )

I still might use the poplar though. Overbuilt for sure, and twice as expensive due to having to buy a whole sheet of plywood, but it will be less likely to warp or bow with the combination of the moisture and my heavy cat laying on it.

Anyways, I've constructed a mock up with a 3D modeling program I used back in college. Images below. The front part that is hinged takes up the front 3 1/2" of the tank. There will be 6 3/4" front to back on the stationary part of the hood on which to mount lighting. The back of the canopy (against the wall) will have just enough of a gap to not interfere with my AC110 HOB filters. The hood will rest on 1x2 poplar strips on the short side of the aquarium attached to the inside of the hood. The hinge used to connect the 2 pieces will be a 48" "piano hinge". All the boards will be nailed together with finishing nails.

Here are the pictures:

Image 1, lid closed:









Image 2, lid opened:









As you see in the pictures, the hood should just cover up the black plastic frame around the top of the tank. I plan on painting the outside of the hood black to match the stand, and the inside white to reflect light.

I currently have all the wood except for the top. I have the hinge, and the nails. If all goes well, I should have the wood all cut and nailed together tomorrow.

I still have to decide what to do for the top. I can either buy a fill sheet of plywood to only use 50"x13" of it, or I can buy some more poplar and attempt to rip it along the grain to the correct width.

Any thoughts on what I should do for the top of the canopy, and the overall design in general?


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

You can glue several poplar pieces together for the top, clamp tightly, and then sand it a lot or better, run it through a planer if you have a connection to one. Maybe you made a maple cutting board for Mother's Day when you were in high school wood shop? Lots of people did, really common project. Same principle.

I would return the piano hinge. They don't hold up well in the mix of heat and humidity. Instead change the ends so they act as a guide to hold the front in place when down and with a rest stop when fully lifted. The stops you have on the tank edge can do double duty for this just by changing their upper shape from flat board to the right curve. Another advantage of this design beside eliminating a jammed up rust seeping piano hinge from your project's future, is that when you do need to remove the light canopy entirely, it can be taken down in two pieces, making that a little "light"er job.


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## DrgRcr (Jun 23, 2009)

Nice design, very similar to mine Rhinox, except that my whole top opens. 2 words of caution though. If you have glass tops, make sure there is enough clearance below the inside of the canopy for them to open. And my other thought is about the finishing nails. It seems like they may be a little weak to hold something like this together. I'd be more inclined to look into a pocket hole jig, especially for 3/4" material. The holes can be inside the canopy. Kregs makes 2 different kits and I know you can get them at Lowes. I used them on my stand and canopy. I also wood glued all the joints. Good luck and let us know how you do.

Link to Kregs stuff @ Lowes. I used the $40 kit.

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=p ... &Ntt=Kregs


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I would suggest looking at the next cheaper variety of wood at Home Depot. They have " select pine" which is very nice at about half the price. Not the "whitewood" with the knots but between that and poplar. For my canopy, I let the edge boards themselves rest on the tank edge and used 1/4X1 trim down over the edge to cover the gap as well as hold the top from slipping off the tank. You may find the gap at the tank top is not as straight as you might like and it will let light leak through in a rather distracting way. For convenience, I found folding the top all the way back to rest on the fixed part of the hood to be a nuisance. A simple hinged prop inside the cover is handy. I keep it up against the top with a magnet cabinet latch when I close the lid. Acheap way to treat your fish nice is to place felt buttton bumpers on the edges where the top and tank meet. If you close the top a little hard , the fish will appreciate this. I don't use the long tubes so I am able to place individual bulb holders on both the front and back sections , so I wanted to hinge a much larger portion to open. The 31/2 opening may make cleaning with siphons a bit awkward. Another small item to consider would be a simple bracket placed on the inside edge of the top to come down over the tank top lip to clamp it together. With a bit of sawing and shaping a wooden bracket can be made. I settled for cutting a metal angle brace off to fit. It will corrode at some point but that is a future job to keep me busy. Hope some of this will be of use. Most any canopy makes a major change in tanks so I think you will like what you do with it. :thumb:


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Failed to second the carpenter's glue on joints. Once set even 16 gauge finish nailer nails are strong enough.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Sorry, I need to correct my post. You have the light leak covered with your design. Another thought might be to use the Home Depot sawing to rip the boards to width. The guys here can be real precise if they know exactly what you want and why you need it cut carefully. First two cuts are free here. A center brace at the back fron top to tank will give some support to prevent bowing down without trapping heat.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

However, I was already nearly finished before I got the the responses... 

Anyways, I went with all poplar. It was the cheapest wood boards at my home depot - about half the price of the pine. The home depot wouldn't rip boards to the correct width for me though. But, I managed to do an OK job of it myself with my skillsaw.

The woodwork isn't perfect, but its good enough for me. The poplar top will be strong enough to hold my cats weight no problem - feels strong enough that I'm not worried about bowing. i'm still planning on using the piano hinge. I have the whole thing nailed together with finishing nails and it feels plenty strong enough to me. Only thing is After I had the main structure together and the outside painted, I realized I had to add some 1x2 poplar standoff strips on the inside to mount my shoplight too and since I didn't feeling making a 4th or 5th trip back to home depot for wood glue, I nailed those on as well - well when I nailed them on, some of the boards started coming apart. Think I got it all pressed back together though.

I spray painted the outside black yesterday. The black spraypaint looks nice on the outside and lets a little bit of the wood grain texture through. Today, I taped off what I didn't want colored white and attempted to spray paint the inside of the canopy white to best reflect light. I used gloss white paint, and well it didn't coat the wood as nice as the black did on the outside, but I figured that was ok because I don't have to look at the inside haha.

The place I'm worried about for light leak is between the main part and the hinged part. The piano hinge should block all or most of the light trying to leak through the top, but some might be able to leak out on the sides. An idea I had for that is to get some adhesive black velcro and stick the soft loop side to the wood and discard the scratchy hook side. Should seal the gap enough to block the light, and will also provide the protection the felt bumpers would.

To cut down on moisture getting up into the hood, I bought some plexiglass. I plan to cut pieces to fit on the inside lip of the frame. They will be simple rectangle pieces, with the exception of cutouts on the back where the filters are. I figure that'll keep enough moisture out of the hood.

Tomorrow or tuesday evening, I should be able to put it all together and see how it works. Its not perfect, and I wouldn't be able to sell it for what i spent to make it, but its functional and rustic looking . I don't think it will fall apart, but if it does I'm sure I could put it back together with some carpenders glue in the joints (which I was planning on doing but I forgot to buy glue and didn't feel like making another trip back to home depot). I'll post some pics once I have it all together on the tank.


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