I bought this tank with a hood. Once I decided I wanted to put plants in it, and I started reading up on plant needs as far as light, I realized the stock hood would not work. I first purchased the Custom Sealife Smartlite 55 watt retro kit. I was able to install this in the stock hood, but There was no room to add any other lights, and the plastic window in the hood did not allow as much light to penetrate the surface of the water as I would have liked. Time to build.

I had a few things to consider in designing the new hood. How do I ventilate the hood? Do I want to keep the back open? Do I want to add fans? I had a butterfly fish in this tank and a couple of marble hatchets. Both of these species are notorious for jumping, so I was leery of leaving the back open. When I built this hood I was using a Penguin 330, hang over the back of the tank, filter. So to simplify things I decided to leave the back open and plant some Water Sprite to (hopefully) discourage jumping. During construction of the new hood, however, the butterfly committed suicide.