Once the wooden part of canopy is ready we can continue with the wiring. Let me warn you firts that working with the electric accessories may be dangerous. If you are not experienced with wiring ask the professionals. It can prevent at least the accessory damage which can be quite expensive (i.e. fluorescent tubes). Before the lights go on please, check the connections by the scheme, otherwise your expensive tube will only blink and then the dark will come...like in my case :-)

We need to fix the tube holder to the canopy. If you have shorter tubes than the canopy lenght you may want to add small support stakes. The lamp holders will be then fixed to the stakes (Pic. 1). Also you should think about the distence between the holders. When they are too close the tubes can’t be released from the holders. Now we can connect the cords. I used the black double-cords with the 1mm wire. All the wiring was done by the scheme. I mention the one or two-tube connection. I would like to notice that the two-tube connection using one magnetic ballast is working only with the tubes of 60 cm lenght. If you try to use the longer tubes only one tube will light. 

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The ballast should be placed out of the canopy. It decreases the moisture effect on the ballast and also the risk of the electic accident. The magnetic ballast produces quite good amount of heat so when you place it outside the canopy you decrease the water overheating in the aquarium. All the ballast is placed best to some plastic box under the tank. Once the cords are connected to the holders and carried through the hole in the back side of the canopy, we can connect them directly to the ballast or to the multiple connector (Pic. 2 and Pic. 3). Using the connector allows the disconnecting the wiring easily when you need remove the canopy from the tank. All the ballast will stay under the tank. The last step is to fix the fans to the canopy. They should be placed that way so as to drive the air into the canopy to cool the warm tubes (Pic. 2). The fan connectors are fixed in the canopy holes (Pic. 4 and Pic. 5). I used the RCA jacks. It allows to disconnect one of the fans or both when needed. The cords of an AC adaptor are connected to the connectors in-built to the canopy. I used the adjustable AC adaptor to get the possibility to speed-up or slow-down the fan rpm. I’ve found that 2 fans will work on 6V. The canopy is ready (Pic. 6). Fit the tubes, connect the jacks to the fans, connect the main connector and switch the lights on. I hope everything is fine and you can see the light.

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