Reflection in Hood

[speedo2wet]

I am building my hood and am almost complete. I decided to paint the inside of the hood white and had a thought. I will be using T-12 bulbs for the tank since I have them lyinh around and don't really need a high amount of light for the ray and shark tank. Has anyone used reflective paint? I was going to try it and spray it over the white paint to create a reflector in itself to of course reflect the light back to the tank. What are your thoughts?? Hood is 6ft by 2ft and I will be mountng all the ballasts on the top and will be hanging it from the ceiling.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

White paint can be pretty good on it's own.

Given that, the shape of the inside of your hood is probably very wrong to be a good reflector. Reflector shape is at least as critical as material choice, and a box-shaped canopy is a pretty bad design.

That said, it's also important to consider your goals. You mentioned a shark and ray tank - if you're not keeping photosynthetic livestock, it's much less critical.

[speedo2wet]

Good point. I know if I was more worried about the amount of light I would have a better design as in a concave type.