Mounting Orphek Icons! Here's how I did mine inside a canopy with T-slot rails.

Daniel@R2R · Jun 12, 2024

Hi everyone! I was looking for information on how to do this, and since it was a little hard to find, I thought I'd share how we did mine. In my research, there were lots of great examples of Orpheks mounted over the tank without a canopy, but not many inside of canopies. Now...I am NOT a DIY wiz or anything close to that. In fact, my DIY is often closer to DUI.

However, I think this turned out really well, so I thought I'd share what I did and what I used.

Btw, if you want to see these on my tank, here's my tank thread: Daniel's 225g Peninsula Reef

So the project was to mount 6 Orphek Icons over a 6' long 225g reef tank inside a canopy.

Materials used for rails and supports:

(2) 1010 aluminum extrusion t-slot
(14) round headed M8 bolts and nuts
(24) M6 Lifting Eye Bolts
(24) 304 Stainless Steel 1.5" Long S Hooks
(24) T-Nut Size M6 for 2020 (I realize these are for 2020, but they fit just fine and I couldn't find the 1010 ones I would have preferred in the right size)
2x4 (cut and used for building wooden rail support posts)
(16) 2.5" wood screws

Materials for fan cooling system

12" AC Infinity AIRTITAN T7 Fan w/ WiFi controller
(4) 1/2" M6 bolts and nuts

DISCLAIMER: As I am not great at DIY and I am now writing this after having completed the project...these instructions might be somewhat...generalized and imperfect.

Step 1) Precut holes you'll need in canopy.

Cut holes for ventilation. I used a router for this.
Cut hole for wires. I used a hole saw bit for this.
Cut hole for fan installation. I used a skill saw for this.

Step 2) Mount 1010 aluminum t-slot rails in top of canopy.

Measure and plot where rails need to go.
Drill 7 screw holes along top of canopy in straight line for installing rail.
Insert all 7 M8 bolts in top of each rail (14 total for both rails). Round bolt heads should thread in rail with no problem.
Insert all 12 t-nuts in bottom of each rail (24 for both rails).
IMPORTANT: Screw in M6 lifting eye bolts into t-nuts before mounting rails in top of canopy. If you don't do this, t-nuts may fall out and you'll need to remove rail to reinsert them; however, installing lifting eye bolt into t-nuts first will prevent this.

Install rails in canopy by aligning bolts with bolt holes in top of canopy. Install washers and nuts and tighten.

Step 3) Install Fan

Insert AC Infinity Fan in the hole you cut for it.
Drill holes for M6 bolts.
Mount fan using M6 bolts and nuts.

Step 4) Build and install rail support posts. The point of these posts is redundancy. The primary support of the lights is in the roof of the canopy, but these posts add an additional support system.

To do this, we split a 2x4 into 2x2s (used a table saw and a planer).
Cut notches in top support for rails and posts (used a band saw for this).
Wood glue posts into top support slots.
Paint support posts for waterproofing.
Install support posts with wood screws.

Step 5) Mount lights

Space eye bolts roughly same distance apart as mounting nuts on Orphek Icons (the ones the light came with).
Use S hooks to connect mounting nuts on Orphek Icons to eye bolts in rails.

So...I know this isn't a perfect tutorial, but hopefully it gives an idea of how this was done and might be helpful to someone who has a similar project.

By the way, I did test the strength of my mount in my garage overnight before installing the lights over the tank. I figured if something failed...I'd rather see it collapsed in my garage than inside my tank. LOL Thankfully, no collapsing, and this installation was a success!