DIY Tank Hood with LED lighting: 1. Planning

Over time and usage the previous hood that came with my earlier tank setup had fallen apart. The only piece of it existing at present is a 1.5 inch PVC rectangular (size of my tank) structure used for supporting the tubes and also acted as reinforcement.

all that remains...

Ignore the cat(s). They always snoop around when I am working on/with something. ;-)

I plan to use this PVC structure as a base for my hood. A few points which I have in mind while planning the hood is: 

a)    Lights should not be visible to the viewers from any direction (no glare/distraction)

b)    Should have option of staggered lighting (for future)

c)     Should have an option for mounting an exhaust fan/blower (for summers)

d)    It should be lightweight 

e)    It should be a single detachable unit (without any messy wires hanging from it)

f)     All wiring should be internal

g)    Lifting it and working in the tank should be easy

The LED Strip I shall be using (SMD 5630) is featherweight and would require some support to hold it in place. Since these strips are non-waterproof, an additional task of waterproofing them has to D-I-Y-ed. Though the lights came with an adapter (12v, 4A each) I am planning to power the LEDs by an old computer SMPS which should be sufficient with a few tweaks. This will allow me to add more LED strips in the future without changing or adding another powering unit.

SMD 5630 LED Strip (5m)

After carefully considering options, finalized on 0.5 inch L channel made of aluminum which makes it very lightweight.

lightweight L channel

The L channel comes in a length of 12 feet which can be cut according to requirement. I would need eight of these support(s) to mount eight strips of LED across the 4 feet tank horizontally. 

Each of these horizontal strips will have 66 LED modules with a total of 528 LED modules for the planted tank.

Now, the execution remains.