Staining a canopy/stand...

[my5girls]

My unfinished canopy and stand should be arriving tomorrow for my newly ordered 125. I am planning on staining and watersealing it. But, I thought I read somehwere that you should not use a gloss on the inside of the canopy. Should I jsut waterseal the inside and not stain it? I was going to use Minwax that is the stain/poly in one. My lights will be the retro 3x 200w MH and 4x80W T5 mounted to the top of the canopy. I also plan on painting the back of the aquarium black as the 2 drilled overflows are black. Any particular brands of paint I should use/stay away from.

 

[harris28]

I used minwax stain on the inside of my canopy followed by 4 coats of Deft Polyurathane. The poly will seal and give it a nice finish. Make sure inside your canopy you use at least 4 coats of poly! Good luck and post some pics when you get it stained..

 

[salt phish]

you need to use a stain blocker before staining or it will come out real dark and streaky...... stain work is best left up to the pros...

 

[thegrog]

I have used Minwax's polyurethane/stain combo with very good results. Easy to apply, even for amatures. Avoids having to use both stain and poly.
For the inside of the canopy, you can either go with a polyurethane coating (good), a sealant (fair) or use a white paint to help reflect light scatter back into your tank (good). With the MH lights being higher up off the water, the white inside the canopy really helps with light.
If you do stain, get a peice of wood identical to what the canopy is made of and test the stain out first to see if it is the color you want. Many stains look a lot different than they advertise and may take multiple coats to get the desired color.

 

[acrylic51]

I would just seal the inside of the canopy and not worry about staining the inside of the canopy.......