I want to add more lighting to my tank, but am just curious which way would be better to go. I have a 55 gallon, one of those with the double hoods, so all together it only holds 2 15 watt bulbs. My tank is planted, and although the plants are doing fairly well with this min. lighting, I want to add more. Ive been looking around and I have two choices, and dont know which I can do, or is better. The first, is one long hood ( 48' ) with three lights that can go inside. This would be my first pick, but my tank has one of those plastic bars that goes across the middle to support the two hoods that it came with...... can I have this type of hood and light, or would the bar interfer or melt... ect? My other choice I have is to buy two NEW 24' hoods that hold a total of 4 lights all together. I just figured because that would only be a total of 60 watts total, i wanted more, but they dont have (at least I cant find) hoods this small that hold up to three lights a piece. Any advice would be great! Thanks much!

Did you have a look at compact lights? They are intended to be smaller than regular light fixtures, yet hold the same wattage, or have even more than regular lights.
Here is a good example of one, and I like this particular one because it doesn't sit directly on the tank, so there is some space left between light and tank, which is perfect for feeding.... http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...1&N=2004+113345

In the picture you can see that there is a center brace as well, which btw is pretty resiliant to begin with. I have two regular strip lights sitting on top of my 55 gl, which takes up pretty much all the space, and I have to slightly lift one light when I feed the fish. The light touches the center brace, and nothing melts or turns soft on me. I can't even see any indentation of the light bulb on the brace at all....

Thanks for the link. It was very helpful! I really like those light! Im considering buying them.