Glass Aquarium Top without Black Strip

At my school in our biology dept. they did that with acrylic. The Coralife fixture warped that crap out if it, now it saggs into the tank.

... i need to have a talk with who manages that tank. they dont have any LR in it, all fake decorations, and they keep wondering why they loose fish...


thats a community college for ya.

 

Sounds like they should be housing cichlids or neon tetras.

 

They have a 10 gallon and what seems to be a 65 or some thing... 10 being fresh. and the larger salt.

none of the tanks have any fish in them. on a good note there is on algae present which is amazing lol.

I personally would just measure the top of the tank and get a glass shop to cut you a piece man. You can glue some handle on the top, away from the lights, so you can remove it as needed.

 

Most Lowes will cut their shelf stock glass to any square(90* cuts) for you.

 

Thanks guys

 

That would be my suggestion. Acyrlic blocks considerably less light than glass. How close are the bulbs though. The heat may cause it to distort.

 

This really isn't my main coral tank, I have a few left in there from when it was my main tank, but now it's just a fish tank. I've got some blue star pattern mushrooms, a whole lot of xenia growing up the back wall and some paly's, so lighting isn't a real big deal for this tank. I just keep it going for the hell of it.
To answer the question, it's a cheap two bulb fixture that I got for free from a friend. SolarMax HO. It gets pretty hot so I'll probably stick with glass.
Now a question for you. Have you done PAR readings to compare open top vs. glass top vs. acrylic top? I'm kind of interested in the subject now since you brought it up.

 

Ohh, then I really wouldn't be worried about it at all and just get someone to cut you a glass top.

I haven't ever done side by side experiments. I found this experiment that was done and have based my opinions on it sense.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)


interesting note from later in the discusstion
"the spectrum of light that each of the emits is different-- look at the graphics I linked. Glass doesn't filter all wavelengths (colors) of light in the same way. it blocks shorter (bluer) wavelengths more than it does longer wavelengths. ."

 

Awesome, I'll try to read that later on tonight.

 

I thought about the same thing as my separate actinic light was directly over the 'strip' of black...

I actually slid the black plastic connector piece off both of the pieces of glass, and just put the two glass pieces together to have a better direct lighting provided to my corals...