Re: How much light is reflected by a glass cover?

["Giancarlo Podio" <gp at isaconsulting_com>]

You might also want to take condensation into consideration. I used to have
an open tank and had to move the lights a little higher at first as they
would be soaked in the morning due to condensation. Once they got warm it
wasn't an issue but to be safe I lifted the pendants a little so I'm not
sure if that could cause a potential electrical risk. Running the cooling
fans all night also helped but they were noisy and I opted for raising the
lights instead. The hoods I used in europe never had a glass cover, the
tubes would be exposed and sitting about an inch above the water level,
never had any problems but the tubes did have those rubber end caps to
protect them against humidity (these were standard flourescents not
compacts).

Giancarlo Podio


----- Original Message -----

  a.. To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
  b.. Subject: Re: How much light is reflected by a glass cover?
  c.. From: Ghazanfar Ghori <ghori at ghori_net>
  d.. Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 11:02:29 -0500

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>All told, I expect a clean cover glass to waste maybe 25% of the useful
>energy, so it is pretty significant. [Unfortunately, my fish are all
>killies, and air just doesn't keep them in the tanks. :-)]

I wonder if a wire mesh would be a better option. I've been thinking
about removing the glass but two things bother me[using powercompact
strips]:
1) Water splashing on hot tubes could cause failure.
2) Strip light accidentally getting knocked into the tank.