How Important Is The Hood/canapy

[cuprajake]

hi,

my new tank doesn't have a hood, i have seen some light bars that sit ontop of the tank, so my question is do i need to have a lid lol


im thinking yes but you never know lol

cheers jake

 

[Squid]

Do you have any lights currently?

If you look at the pictures of some peoples tanks, they don't have a lid as such, they have lighting that overhangs an open top tank.

Whether you have a lid or not may depend on you fishies ability to jump out of the top. Some fish are more suicidal than other

Squid

 

[cuprajake]

no i dont have the lights yet, i dint even think about the fish jumping lol

im still trying to work out my tank's wpg ratio to see what lights i need.

my tank is 42.5" x 14" x 20.5" which gives 12197.5 cubic inchs which is supposed to be 199.8812 liters which is 52.803 gallons and according to my info if i wanted 4wpg i would need about 200watts of lighting so i need to find out how many tubes that would be.

thats considering my maths are correct

jake

 

[Dave Spencer]

Sent a PM.

How about a luminaire over the tank, something along these lines:

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/3x54W-T5-Lighting-ha...oQQcmdZViewItem

Apparently, the tubes are not very good for plant growth, so you may want to change them. I have the 3 x 24W T5 coming soon and I have three D&D tubes to fit to mine.

Dave.

 

[cuprajake]

cheers for that but my tank is only 3.5ft it would overhang,

 

[anodized]

pros for a hood
less evaporation
holds your lighting, moonlights, etc
can match the stand, be stained
draws attention down towards the tank
keeps jumpers in the tank

pros for open top
easier maintenance
plants can grow up past the water surface
no hard water deposits or condensation

 

[bare bottom]

pros for a hood
less evaporation
holds your lighting, moonlights, etc
can match the stand, be stained
draws attention down towards the tank
keeps jumpers in the tank

pros for open top
easier maintenance
plants can grow up past the water surface
no hard water deposits or condensation

After i added 2 more lights to my rio 125 i've had to remove the flaps to keep the tank temperature down, so as above a hood has + and -'s