My 300 gallon acrylic tank

[steve the plumb]

Not that piece of acrylic I men my tank top.I put that piece there thats from the weight of the lights I mean my tank top is warping you can see it this is where one of the MH bulbs is over it and its warping from the heat

 

[steve the plumb]

MH ballast

 

[RBU1]

Steve I left you a message give me a call when you can. BILL

 

[steve the plumb]

My skimmer

 

[steve the plumb]

look at the size of the cup next to a 2 liter bottle of coke

 

[RBU1]

And Steve remove those covers on the tank openings......You need better air flow. Keeping the top semi closed like you have it will efect the oxygen level.

 

[steve the plumb]

the body full of bubbles

 

[steve the plumb]

 

[steve the plumb]

 

[steve the plumb]

I did notice that when running my skimmer after a bit of time the water in the bottom starts to deplete.I don't know why this is happening.The water does rise in the tube and the neck when this happens its like air bubbles are getting in there

 

[steve the plumb]

Hey Bill I missed your call I was in NYC this weekend and I was in the garage all day playing with the skimmer so maybe I didn't hear the phone when you called sorry.I did remove the top covers so everything is off.

 

[steve the plumb]

this is the brand of MH bulbs I got.

 

[steve the plumb]

jnarowe I thought of that also I will go to HD and see what they have.I was forced to put the lights on pipes for now.You can see that the switches for the T5 end up being one in the middle and the other on the end.They are just enough to cover the tank but the wires kind of get in the way and there isn't a lot of light in the middle where the 2 fixtures meet but its not bad.I will probably have to have them a good 5" of of the tank top.I am a bit worried because I can see the tank top warped.I will take a pic.

 

[steve the plumb]

I took some more pis of the top to show you guys how it warped.I hope you can tell from the pics

 

[steve the plumb]

 

[steve the plumb]

 

[steve the plumb]

this is the last one I know they all look a like

 

[jnarowe]

nice skimmer and I love the change to your sig. Acrylic will really get soft with MH lamps, but youhave no choice but to prop them up until you can find a better way. The question is, will there be enough light if you support them higher above the tank?

 

[steve the plumb]

how much higher is my question?What is a safe height.I am thinking maybe I should have bought the all T5 unit.The fixture is very nice.Its solid the T5 reflectors are a bit tight,everything is squeezed in there but it does light up the tank pretty good.I don't want to damage the tank and the T5 lights are not enough to light up the entire tank.I will need to use those Mh bulbs.Worst comes to worse I will sell the units and get all T5.I don't want to destroy or weaken the tank.I have had enough bad luck so far.I don't need any more knock on wood(my head)

 

[jnarowe]

T5's put out a lot of heat too. The glass on my T5 array gets above 180F every day. So I would experiment with the height of this unit before you scrap it. Find some way to suspend it in a position that it doesn't over-heat the acrylic. If you have an infrared thermometer that would help a lot, but you can also position a probe on top of the acrylic and get a decent reading.

And the next option is what all good reefers do...put a fan in place to blow between the acrylic and the lamps. I use 2 x 6" blowers on mine because of the 1000W lamps I use. And mine are postioned so that they are not directly over the acrylic braces.

In the above picture, you can see how high I have the T5 array, as well as the fan unit attached to the left end of the tank. The T5 array does not have an integrated fan so it really gets smokin' hot and transfers a lot of heat to the water column.

And this is a shot of the blower vents on my display.

Here are the blowers, located under the tank: