It's really hard to take a picture, because the clearance situation is only apparent when the canopy is closed.
There is room in my canopy between the lights, though, to put a piece of wood that would come down vertically from the middle of my canopy with, say, some L brackets. If there were some kind of rigid shield I could attach to that piece of wood that went straight back, it would be fine. It would have to be very thin, though.
So, from the side of the canopy if you could see through the side, it would look like the diagram below The top line is the top of the canopy. The 1s are the piece of wood (or even some other material so long as it can be attached to a wood canopy) that could be attached to the canopy by L-bracket. The second parallel line is the shield. "SSI" is the SS input, and the other "S"s are the SS. If it could screw into the butt end of the piece of wood and be rigid so that it wasn't attached to anything on the left side of this picture, it could work. What could I use that's very thin, and rigid? It could be really narrow, I think, because only the input of the sea swirl is that close to the lights -- so like 2 or 3 inches wide should be fine if it provides protection. The back of my canopy (the part to the left) is open.
________________________________ < Top of Canopy
Light 1 Light
Light 1 Light
____________
Tubing SSI
SSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSS
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - < Water Line
SS
SS
EDIT: Picture doesn't publish like I intend it. Basically, imagine that there is about 4" between the lights, and the 1s extend down vertically to the second parallel line, which is the proposed shield.