sun burn

[Sirhog66]

Well I might have made a big boo boo with my 26 bow. I have a 150hqi pendent over it and I thought I might try to get a little more light into it for my clam and bta, so I took the glass canopy off and everything shrivled fairly badly. I caught it after probably 4 hours of exposure I wouldn't have guessed that removing the glass would have affected it that much but I believe it has. What to do? I have already replaced the glass. but would really like to take the glass off to grow some sps in it. How should I go about this without frying everything?

 

[Fireworm]

Go with a SE bulb. You don't have to worry about the UV damage from them like you do with the DE bubls. That sucks man. Give it some time, I would think that they would all come back.

 

[JCR's Reef]

Your glass canopy is filtering out the UV if your fixture doesnt have a glass panel on it. All Hqi and DE bulbs need to be filterd out. You can use tempered glass for this. Mongul bulbs have it built into the bulbs already so you dont need anything for them. You can bleach the coral pretty bad as well as burn your eyes from the UV rays. I've had this happen at work and its not fun at all, let alone seeing things die in your tank.

 

[mojo~]

agree with both of the above. IT has be proven the iv from dbl ended bulbs can be really harmful t your corals and yourself. Any thicker glass will work to filter UV. Tempered glass is a better choice if you have an option.

 

[Sirhog66]

i know the fixture has a thin curved piece of glass that wraps around the bulb I thought this would be thick enough to filter the uv out

 

[Gondore]

How clean did you keep your glass canopy? It is possible that you do already have UV shielding but your glass canopy was so dirty it significantly lowered the PAR value of your light.

 

[Sirhog66]

I felt it was somewhat clean, but it did have water spots on it that could be an issue though

 

[Fireworm]

I wouldn't think water spots would be enough to really effect to much. But the film on the glass would be. I always had a film on them when I had my FW tanks. After a while I just replaced them.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Gondore]

I think Jesse found a post stating more specifics on roughly how much a glass canopy decreases PAR. I believe it's a significant amount if you don't clean you glass every couple of days.

 

[mojo~]

it was only about 10% at the surface but could be as much as 25% at the sand bed. I still use glass covers as I would rather clean glass than replace reflectors. I guy actually had a par meter and tested it it. this was glass that had been on the tank 3 days after cleaning. If that helps at all.

 

[Sirhog66]

that makes sense I know the tank was brighter with the glass off hopefully I can permanetly remove it over time