Heat put out by CF...

After mounting and wiring my newly acquired 96 watt CF lights, the glass is very hot to the touch. Enough to worry about breakage if a fish were to splash water on the glass. I used the spacers included with the AH kit, so there's a gap of 3/8 of an inch between the bottom of the reflectors, and the glass. Is heat like this normal? Should I remove the spacers to give the reflectors more clearance? Is mounting the reflectors directly to the wooden hood without spacers a good or bad idea? And please, no one say the words "cooling fan".

Again, sorry for the newbie question.

(BTW - the lights are unbelievably bright...standing near the tank makes you think it's daytime )

Pretty simple. Mounting the assembly was pretty straightforward, and the wiring consists mostly of connecting wires with wire nuts. I've done much tougher wiring on cars. I took my time, so it ended up being pretty tidy - IMO . I'll post some pics of the install, and some comparison pics of the stock strip lights vs. the CF lights tomorrow. Come to think of it...I may have done one thing that's not advisable, we'll see if anyone points it out tomorrow.

Baited breath?? Now you're starting to creep me out . It was only 11:30 on the west coast.

The wiring and ballast.
The entire fixture. Still room for another fixture of my choosing.

It's pretty difficult to get comparison pics of the new lighting when there is such a big difference in brightness between the lights that came with the tank, and the CF lights. So I set the exposure to first the lower wattage lighting and did 2 pics, followed by settnig the exposure for the higher wattage lighting...then 2 pics. You'll see what I mean.

From low wattage to high wattage. Exposure set to low wattage.

From high wattage to low wattage. Exposure set to high wattage.

From low wattage to high wattage. Exposure set to low wattage.

From high wattage to low wattage. Exposure set to high wattage.