Compact Lighting Breaking My Glass Top!

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ericmatz

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Mar 19, 2004
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Really need some help on this one. I am on my fourth All-Glass aquarium top in 5 weeks.

Here is the scenario: I have a 38 gallon All-Glass aquarium. I decided to try a heavily planted tank, which of course requires lots of light. I opted to go with the All-Glass 110 watt compact light fixture, giving me nearly 3 watts per gallon. Since this fixture is much larger than the standard fluorescent, my old hood won't work. I had to get one of the All-Glass Twin-Tube Glass tops, which have a wider piece of glass under the light.

Now the problem: The wide piece of glass keeps breaking right down the middle. The nice folks at Aquarium Adventure have replaced it each time, and have tried to help me find a solution. Now we are all at a loss.

What I am currently trying is this. The 38 gallon tank is 36" wide, and there is a plastic piece down the center. The glass top is held together by a hard rubber hinge, and that hinge spans the length of the glass top except the two sides, so the glass rests on the inner lip of the aquarium trim. Now since that plastic strip runs down the middle of the tank and is level with the trim, the hinge rests on that. This causes the glass to raise slightly and possibly bow. The current theory is that the bowed glass along with the intense heat of the compact light is what causes the breakage, so I placed strips of acrylic along the lip of the trim, raising the glass up so it does not have upward pressure from the center strip. Of course, now the light is resting completely on the glass (whereas before, I think it was resting on the sides of the aquarium). I'm wondering if this will be a problem.

If anyone has an thoughts on this, please email me eric(at)matz.com . I'm really getting tired of taking broken glass back to the store, and this is the last time I'll be getting a replacement.

Thanks!
 

GDominy

Bottom feeders Rule
I would contact All Glass directly and discuss the situation with them. The heat generated by CF striplights can easily cause an already stressed piece of glass to fracture, so you may need to find a way of raising your striplight off the glass a little bit to allow some airflow to keep it from getting too hot.
 

daveedka

Purple is the color of Royalty
Jan 30, 2004
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Easy way to find out if the stress from the hinge lifting it is the problem, remove the hinge and just lay the two pieces of glass on the tank rim with nothing under them. There will be little or no stress on the glass. If it cracks, then you know the problem is elswhere, if it doesn't you'll just have to pick up the lid instead of hinging it open, I've made quite a few tops this way, without any hinge at all.
 

Leopardess

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Aug 13, 2003
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Thats pretty wierd!

My advice might be to get something like a 1X4 cut into strips that fit the width of your tank. Run one across each side of the tank (left and right) and put your lights on that. Not only will the lights not rest on the glass, they will be raised an inch or so from it and may help keep the glass a few degrees cooler.

Did I explain that coherently??

You only wish you could use paint this well....

 
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JesseJ

You should be dancin'
Jan 22, 2004
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I agree with Leopardess oon this one. The only other thing I would consider doing is adding another lifting piece along the center bracing of the tank to keep from putting pressure on the light casing. Be careful that it doesn't overheat from the light though. A piece of ceramic tile broken in half and grinded on the sides to eliminate sharp edges would work for that.
 

Leopardess

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Aug 13, 2003
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How do you feel about those ideas?
 

johnnyxxl

fishy friend of many
Mar 1, 2004
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I would agree, I would suspect that there is a heat stress issue. heat causing the glass to expand with no place to go.

one idea would be to lift the light off of the glass an inch or so by the edges with something like a couple of pieces of wood or tile etc most of your nicer hot lights for saltwater appear to have legs lifting them an inch or so off the glass.
 

falcon

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Dec 16, 2003
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I think the problem is that you're not getting the correct glass top for your tank. If your tank has a brace in the middle, then you should be getting two glass tops to fill the two sides. This way everything is level and sits in the groove. That's what I did for my 120g.

Falcon
 
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