Glass canopy, lighting, and humidity?

[danieljones8623]

Hey everybody.

I have my new aquarium set up. At the moment, I do not have a glass canopy on it. So, out of curiosity, today, I bought a gauge to check my humidity, and it’s 58%. From my understanding that’s pretty high. So now I’m thinking about getting a glass canopy to combat evaporation, to hopefully help with the humidity. My question is, will my lighting be able to penetrate the glass canopy enough to still be useful? I have a sump, it’s a 40 gallon breeder, and I have a Kessil led purchased. Any other info needed, I’ll be glad to provide. Also, if anybody has any suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated too.

 

[Timfish]

How much light you'll loose depends a lot on how clean you keep the glass. I'd recommend buying, renting or borrowing a PAR meter, even a cheap waterproof lux meter would show how much light is being lost with and without the glass cover.

 

[Jekyl]

That humidity depending on where you are isn't a big deal. I run a 90g with no top

 

[MaxTremors]

Hey everybody.

I have my new aquarium set up. At the moment, I do not have a glass canopy on it. So, out of curiosity, today, I bought a gauge to check my humidity, and it’s 58%. From my understanding that’s pretty high. So now I’m thinking about getting a glass canopy to combat evaporation, to hopefully help with the humidity. My question is, will my lighting be able to penetrate the glass canopy enough to still be useful? I have a sump, it’s a 40 gallon breeder, and I have a Kessil led purchased. Any other info needed, I’ll be glad to provide. Also, if anybody has any suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated too.

IMO, if you keep the glass reasonably clean it’s a non-issue. I took the hood off my Nanocube and switched to an AI Prime a little over a month ago, and I have a piece of glass I’m using as a lid until I get a custom glass lid made and between the lid being on and off it’s pretty indistinguishable. The underside will basically keep itself clean (I’ve cleaned it once in the month I’ve had it, and it was unnecessary), the evaporation condenses and then falls back into the aquarium (I figure the water on the glass is no different than the water in the tank in terms of diffusing the light). But I can tell you, since switching lights, even with the glass lid, my corals have colored up dramatically and growth has exploded, so I really don’t think it’s an issue.

 

[Chrisv.]

So I was really worried about this for my nano. I have a glass lid and it gets pretty heavy condensation. I was sure it was going to kill my par.

I was stunned when I borrowed my local clubs par meter and learned that it had almost no impact what so ever.

I guess the condensation just acts like a bunch of little lenses.

I know this sounds unbelievable and I wouldn't believe it myself, if I hadn't personally measured it.