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Mind ask you ? Are you using glass panel for your tank lid?
If you are, i suggest you get have your glass panel tempered before you use it as glass lid as you are placing your light system really very close to the glass panel. If this persist the heat of the light system will 100% confirm have the glass panel crack in no time.
I experienced the similar happen in my 6ft palu twice!.
Wow, that's rough luck, Eddy. I wonder whether it's because the tank is so long that you had trouble with the glass. What thickness of glass are you working with?
I got 2x 2.5ft long x 10mm thick glass panels. No matter how thick the glass panels are, heat from lighting system will crack it through!
Any glass panel are closely link to heat must be tempered but if you need to drill some holes on the glass panel do ti before tempered or else will crack into millions pcs if drill!
eddy... yup, glass lid... nope, not tempered. i know it doesn't look it but those lights are about a foot above the glass and they're spiral cfl's so they don't get real hot. the glass is never warmer than room temp so there's really no reason to add the price of tempering. you are correct though, thanks for looking out.
sorry to hear about your luck. you live and you learn... that's what this hobby is all about.
oh, and speaking of thickness... it's pretty rigid. i believe it's only 3/16" though, maybe 3/8", i forget. i know i ordered it according to the thickness needed for a living hinge in case i ever wanted to cover the whole top.
Mind ask you? can you measure the temperature between the light source to the glass? If the temperature read 50 Deg C or more, you will have same problem with me.I'm not joking! I just dont want you to experience the same problem. It'll going to made you a very very sore Trust me you will!
i doubt it will ever reach over 30 deg. C honestly. even when the house is hot it only gets to about 80*F right on the glass which is about 27* C. actually i think i might need to move the lights up a little since i cleared some plants out of the middle there too. it seems my lotus is getting too much light. the glass should be okay. thanks for the heads up.
a temp to watch for is a good thing. i don't think i've ever seen anyone mention any specific temps that will make glass crack. considering some uth's will get that hot and flexwatt definitely will, now we have something to look for temp wise for cautions sake. so over 50C or i'll say 120F is something i'll keep in mind. thanks for that. good info to have around.
Did you use 1/4" glass? Just asking because at my job we use 1/8" glass for the shelves in our display cases as well as some of our waterpipe shelves. Some of em have a good 30 pounds on em and the do just fine... You might get away with it in the future.
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Respect you and Aaron providing a lot of priceless contribution to this forum!
what i did was looked up what thickness i could find living hinges designed for easily and went by that. i figured if i ever wanted to make it a full top that lifts up in the front i could get a piece cut for the back and silicone or epoxy the back piece down. then POSSIBLY silicone a hinge or stopper that would keep it from folding back on one side of the 2 glass pains. the glass is like 36" X 10" and completely suspended in the middle so really, it's not that strong. strong enough though.