What about tops?

[miniwhinny]

I have the BB bit all figured out and have some rock in there curing right now but what about the top of the tank? I have MH lighting. How many of you are running open tops or glass tops? I'm loosing quite a bit to evaporation with an open top but I'm not loosing light to glass. What are you guys using?

[Viv]

You'll want to run your tank with an open top for gas exchange. Do you have a sump where you house a thermometer or is the therm in the main tank? Either way actually you will have evaporation...but you could do a top off system to continually replace evaporated water.

[Carbon]

hey mini, seeing as your from oregon, you should head on over to our club site for oregon. pacific northwest marine aquarium society.

www.pnwmas.org

and good luck with teh BB.. ive been that way for a while now, and wont ever look back to sand again.

[miniwhinny]

Carbon,
thanks for the local Oregon link. Will go visit in a few secs.

I don't have a sump so the heaters in the main tank. I may set up a sump just to hide the heater if nothing else. Guess I'll figure out some auto top off system and leave my top open.

Thanks.

[Viv]

Miniwhiinny, how big is your tank?

[miniwhinny]

It's a 29 AGA.

[dkh0331]

My tank is neked (bare bottom and topless). In addition to the gas exchange, running topless also allows for evap cooling.

[Viv]

With a 29 gal. tank you can have a sump. If you didn't want to drill holes in the tank you could always plumb lines over the top of the tank down to the sump tank....I personally have not done that on a smaller tank, but there really is no reason why you couldn't do it...having a sump would allow you to hide a lot of equipment and allow for extra circulating water. There are lots of DIY (do it yourself) threads that you could check out to get ideas...and maybe you just might want to do water changes manually, and top off with clean water as needed...there is no "only" way of doing something, it's what ever you want to do...