Lights on, everyone home

[Anonymous]

Well, with the live rock almost cured and ready to plop into the tank, I turned the lights on to admire it for awhile, and now we are all blind from the halides.

I have this:

It sits on top of the aquarium. Quite a bit of light is reflected outward from the surface, and impinges upon our collective retinas.

Any ideas for tastefully shading this (or reflecting it back)? The tank is acrylic, 5' long, 100 gallon.

 

[paneubert]

sunglasses for all

 

[Anonymous]

Had anyone consider to paint all four sides of the tank black? :wink:

Seriously, is the light reflected from submerged objects like rock and sand, or there is a bit of light that get out above the waterline, below the hood? For latter, you may want to have something that block the light, and direct it into the tank instead of the room.

 

[Anonymous]

Right. The latter.

Mainly I posted here because I thought maybe someone else has had to deal with this. I need a lampshade that doesn't look terrible.

 

[Anonymous]

Build a "canopy" w/ no top.

Can you build someting to match your stand?

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah. The main trick is to make sure it isn't butt ugly.

 

[Anonymous]

Should not be too hard. You have a standard rectangle tank?

You could even dress it up with some trim or crown molding.
If you have access to an electric miter saw, even the most basic one can cut a 45 degree angle in a 8 inch plank. 8 cuts and you are done.

 

[Anonymous]

With that kind of lamp, you may consider using brushed or anodized aluminum to match it.

It really depends on the stand and tank style. For some, a wood "fence" around the top edge is good enough.

 

[Anonymous]

To keep a frame from looking ugly, you could do some stained glass inserts. A straight edge, flat surface and glass cutter's all you need to break it down to size.

can be ordered online

 

[Anonymous]

To keep a frame from looking ugly, you could do some stained glass inserts. A straight edge, flat surface and glass cutter's all you need to break it down to size.

can be ordered online

That's an excellent idea. I can probably get some stained glass window pains from some of the local churches at night.

 

[Anonymous]

To keep a frame from looking ugly, you could do some stained glass inserts. A straight edge, flat surface and glass cutter's all you need to break it down to size.

can be ordered online

That's an excellent idea. I can probably get some stained glass window pains from some of the local churches at night.

Stealing makes the baby Jesus cry.


:lol:

 

[blackcloudmedia]

Well you could TRY stealing windows from a church.....but when we never hear from you again we will know where you went :lol: Anyways I had this problem at first because I custom made acrilic lids to fit over my tank, and the light reflected off of them, what I did was made sure the water line in the tank was all the way up to the acrilic, so it actually touched the acrilic which is cool cause you can look down on the tank and see clearly the bottom. That mostly fixed the problem. If there is still reflection you could make makeshift reflectors on the sides with aluminum foil and try to make a canopy like mentioned. I made a canopy out of 2 by 4s and smoothed and stained them. It actually doesnt look that bad. You will have to put a fan in though