I have been trying to get an answer to this for some time, and I think someone answered on another site, but poof all of their posts were gone! hmmmm mysterious no?
Well here goes:


Does glass/acrylic have a serious effect on light spectrum, In such a way that a glass cover may render the light useless?

Im asking b/c my 30L glass aquarium is soon to be 30T and the light was just going to sit on top of the aquariums glass, however when I asked the lady who sold me the live moss, she said it needed direct full spectrum lighting.

Ok, and if glass does refract light, does anyone have a simple solution for mounting a light in an all glass enclosure? I could put it inside, but a full spectrum is going to produce too much heat to keep the enclosure at less than 75 degrees as well as keeping the humidity in the high 70s.

Any and all help is always appreciated.

-Chytrid Fungus

your herp will not get the proper amount (if any) UVB if the UVB light is placed above glass. You should try to place the UVB light over a screen top rather than a glass top.

you said your tank is changing to a 30T? Does that mean 30 gallon Tall tank? What kind of animal will be in this tank? What kind of UVB light are you using? A UVB florescent should be placed so that the animal is less than 12 inches below the light most of the time. IF the distance is greater than this the herp won't be getting much UVB from the light.

A UVB florescent doesn't produce much heat at all (Mercury vapour bulbs do however produce a lot of heat and I believe the UVB rays from those bulbs penetrate at a greater distance). Your basking bulb (or full spectrum UVA bulb) will produce the needed heat ... you might need to experiment with different wattages of bulbs to produce the needed amount of heat.

Can you get a strip of wood and cut it so that it will sit inside the tank on the inner rim of the tank? If you can do this you can silicone the wood onto the top of the tank for security, and you can mount your light fixtures right into the wood.

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Tricia

Yes, the reason this is the case is that glass and acrilic refract the light waves that hit it and in doing so slow down the speed of the wave, so for example,

UVA and UVB waves that are not visable have a wave length of 4x10^-7 to 4x10^-8 meters, so as these waves hit the glass they slow and in doing so the wave length changes ie, gets longer. The next set down in terms of wavelength of the light spectrum is visable light, so there for the UV is now non exsistant and is therefore useless.

Hope this clears things up a little.

Clarified!
Im housing crested geckos, which are nocturnal. Apparently, but I disagree, they do not have any lighting requirements. The lights are 90% for the plants that are in the enclosure (live moss, bromeliads, and ferns). They are all low light requiring, but thats low light of the right light!
As of now I have a 10" (i think) flourescent aquarium and plant bulb. I was going to upgrade this to one of those new "sunshine" flouro tubes, and have it around the house for a spair.
The problem I am having is that the tank will be 30" tall but 1'LX1'W. This gives me little room to work with! Im thinking about either mounting the flouro tube vertically along the front, but this would take away from the over all attraciveness. Or my second option is to leave a 4" gap in the front, and simply slide a mercury into the gap, and propably cpu fans deep to the light in order to direct the heat outwards. The geckos enjoy hanging upside down from the top of the cage though, but only at night so they should be ok, and during the day they go to the bottom of the cage, which will be easier to keep cool due to a false bottom.
thanks for the help
-Chytrid Fungus

Boy Chronic, you sound like a great herper! All this attention to detail with the lighting and all. Im sure youre pets are/will be very happy!

__________________
"Spread Reptile Awareness!"

"You know you have faith when you realize that thoughts are things; what you feel, you attract; and what you imagine, you become."
-Joseph Murphy, Phd

Dont worry, Ill have plenty of pics ! I've been getting the setups nicer and nicer everytime, as well as more authentic for the herps. I have been researching native plants, which is very hard considering New Caledonia's (where cresteds reside) plant population is about 3/4 endemic. And I hope my herps are happy, b/c if they arent then neither am I!
The current project is nothing big, I've learned it is better to start small!
But I am going to get it perfect, its almost like a test! Ill hopefully learn most of what I need to know by doing this, then I can move on to BIGGER and better setups.
-Chytrid Fungus