How often do you clean the salt buildup from your light bulbs and reflectors or lenses? And what kind of lights are they and how far from the water surface are they?

I am planning to put 6x54W T5 lighting on my 90gallon. It will be retrofit in a hood and room for 2 additional bulbs if I needed some time. The hood has 8" over the tank edge so the bulbs would be 7-8" from the surface. This seems like a lot of bulbs and reflectors to clean if it needs to be done with any frequency.

Does anyone use T5s with a lens? If I could just slide a big acrylic lens out it could easily be cleaned regularly.

Any other thoughts are appreciated. Thanks

I've got 4 T-5s along with 2 MH bulbs. Everything has acrylic sheets covering the actual bulbs in case they break or whatever. It's not too difficult to take them out and clean them off once in a while. All of mine are only about 5 inches from the surface of the water, and I only have to clean them maybe every other week, when I do a water change and clean my tank anyway.

I have 2 HQIs and 2 PCs. The MH bulbs have a UV shield, and the PCs have a sheet of acrylic or plexiglass or whatever in front of it. My lights are about 7 or 8 inches off the water, and I TRY to wipe them off every week, but it's usualy more like every other week. I can deffinitely tell the difference if it goes any longer than that. I would think if you could rig up some kind of shield, it might make your life a LOT easier. I don't know all the consequences of doing somthing like that (heat & humidity in the hood), but yeah, that seems like a lot of bulbs and reflectors to have to clean.

I'm not as concerned about the heat & humidity. I will put the lens low enough that is is open some in the back and have fnas there when needed.

I am more interested in how much light reduction a lens causes. Guess I would need a PAR meter to really get the answer to that.

Brian Plankis actually wrote an article on this, and we did a podcast on it
he has detailed on salt affects on light
here is the show and article
http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/podcast-episodes/2418-light-meter-testing-podcast-episode-74-a.html

does the thickness of the lense effect the intensity of the light? im sure it does...so would it be best to get the thinnest one that ican get?

I'm sure it does. Even more so the material it is made of may affect it. That is why even though I am doing a retrofit in a hood that if I get a lens I will get one that is made for lighting. (I think you can buy big lenses for tek fixures separately and maybe some others.) Hopefully they will have considered and used the best material for light transmission.

hmm well i could probably take the lense off my current fixture