I have a 36" aquarium which I have 2 fixtures on right now. One is a 36" T5 fixture and the other is a 30" power compact one. The power compact fixture is new and I'm concerned about placing it directly on my glass top. This is a planted tank but I thought this would be a good place to post this anyways. Here are the options I came up with:

Glass top the way it is now -- will the power compact get too hot?

Glass top with the legs for the coralife power compact fixture -- seems like it would work but would there be any problems with the legs on the glass top?

Open top -- don't think I can do this because the fixture is 6 inches shorter than the tank but it would work with my T5 fixture.

Egg crate with fixtures sitting directly on top -- gets rid of the heat but increases evaporation quite a bit.

Egg crate with the mounting legs -- I guess the legs will help to get better coverage especially since the tank is longer than the fixture but my concern is whether the fixture would be too heavy on the legs for the egg crate to hold up, I'm not sure how sturdy this stuff is.

I am not familiar with that fixture, but my thoughts are the legs of the PC fixture should be fine sitting on the glass tops. I'm assuming that the fixture is probably light weight anyway. Bulbs can get hot, and I wouldn't want them in contact with anyhting flammable/meltable.

At least with the legs there is an air gap that will keep the bulbs from transferring too much heat directly to the glass.

And the egg crate idea isn't good because of loss of light penetration. Go with the legs on the glass. Keep your glass clean, too.

Dick

I have my Solaris, which is relatively heavy, sitting on its legs the glass top of my corner tank.

I guess my only concern with setting the legs directly on the glass is that there is a tab extending down from the bottom of the leg. Anyone know if these legs would be sturdy enough not to bend under the weight of the fixture?

http://www.thatpetplace.com/images/presentation/P34508.jpg

I think that the Coralife legs should be designed to take the weight of the fixture.

i think they should be fine sitting on the glass. you could always cut the tabs off of the legs to spread out the pressure point more.

Those tabs are designed to "grab" the trim of a normal tank. I would snip them off so the bottoms are as flat as possible if they were mine. As long as the fixture doesn't wobble you could leave them on if you wanted.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking that if I cut them off that it would be fine. Maybe I could find some little rubber pads to stick on the bottom of them to so it will stay put.

Little rubber feet would be a good addition.