Neptune Aquatics

UV Shield Cracked

While moving some stuff in my tank I got into a fight with my clownfish. Some water splashed on to the UV shield and it cracked in several pieces. The fixture is a Viper 2 with a 150 watt bulb. The glass is still in place, but will too much uv light get through the cracks? Should I just keep the light off?

I have been wanting to upgrade from this fixture for awhile but would rather not have to rush into getting a new light. I will start looking for a 250 pendant fixture or a replacement piece of glass this weekend.

Thanks
Nick
 
IME this weekend will be too late. It only takes few hours of direct UV from the bulb and stuff will start to get nuked.
 
I have way too much on my plate to try to remember every little problem a BAR member has :p
 
Wow
thanks for all of the help. Very much appriciated!

I suspected that finding a replacement would be hard. I am now going to use this as an excuse to get a better fixture.

Thanks for the offer to borrow a pendant. I am in contact with a guy in san jose who has a 250 setup that I hope to get today or tomorrow. Maybe soon I will have portions of the viper light to loan out if some one else is in a bind.

Thanks again
Nick
 
Sorry to chip in so late, but most glass places can cut you a small piece of glass and have it tempered. The turnaround is typically two days.

Ideally, you would like it tempered to avoid it shattering due to the sudden local change in temperature and expansion when water gets on the glass. If you want to live dangerously, you can probably get away with just regular glass cut at a hardware store.
 
The problem is getting it tempered, one of the guys here works at a glass shop, and I believe he said you can't temper those small pieces in the US from the simple fact is the machinery here has rails the glass sit on which are too far apart.

I wouldn't bother with a piece of regular glass, I tried that not too long ago with a 150w bulb. Cut up a piece of 1/2" thick glass, and within an hour it cracked and split apart, and yeah I did allow room for it to expand.
 
Not sure how large the cover for the Viper is, but I was able to get glass tempered that was 4.5" by 9" for my Coralife clamp-on. I ordered it at a glass shop in SF who had ordered it from one of the places over in the East Bay. Yes, they had to call them to make sure they could make a piece that small.
 
GreshamH said:
Didn't a member go through this earlier this year?

It was me and the PITA still there, I just gave up but found a temporary solution for it.
Got one of those inexpensive halogen work lights, the smallest at HD/Lowes and using the wire grill that protects (it does nothing) the fixture, placed the tempered glass inside squeezed between the light and the wire thingy.
 
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