scriabin

I got into fish-keeping while trying to figure out how to care for two aquatic turtles. The Turtle People are all about giving the turtles their UVB light rays - and how having any sort of glass between the UVB bulb abd the turtle will destroy the UVB ray.

So... I'm looking into glass covers to keep my fish from "jumping" and wondering if I place my light on top of the cover (as I'm assuming is the basic idea) - am I then losing vital light wavelengths, or is that just a reptile consideration?

Thanks,

Jonathan

clinton1621

Any glass will distort and or reflect at least some wavelengths of light... however I dont think it will amount to anything significant, unless the glass is not cleaned, or has high amounts of hard water deposits that would block a high amount of light from passing through. Really this would only be an issue with live plants though... fish dont require high levels of any certain light wavelength, if they did then standard incandescents wouldnt be used in fish tanks.

scriabin

Yeah, the reptiles need the unfiltered (through glass) UVB or they can't absorb calcium, and so grow progressively more frail without. I take it fish don't need to worry about this.

But what about the plants? I'm currently debating keeping silver dollars vs keeping a lot of plants, and the plants will probably win. If I have a bright florescent shining through a glass hood, will they be adversely affected? Or is this just something that doesn't come up in aquarium keeping and I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be?

How common is jumping anyway?

Thanks,

Jonathan

Red1313

Jumping depends on your fish. Some species will jump more then others.

As for lights... Usually they don't talk about there being much of a problem. Just make sure that you've got a full spectrum florecent and enough wattage/gal and you should be fine.