Advice: Glass Lids for Sump

Is this to cut down evaporation? In cases where lighting isn't an issue, I have heard of people thowing in a bunch of ping pong balls (or something else that floats) to cut down on the air/water surface area

 

Jim, you may want to consider making the glass multiple pieces in case you need to get into your sump for maint. You can use some of the hinge material that you can buy at the pet store and just make it a hinged lid for the center section.

Another consideration may be to make a fewer number of large holes and putting multiple tubes into the same hole. (possibly consolidating reactor drain lines into a single line, etc) It will still cut down on evaporation as you can fill in the gaps with something like bubble wrap or something like that, but it makes your lid less specific to your current configuration vs. making it more extensible for future reconfigurations.

--AJ

 

Here's an idea, the acrylic is bowing right? How about getting some strips of glass cut say about 2-3" wide and 16-3/8" long, place them in across the top of your sump and put the acrylic lids on the glass supports. That should eep them from sagging. You could even silicone the glass to the acrylic to add rigidity.

Just an idea.

 

Or put gussets of acrylic on the existing pieces. Fast and easy, and plenty strong

 

Or that.

 

Jim the Plexi glass is doing this because Plexi will absorb some moisture on the side that is exposed to. I would just use it again and just add some reinforcement cross pieces to them on there edges. I was going to show you with real plexi, but hope this will work. Here is an example:

 

Some types of acrylic will absorb more moisture than others. I think Bud presented some absorbtion values during his presentation last week. I remember that cell cast absorbed less moisture than exturded and some brands perform better than others. Very good presentation, btw.

The lids that came with my tank (ATM) don't warp much, if at all. I made my own with cutouts out of extruded acrylic from Menards, and it bowed within hours.

With the right brand of acrylic, you may not have any issues.