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S!mon

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So I finished making the stand for my 46 bow front this weekend and it was no easy task with the bow in front to account for. I just picked up the tank today and noticed it has one of these plastic braces right in the middle :oops: . The problem is that I have a 150w HQI 5 inches above this brace. I don't think it will melt the brace, but the light and heat can't be good for it either not to mention the light that will be lost becxause of this thing. I assume the brace can't be removed. Anyone have any input? Thanks, Jim.
 
A

Anonymous

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The Only thing I can think of is raising the light and it will cast less of a shadow. But you will lose brightness.... I had a buddy who had this problem, we put a mirror cut to the size of the center brace on top of the brace, so light is reflected back up and not absorbed by the black brace. He also was using a 250w HQI.

Do not remove the brace, it will weaken the top of the tank. I always wondered if someone good with acrylic might be able to make a transparent brace to replace the cut out one.....
 

S!mon

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I did a search and found that removing the brace is bad! I did find a few alternatives like stainless steel cable or nylon tubeing. I was thinking some body here would have first hand experience. Snow man Snow did something similar, but I haven't seen him post anything in a while.
 

SnowManSnow

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I HAVE removed a brace like this before on a 30g tank, and replaced it with stainless cable.

Long story short tank bowed and I had to replace (AND UPGRADE) my tank.

IMO don't cut out the brace.

IMO the best option is a tank with eurobracing. option 2 would be to have a fixture that had 2x150 lamps.

Good luck,

b
 

S!mon

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Ugh...thats not what I wanted to hear. I would have to spend almost a grand on lights. Thanks Snow.
 

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