Glass Top and Water Top Off

[bededog]

I have glass top on my tank. Is that something that most people do or not? I have read some posts here about people doing water top offs every day or every other day. I have had my tank up for about a month and haven't had to top it off yet. Should I get rid of the lid or is it ok to leave it on? I only have the one damsel in the tank still so D.O. shouldn't be a problem yet. Will D.O. be a problem later when I put more fish in? I am running a canister filter, skimmer, and a power head if that makes any difference.
Thanks.

 

[aarone]

D.O?
do you mean RO? Glass tops are not beneficial IMO. They add to salt creep and temperature problems. I would throw it away, and start usuing RO from now on.
aaron

 

[nas19320]

I'm assuming D.O. means dissolved oxygen.

 

[bededog]

Yes, D.O. means dissolved oxygen, at least to the science community. I don't know what it is abbreviated as here. Sorry.
I do use RO water. We have a 1000 gallon tank that is used in the chemistry labs where I work. I guess I am lucky in that respect.

 

[trigger reid]

its ok because the water vapour just goes to the top of the glass then when it gets to much water vapour and gets to heavy it just falls back into the tank so no its not bad to have a glass top its actually helpfull because you dont have to do water top off as much

 

[elfdoctors]

I use a glass top and I find that it significantly decreases the need to top off the tank with freshwater.
The other major advantage with a glass top is to prevent the fish from jumping out.
The major disadvantage is that the glass will decrease the amount of light reaching the tank which can be an issue if you are growing difficult corals.

 

[scottnj]

I would say the biggest reason to not use a glass top is on a reef type set-up people are using so much lighting and it can trap heat and cause the water temps to get a bit high. In that case a lot of people are using plastic 'egg crate' which is a plastic grid configured panel for use in flourescent lights. (Available at any HD or Lowes.)
Other then that, the glass top will help with evaperation, but can also get a bit nasty with salt creep and such.
As someone else said, your tank, your decisions though.
On evaperation though, on my 55 with 2 fans on it and about 200W of lighting, I evap out about 1/2 gallon a day. Some of that certainly is from my sump though which is open topped and has a huge amount of surface turbulance. I am going to try to make a plastic cover for it to help there a bit.
-Scott