A funny thing happened to my fish tank...

[waterwatereverywhere]

We had a birthday party the other night, and one of my brothers came with an armful of presents and cards. Looked round for somewhere to put them down, and decided to put them on top of the fish tank. He had to reach up to do that - the tank has a high hood and you can't actually see the top of it.

Unfortunately, he'd never realised that my tank is open-topped and before I could stop him there was a huge splash! I made a dive for the steps to get into the tank (after all I didn't know what was in those parcels!) and whipped them out, throwing them back to him... absoutely drenched, all of them!

Luckily there aren't any fish in there at the moment!

 

[BIGMAC]

Hope the presents wernt spoilt too much.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

LOL, glad the presents were ok!

I've never heard of an open-topped tank. Doesn't loads of 'stuff' from the air go in?

 

[Opcn]

 

[waterwatereverywhere]

LOL, glad the presents were ok!

I've never heard of an open-topped tank. Doesn't loads of 'stuff' from the air go in?

It used to be a marine tank and so it's got metal halide lighting, which does best suspended about a foot over an open top. As the hood is pretty high, things don't NORMALLY get dropped in there. I suppose things in the air might get in there, (and I know one or two flies and wasps have met an early end that way!) But the water overflows into a sump underneath so there's enough movement to help stuff gas off.

I don't think there's much in the air that could damage it anyway, and everyone's tanks are exposed to the air at some time or other aren't they. We do have a smoker in the house who is banned from smoking anywhere near the tank!! It does mean that I can't have any fish which are good at escaping though. The main disadvantage is that you get more evaporation, so I've got a container underneath with an automatic top-up thingy. (I'm sure there's a technical term for that!)

And the presents were okay, yes, but I was more concerned about whatever was in the presents contaminating the water!

 

[Cheese Specialist]

lol

Couldn't you just cover the top with a condesation tray? I'd think that would be better, just for peace of mind. Someone once told me that it was terrible to have anyone smoking in the same building as my fish tanks, even though they all have complete hoods!

Now, I wouldn't go that far but I would want to protect it some how.

 

[waterwatereverywhere]

CS, I do have a suitable piece of glass that could be used as a condensation tray, which I got hold of to use temporarily a couple of years ago when the glass on the light shattered - now that was a scary moment! Other than that, I never used it because for marines I didn't want anything reducing the amount of light getting through to the water. I suppose it's not quite so critical with FW, although I've planted it with some plants that like high light. Something to consider, hmm...