Do you have a cover on your reef tank?

Do you guys have a cover (glass or acrylic) on your reef tanks? I'm wondering which is better, to cover or not.

I have the two Biocubes and with one being a suspended 150w HQI it had a glass cover that got dirty all the time and I was tired of cleaning and fighting it...dust on the top and saltwater and mineral buildup on the bottom. So I decided to remove it being I see some nano reefers on the web here have 250w over their beautiful tanks the same size as mine. Yes I reduced the time the HQI was on by less than half the first day I removed the glass but boy were my corals still cranky at me after like day 3...and still kind of are after three weeks or more of no glass. I didn't realize I was loosing that much light in my tank, or that the corals would be that mad at me. I even raised the light an inch or two (as high as it would go) which helped but some corals are still mad at me. Ooops! Tho I'm thinking they will come round soon here as the worst seems to be over thankfully. Whew!

Has anyone else here dealt with this?

I do not have a cover on mine. I did have netting over the top to keep fish in, but have given up on that as I've lost more fish to a darn starfish than to jumping. (Yes, seriously. I hate starfish that get bigger than a pencil eraser)

Nope here either, it's best not to cover up a reef tank for one to get proper O2 to the tank and two proper gas exchange.
plus if you had salt creep on your grass know telling how much usable light you where loosing and with just taking it off you could of been burning your corals that's why they were not happy, I use nylon screening to acclimate my coral to new lighting, I start with 3 layers.

I do and always have. I haven't noticed any bad side effects with using one. I only have one on to keep my evaporation to a minimum as I leave for college 9 months out of the year and it maybe needs to be topped off about 3 gallons in that time (if my mom remembers). It seems to work great for me!

Patriot54 wrote:I do and always have. I haven't noticed any bad side effects with using one. I only have one on to keep my evaporation to a minimum as I leave for college 9 months out of the year and it maybe needs to be topped off about 3 gallons in that time (if my mom remembers). It seems to work great for me!

Oh same here I use to use glass tops on my Tanks years ago to with no ill affect, but did notice it all depended on my stock to, if I had a mixed tank with stonies and softies and my softies were having nuke wars because of space issues my stonies would suffer , my sand bed would have good size gas bubble forming alone the glass line,and if I took my glass off to clean the salt creep off of it my corals would close up or my polyp on my corals didn't extend which would tell me that my glass was holding back lots of usable PAR,yes never had ill effects from using glass but since I haven't been using glass tops I can control the PAR my corals need not my glass top, I have much more PH stability too.

I have just gotten a piece of glass for my 20 gallon. I made a hinged back piece to lay on top of the back filters. I lose at least a gallon a week in evaporation without some kind of cover. That's a good tip about watching for light deficiency. I moved my large led light to the other side and now the polyps there have turned white. I'm hoping they will eventually will recover there color. Maybe the glass will cut some of that extra light. Not the same problem as Little Ocean. Ah the vagraties of life. I'll try to keep posted on my cover.

I don't on any of my tanks, just hate cleaning off extra stuff and don't like the look but have lost a couple jumpers due to it.

It's more difficult to maintain ph in the winter when the house is all closed up. I imagine that same thing happens when your tank is all closed up. I like to be able to easily work in my tank and I like the open look. I'd actually like a rimless tank someday.

Okay, glass free seems to be the major vote here. Thanks guys for all the great responses.

Okay, another question for you all if it's okay.

Do you cover at night? I do as I don't want to worry about jumpers or stuff falling in it. Plus, my moonlight sits on the glass at night so...

I would add a screen cover and attach your moonlights to your primary lights. 3M double stick adhesive works wonders for this.

Here's a link on BRS where you can get it in a kit or piece by piece, I have found screening at my local nursery too.
lots of times I get free off of Mobile homes they use it sometimes to run on the roof for transporting home so the shingles won't blow off the front end of the home, but it's usually 1/2" myself I like the 1/4".