[lad1]

I am a newbie to planted tanks and just today setup a 5.5g planted tank.

So I have the 9 inche coral life light fixture that is unmountable, and my tank has no glass top so I cant put the light on the top, but can i use egg crate as a cover and put the light on the eggcrate? The fixture is not very heavy but I concerned the egg crate might not be able to hold the weight

 

[milesm]

rather than covering the whole tank top with eggcrate, cut a 3 to 5 square strip (running from the back of your tank to the front) of the eggcrate for both sides of your tank. it should be strong enough to support your fixture. it does make a difference which side of the eggcrate faces the light and which side faces the water. look at the eggcrate very carefully, one side is thicker than the other side; thicker side faces the light, slimmer side faces the water. orienting the eggcrate that way will tend to focus the light through each square rather than diffusing it.

 

[dekstr]

The egg crate should hold the light fixture as long as enough of it rest along the tank's top's perimeter. A concern might be water coming into contact w/ your lights.

I've used egg crates for a while for a few of my old tanks and they supported the light fixture well. But the water evaporated too quick and I was too lazy to top off the water so I switched back to glass cover. Also HOB filters might splash water up the light fixture.

 

[londonloco]

Reefers use eggcrate for tank covers all the time. Search reefcentral.com, you'll find 100's of posts and get some other great ideas.

 

[aspects]

keep in mind, eggcrate is a diffuser, so it will lower the amount of light going into your tank. you will also ge a lot more evaporation with eggcrate than you would with a glass or plastic hood.
i use them on a couple of my tanks, only because of the inhabitants. if youre not worried about jumpers, id just run it with no lid at all.