Should I have anything between the water and my halide bulb?

[troyrb]

In a couple days when my MH come in I will be building a new canopy for my 30g reef. I'm going to have just one 175watt 10k MH for now with a spider reflector. My question is do I need to have any glass or anything between the bulb and the water? Since the tank is so small the bulb will only be about 5-6 inches above the water. I was reading somewhere that you have to have UV absorbing glass with metal halidies, but most tanks I see don't have anything between the water and bulb. Is this at all true do I need anything between the bulb and water?

 

[David Grigor]

Just a nice jet stream of air between the tank and the lights to keep temp. build up.

You loose 10% light intensity placing glass between the bulb and the tank. IMO: Outside of HQI setups, the only reason you should have glass between is if you have some fish jumpers.....

 

[troyrb]

Anyone else?

 

[Tains72]

I run 2 250W MH bulbs about 4 inches from the water level. Seems fine so far.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't run anything between my bulbs and water.

 

[troyrb]

Since I posted this tread so long ago and didn't really get much for a answer then I just when without any glass. So far so good. I really don't have any large fish that would splash the bulbs and I'm very careful not to splash it when I clean the tank. I just posted the question because I seen a couple people in here saying that you always had to have something shielding MH from the water. But I never see anything shielding MH lights at the pet stores. Anyways thanks for the replied.