Who uses a satellite? ... help needed...

[nanonewb]

I just bought a satellite and as i was reading the directions, it said that I MUST have some type of glass or acrylic hood on my aquarium. This would cause major green house effect on my tank and WILL overheat it. Today, the tank temp went up to 84F (without a hood)...thankfully it only had some live sand in it. Anyway, here's the question:

 

Those of you that use this type of lighting, how do you set it up on your tank? I saw that it has optional mounting brackets but I already siliconed my own acrylic brackets into the little slots, originally made for the mounting brackets. With my brackets, the satellite now sits about 2 inches above the water. I'm wondering... is this safe enough? I spent alot of money on this and i would not like the electrical components to prematurely start to corrode away...at the same time, i dont know if i can risk putting an acrylic panel on it as it would greatly restrict the cooling properties of evaporation.

[slimdogg]

what model(ie # of lamps and watts) do you have, i have the 2x40 watt 20" for my 15high, at first i had the fixture right on top of my glass cover and i had the same problem, but i then mounted it about 6 inches over my tank , it is now stable at 78 even with the cover, your fixture just might be too close, i think that the current usa brackets mount the fixture 4 inches above, 2 might not be enogh for the heat to escape, does your model have a fan like mine? if not you could look intop adding one or else you might have to rework your brackets. also i run a glass top on my tank to stop evaporation because of this i am able to run the fixture without the plexiglass cover for the bulbs, this helps the heat move out of the fixture alot.