clear hinge

The one thing I don't like so far about this new LED on Oliver's tank is the glare across the top of the tank, and the visible blue, red, white spots (they look annoyingly "christmas tree" -like, but my fiancee actually thinks this is a cool effect!)

With the newer light it's also really noticeable how much of a shadow the black plastic hinge casts across the tank. Such a small tank, it puts nearly a third of it significantly lower light. I happened across this idea on a fish forum and tried it- use silicone sealant to make a colorless hinge.

Mine's not quite even, and the surface I worked on wasn't completely flat like I thought, so the glass panes do not lie exactly level.

But it is not noticebale when on top of the tank, and it is very strong. Upside is already the light looks better, my java fern seems to be visibly growing! and I like being able to look down into the aquarium more clearly. Downside is that it won't prop open by itself, the hinge is fairly stiff and have to hold back panel down with one finger when lifting open the front. Also it is a lot narrower than the plastic hinge (which I've kept on hand) so now there's a small gap at the back of the tank. I folded over some packing tape on itself to cover that.

For a few days while the silicone was curing I kept the tank covered with a sheet of plastic wrap. I did notice that this gave an overall softer look to things, not quite so sparkling bright. Less glare off the sides and not so annoying the "christmas light" appearance on top of the tank either. Hm. Makes me think that if it turns out this light is too much for my low tech setup, I could bump it down a notch by replacing the glass with polycarbonate... (been reading about this on fish forums too- it cuts the light admittance down by 20 or 30%, but I might actually need that I do want it to stay low-tech)

It's a subtle difference, hard to get a photo showing that but you can kind of see it compared here:

I know that all might sound counterproductive- I took the hinge off because I wanted more light, and then might switch to plastic because I want less light? Really its that I want an even spread of light- not a strip of shadow across the front (you can't see it in the photos but can tell where it is when looking up from below, or when seeing how the light falls on the dark fish himself).