What sort of cover should I use?

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

1/4" is the common stuff you find @ places such as Rona or Home Depot
It's lighting diffusing material, sold in the ceiling tile area, not near the lights in my local store, but close to the bulk wood stuffs

The most common is 1/2" not 1/4". I think what makes the egg crate still work at 1/2" is it has some depth to it, so unless a fish is jumping perfectly straight up through a particular square it usually gets hindered enough that it doesn't make it through.

That screen in the pics I posted is almost a year old, and I've never cleaned it. No salt creep here.
If you go egg crate, have someone put it on and off while you stand back and see if you're ok with the amount of light blockage. I don't know if it's because of the height of my fixture, or if it's the LED's, or what, but it's a significant drop in light on my tank.

[mrhasan]

Ah my head is hurting

[lastlight]

i've never see 1/4" egg crate personally. it would block far more light than the 1/2" already seems to.

[Kryos]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

I don't know if it's because of the height of my fixture, or if it's the LED's, or what, but it's a significant drop in light on my tank.

Yea, being a single point light source, LEDs will drop off significatly everywhere in the tank except directly under it because the light is travelling at an angle through the eggcrate and since the eggcrate, as you said, has some depth to it, more gets blocked. Having more than 1 LED cluster will make up for some of it, but you will still see a drop.

[pinkreef]

the $100.00 type of wrasses can jump thru 1/2" egg crate