Below should be two images of my new 60 gal tank,(48x13x21) I want to house my beardie in it with the tank on its side. I have read that heating/UV lights through glass is not a good idea. Is there a way around this? if no, how can I rig my dual dome light to my zilla center hinge screen which will be vertical through the opening, not from above. Is that a good idea? If not, I need more ideas. This new tank does not give her much more room to turn than her first, it is really just longer so I would like to use it on its side as pictured. Help and suggestions appreciated.
Glass filters out all uvb rays, so placing a uvb bulb ontop of the glass would do nothing besides provide light. You would have to mount the uvb inside of the tank.
I'm not sure what you would do about the heating bulb though. Would it be possible to have a circular hole cut in the top so that the bulb can shine through undisrupted by the glass?
We can not alter the tank at all because it was given to us and they may ask for it back at some point. We were thinking about mounting them from the front somehow.
I'm not sure how you would do it unless taking the top glass peice out somehow or cutting a hole like brandon mentioned, because the heat light is going to make the glass so hot it may break. A friend of mine gave me that size tank (55gallon) and I ended up not using it because I couldn't figure out how to make it work. The only thing I thought of it taking the whole top peice of glass out and using melamine to make it taller and then mount my lights to that, and use the glass for sliding doors, but didn't even attempt. I got a headache just thinking about it and went out and bought a breeder tank. lol