Hey guys! I’m working on setting up a 20 gallon soon, and needing to find a lid for it as it didn’t come with one.
I have two cats that have always been chill with my current aquarium, but recently got a new kitten and he’s been a lot more curious. My current tank has a glass lid and we’ve had no issues with that.
I’ve been seeing these mesh lids which are quite affordable, so I’ve been tempted on trying one out, but have some concerns on how durable they are. If my kitten were to jump on it, he would probably fall through, right?
Just wondering if anyone has experience with them and could testify for their integrity! Obviously will bite the bullet on a sturdy glass lid if I need to, just was curious about these.
Posted by harboring_
9 Comments
haven’t tried these. wouldn’t buy them. if any of your cats put any weight on it, it would collapse.
if you aquarium is rimless. they make clips that would allow you to add glass lid
It will fall through, yes. They can hold the weight of like tools or a canister of fish food, but a cat jumping, even a kitten, would be too much.
You can find lids on sale fairly often. I got mine for $20 full price, but you can also find them used pretty often on FB Marketplace or similar.
I believe those are magnetic so they won’t hold even a light cat’s weight. Plus a hob or lily pipes would need to be routed in etc. Those are just for jumper outers, not jumper inners. Ymmv but my experience has been that each cat falls in once, maaaaybe twice, and they don’t do it again. And discerning cats everywhere prefer the flavor of tank bogwater over bowl water, tap water, and even dirty dish sink water by a factor of 10 to one or more!
this is good to keep fish from jumping out and the light from falling in but get the hard frame one
Acrylic sheets cut to size work well
I have this. Its a lot of work to set up and took my cat three minutes to mess up the sticky part of the magnetic strip and mess with plants again.
Not worth it imo! Get a lid or better yet, make sure cat can’t get to the tank at all.
It is enough of a discouragement to my cat. He doesn’t typically stand on it, which is important since I don’t really see it holding his weight for long. He has the good sense to be suspicious. It does keep him from sticking his nose into the tank.
ETA: Be prepared for rapid evaporation
I have one and it wouldn’t be able to hold a cat. It might be able to support a few pounds if the weight was distributed well but anything more and the magnets will slide and go into the water.
I tried this once while cycling a tank, my cats thought it was a platform, climbed on it and fell in. Thank god I had no fish in there but it was a disaster. Definitely not worth the risk.