Originally posted by rbaby
Hi guys, I have an Eclipse 12 with 2 clownfishes in there, 1 sand starfish and like 6 hermits. I wanted to buy a 50/50 light because I like the color it exudes moreso than these fluorescent lights...but I don't know which ones are compatible and every fish store I have asked don't have them in stock so I was going to look to order online.
I had the eclipse 12, now my neighbors have it. It's not an easy tank to work with, in that if you want to add stuff to it, your going to need to cut, and tweak it to do so. You need to go to your LFS and ask them to get you the 13w 50/50 bulb. It's a direct replacement for the stock yellowish bulb. It does help a lot in terms of making the livestock more vibrant in color, but dont expect a miracle, because well........ It's still only 13w in a rather tall tank.
Originally posted by rbaby
I also had a question about protein skimmers. What exactly does it do and should I invest in one? If so, what are good kinds/brands/types to get for my tank size? Any other equipment stuff that I'm not aware of would be great too (I hear all kinds of alien terminology and I haven't the slightest if I need them). My current filtration system is only the one that the Eclipse came with, I have a Marineland auto thermometer and a Rio 180 power flow gadget thing. Thank you.:notsure:
Protein skimmers remove organic waste from the water column. I believe now that every salt tank should have a skimmer, but unfortunately the marineland eclipse 12 is a closed system. If you dont mind leaving the top hood slightly ajar, you could get in a Lees' counter flow skimmer, cut down to fit somewhat in the tank, but it will leave the open part of the lid, open about 1 to 2". Or you can remove the stock filter unit (which really blows anyway, because it doesnt really utilize the full filter length to filter, only about the first 1/4 of it), and cut the center brace support out of the tank. (I emailed support at marineland and asked about this center brace in the tank and they said it was there only to support the filter not to support the tank walls from bowing out or anything like that. So in eccessense you could cut it out without compromising the tanks walls), once you cut out the center brace, you would have to really do a hatchet job on the top lid by cutting out the back and certain sections on the top back, to accomodate putting a skimmer and other form of filtration like maybe an aquaclear 300 or so. It can be done. I did it, but I doubt I'd want to do it again, it was more hassle than it was worth. If I had it to do over again, I would have just gotten a 20 gallon glass tank and added all the equipment.
Goodluck,
