25-30 gallon eclipse

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billtw1

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 23, 2010
Messages
23
Location
georgetown, ky
I was wondering if 36watts in an eclipse hood would be enough light for a few soft corals, and some live rock. It has 2 18watt bulbs and would use 50/50s if that would work.
Thanks for input in advance.
 
Don't go there...

When I was in the planning stages of my saltwater tank, I was originally looking into the eclipse units because of their "all-in-one" aspect and their overall clean look. While they may be great for freshwater, they are NOT a good tank for saltwater.

As you're already wondering, the stock lighting in them is not even enough to really make low-light soft corals happy. And if you upgrade the lighting, then you're looking at throwing away the hood/canopy to deal with the new lights. Even if you were able to retrofit the lid with new lights, since it is fully enclosed you'd be dealing with heat/overtemperature issues.

The lid on those also have the biowheels in them. While I use a hang-on-back biowheel on my 46g, its not for biological filtration - but in case I have to set up a quarantine tank quickly. Biological filtration for a saltwater tank, in my opinion, is best done with an adequate amount of live rock. In your case, 25-35 lbs or so. So the biowheels in the lid of the eclipses are kind of a waste.

And if my memory serves me, those eclipse tanks are a little deeper than "normal" tanks. That also doesn't help if you're looking for a reef setup.
 
I agree with Kurt. Not near enough lighting for that tank for a reef. FOWLR will be OK but not corals.
 
Appreciate the advice. I may get it for fish only, live rock and quarintine. Agains thanks much.
 
How about biocube or nanocubes? What's the difference in them? Which is best? I would probably go with 24 gallon or so
 
I have a 29G Oceanic BioCube that I'm very happy with. It comes with two Coralife compact fluorescent lamps and LEDS as far as lighting. I'm fairly new and wanted to start out small. I was thinking 14G was too small and that seemed to be to consensus here. Not that it can't be done, just more water changes to keep your params up, and more fish size restrictions. Its a very good starter tank until I'm ready to shell out the cash for a big extensive setup.
 
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