New Eclipse System 12

[Galerius]

Santa brought me a new Eclipse 12 for Christmas, and I can't decide what I want to do with it. I have lots of ideas, just can't decide on one (sounds like I need/want more tanks than I have room for ).

So, I've narrowed it down to five basic ideas, and thought I'd get your input.

a) Take a pair of my "breeding" Blue Rams from my 30 and place in the 12 gal
b) Add a pair or 3 of other S. Am. Dwarf Cichlids (perhaps Apistogrammas)
c) Add a pair of Kribs to my family to inhabit the 12 gal
d) Try my hand at African Cichlids
e) Attempt my first mini-reef tank (this one makes me nervous, as I know nothing about SW tanks

I'm going to attempt to put this in Poll format, but feel free to add all comments.

 

[An t-iasg]

Hi...wow, so many choices!! I never had cichlids or rams. But the hatchery that I got my bettas from had really nice, cute apistogrammas, and they will ship them to you! (if you're interested, I'll post the link.)

I'm planning to start a saltwater tank this summer. It will be my first one. I don't know how big it will be yet, but I don't know about a reef or SW tank in an Eclipse. The Eclipses are not that cheap, and you probably wouldn't use the bio-wheel or the lighting that comes with it for your SW tank. Contrary to the Nemo movie, I don't think bio-wheels are often found in SW tanks, and the lighting requirements of some corals are very specific. It's better to decide what corals you want and then get the kind of lighting that they need, or you'll be limited to getting corals that will live with the lighting that you already have. Hope this helps a bit!

 

[TankGirl]

I have kribs in my Eclipse 12, so I think they would be great, and similarly apistos would work, but I like the idea of putting the rams in there, for some reason, just because I adore rams. I think if you want to do SW you should start with a bigger tank than the 12, as it is much more forgiving. I don't think you can get away with more than one breeding pair of anything in there, since these are relatively tall tanks and the footprint is small, so the territories are small. That is why I like kribs for this small of a tank, because their territories are small. If you are breeding rams then I assume your water is on the softer, acidic side, so Africans might not like your water as much, but you can do it with a buffering substrate and some limestone rocks.