Emperor fuge?

[jenglish]

In the big box of filters etc from over the years I have an Emperor 400 that has been parted out and is essentually only a shell. I was considering converting it into a HOB fuge. If I put an internal pump in my HOB skimmer I can port water into the emperor case w/o puttin anymore equipment into the tank. then a hang on light and its the start of a fuge. Anything I am missing or should be considering?

[jenglish]

oh yeah, there is now a YWG in the tank and while it is riddled with pods now I fear that will quickly change

[crvz]

No, that should work fine. How much volume does the filter have?

[jenglish]

very close to 5 liters. when it operated as a power filter it ran 400 gph. The only pumps I have handy are a spare aquaclear 402 (175 gph) and the spare skimmer pump which I would prefer not to use both because it adds bubbles and I may need to run both sides of my skimmer at some point. (it is a octo BH 300 that I only run 1 side of to lessen the amount of equipment in the tank.)

[jenglish]

so would that 175 be too high of a flow rate? I could adjust it with the head height. At this point there will be no macro in it until I get a light so at this point I didn't think flow rate would really be an issue.

[jenglish]

instead of running a pump I am using the intake pipe for the 2nd PH as a return line and a little Vinyl hosing to just drain it into the jury rigged fuge. I think I may plug the real return pipe so that all the flow goes into the fuge. I know iknow... I need pictures.

[jenglish]

I have a ghetto fuge light... a clamp lamp w/ a 20 watt of 6500k cfl bulb about 2 inches above the water. Will this support any macro growth?
I am not looking to get any real filtration benefit out of a setup this small but I want it for biodiversity and maybe food for my pods. Also will the macro starve to death since it is post skimmer? there was really no other way to plumb it HOB w/o another pump in tank which I'm trying to avoid

[OneDummHikk]

Originally Posted by jenglish

I have a ghetto fuge light... a clamp lamp w/ a 20 watt of 6500k cfl bulb about 2 inches above the water. Will this support any macro growth?

Yes, and grow it quite well in fact. The lower K spectrums tend to promote more algae growth than anything else, which is what you are wanting to grow.

Originally Posted by jenglish

I am not looking to get any real filtration benefit out of a setup this small but I want it for biodiversity and maybe food for my pods. Also will the macro starve to death since it is post skimmer? there was really no other way to plumb it HOB w/o another pump in tank which I'm trying to avoid

It is highly doubtful that it would starve. The skimmer simply isn't that efficient at pulling everything out that is in the water. Not even the highest end skimmer pulls it all out. Worse case scenario, it doesn't grow as you want and you end up having to replumb it to be pre-skimmer.