starting a nano for my 6 yr old need help

[mabblizzard]

Hi everyone. i just started my first reef tank and I'm only in the 4th week but I'm already looking to start one for my 6 yr old daughter. i have alot of questions to ask about nanos , first let me tell you what I'm thinking of getting and then add or delete for what i need and don't. I'm thinking of getting an eclipse 12 , 20lbs of live sand, and a couple of small powerheads. now here are my questions, is the eclipse goodenough to handle a nano reef long term? and what do you do about a skimmer? would you leave the bio wheel in?

[ckreef]

The eclipse can work with some modifications.

Take the Bio-wheel out and use the filter just for circulation. Skimmer is really not needed if you do regular water changes. You can also use something like SeaChem Purigen in place of a skimmer. Lights will have to be upgraded depending on what you are going to keep.

Hope this gave you somewhere to start.

[Stang69]

For the 12 gallon eclpise tank there is a retro kit that fits in the hood thats provided I cant remember if it is 32 watts or 65 I just went brain dead. I had a 10 gallon nano fer a bit but went bigger



Jeff

[Ray1214]

The best retro I saw for a 12 gal nano was 3 13 Watt PC fixtures along with the stock one. (28 watts?). He used all 10k's with one actinic and I think the 28 watt light is 6.7K. Looked really nice but he kept softies and zoos and shrooms. He used one of those acrlic lee's speciman containers I think for some kinda sump. It may have been a small version of a cpr aquatic fuge, but he mounted a power head and made a small frame with tubing for flow. (3 outlets). It was cool as the dickens since he had two tubes kinda low but covered by live rock. The middle one was came in where the overflow was (the hole in the back for the heater) and he had slightly suspended so you almost couldn't see the outlet. He removed this whole filter assembly and had to feed between two of the reflectors for his lights (the top part that lifts up to check on the filter). I think his only fish was a banded shrimp goby and some kinda of pistol shrimp. got fed like twice a week at best. He was gonna try to rig up a skimmer but I have never seen it since. All in all a neat project I thought.

Ray

[Ray1214]

Whoops now looking at the tank, I think it was 28 watt fixtures all the way and not 13 watts. got my sizes mixed up with my 3 gal eclipse project.