# Eclipse System 6 Journal - UPDATED



## Run-A-Mucker (Sep 19, 2003)

*Word!*

Hey thats a good start. This is Ryan btw. Where are you getting your flora and fauna from?


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Sandbar pet store in mission viejo...little mom and pop place. one of the guys from pettown works there now...the young bald guy with glasses who knows a ton. decent place for fish and plants now, and they can order anything


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## Lil boy blue (Jan 26, 2006)

looks like a good start....what is your dosing regime, lighting specs,.etc.....
o and one thing to becareful of is the silver tipped tetras. I had 7 and ended up with 3 because they can get aggressive with each other forcing the least agressive to not eat and hide all the time.....good luck!!


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Oh yeah, forgot that stuff 

Lighting is the stock 8W that came with it, so that puts me at 1.3 wpg..just enough for some low light plants. I plan on upgrading to the hellolights 28W retrokit in the next couple months.

As for dosing, i just picked up some FloraPride for 3 bucks until i get a good understanding on how ferts work, how much to dose, and how to make my own from industrial fertilizers. As of now, i'm dosing about 5 mL of florapride per week with the water change.


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## Lil boy blue (Jan 26, 2006)

Read this (unless you already did) it tells you everything you want to know........http://rexgrigg.com/ ......it helped me a lot


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Update...
Added some riccia and anubia nana petite.

I also moved the main rock to make room for my african root wood that is soon going to be going in...

Sorry for the not so clear pictures...trying to get better at it.









Left angle shot









Front shot


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## Purrbox (Jun 11, 2006)

The bunch plant in the rear of the tank in the first pic, and the back left of the most recent picture is Green Hedge. Unfortunately it isn't a true aquatic and won't last very long submerged.


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Purrbox said:


> The bunch plant in the rear of the tank in the first pic, and the back left of the most recent picture is Green Hedge. Unfortunately it isn't a true aquatic and won't last very long submerged.


really, are you sure that is what it is? i read about it on that link and it says it will die and rot in my tank (and it actually has been doing that so far....been lookin pretty bad). the guy at the LFS said it was 'anarchris'. is that what it is? 

i do find this plant indeed annoying...any reccomendations from what i should put there instead?


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## Purrbox (Jun 11, 2006)

I'm as sure as I can be without seeing the plants in person. Don't worry, I got suckered into buying them too when I was setting up my first serious planted tank. It's a very attractive plant that is one of many that are good at teaching us to research before you buy.

With your current lighting I'd probably go with a crypt back there. Any of the varients of Crypt Wendtii would look very nice in my opinion. Once you upgrade the light you'll have a lot more options. Rotala Rotundifolia is the main one that comes to mind right now.


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Purrbox said:


> I'm as sure as I can be without seeing the plants in person. Don't worry, I got suckered into buying them too when I was setting up my first serious planted tank. It's a very attractive plant that is one of many that are good at teaching us to research before you buy.
> 
> With your current lighting I'd probably go with a crypt back there. Any of the varients of Crypt Wendtii would look very nice in my opinion. Once you upgrade the light you'll have a lot more options. Rotala Rotundifolia is the main one that comes to mind right now.


besides being ugly, leaving it in there couldnlt do any harm right?


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## darkfury18 (Apr 1, 2006)

once it starts rotting, it will mess with your water chemistry... raise ammonia levels i think


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Here is my DIY CO2 that i created today. Tried to keep it parsimonious by simply having a tube coming off the tank, to a needle valve, and into the tank via tubing. Its late now so i'm going to try the cigarrete filter diffuser tomorrow....heres a pic.


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

Update...

I put my new wood centerpiece in. It is a piece of african root wood, which i obtained for a paltry $2.50 from my LFS  It seemed like the trick to sink it was to make sure it was 100% submerged in a bucket with weights on it.

I'm also planning on adding a bubble counter to my DIY CO2 as we speak...

You can really see the lousy shutter speed of my digital camera...


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## mrbelvedere (Nov 15, 2005)

You sure that's fluorite?


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

woops - i meant it to say Eco Complete...thanks!


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

So i changed my DIY CO2 setup a little bit last night and started it up.... i removed the bubble counter, and i now have it going straight from the generator to the tank via 8 inch of airline tubing, no needle valve or anything. as of right now i'm getting about 7 bpm. do you guys think 7 bpm is sufficient for a 6 gal with low lighting? what about high lighting? i'm using a cigarette filter as a diffuser and its making lots of really small bubbles...pretty neat.


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## Purrbox (Jun 11, 2006)

The goal a lot people shoot for is 30ppm. If you've got a pH and KH testkit on hand, you can use those results to determine your CO2 levels. You'll want to test on some tap water that has been sitting overnight or has been aerated with an airstone for an hour to ensure that you don't have any extra buffers in your water throwing off the pH/KH relationship. Chuck Gadd's got a calculator that will calculate both dry ferts and CO2 for you.


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

So it's been a while since I have updated this. I've been rather uninvolved with my fishtank for the past 6 months, and I recently started giving it some attention again. I successfully retrofitted a 28W hellolights.com power compact kit into the hood of my Eclipse system 6 (and retained the standard filter). It was rather easy, and now I have a good amount of light over my tank for super cheap (the kit only costs $55 w/ bulb).

Now that I have some decent lighting (about 5wpg), I plan on giving my tank some more attention


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## JotaDe (May 19, 2007)

Looks good.
I just setup an office planted tank Eclipse System Six too.

I'm interested in the light DIY project here.
How are you liking it?
How does the increased heat affect your tank, and does the hood get really hot?


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

JotaDe said:


> Looks good.
> I just setup an office planted tank Eclipse System Six too.
> 
> I'm interested in the light DIY project here.
> ...


I'm lovin the light -- it was an easy install as well (and not to mention the whole kit including bulb was only $55

The amount of heat being put into the water has definitly increased -- i countered this by simply removing the little hatch that the Eclipse systems have, designed to allow you to feed fish and check filter etc. and no, the hood doesn't get hot at all.


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## 1TankWonder (Jun 16, 2006)

I'm encouraged to see your updated post! 

I have a love/hate relationship (mostly hate) with my own Eclipse System 6 (and it's underwheming stock lighting) for several years now...I can grow Java Fern and some thriving brown algae! :icon_surp 

I have a few questions:
1) With the retrofit, how did you get around the "Don't expose the fixture to moisture" issue?
2) Is the fixture you ordered the "14" 'Nano Ballast' 28W Retrofit Kit"? 
3) Why Hellolights over AH Supply?
4) How hot does your tank get with the new light? I've got Killies and the tank is unheated...I don't want it to get too warm.
5) How difficult was it to install? To clarify: Can someone with NO knowledge of how anything electrical works manage this? Frankly, electricity scares me, and electricity over water scares me even more.

Looking forward to seeing more photos of your tank!


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## riva (Apr 12, 2007)

Looks nice. 

Whats the needle valve for?


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## tropicalfish (Mar 29, 2007)

riva said:


> Looks nice.
> 
> Whats the needle valve for?


Yea? What is it for? You wouldn't want to use such a thing on DIY Co2. If you want to reduce the amount of CO2 going into your tank, use a T with the needle valve on one end and the tank tube on the other. Bleed off extra CO2 to reduce Co2 input. Closing up the valve on DIY CO2 will result in a kaboom, and a splattery yellow sticky stinky mess on your tank, wall, floor, etc.


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## tremendotron (May 21, 2008)

It's been a while, but... updates?

(I'm also digging around the forums to try and retrofit my Eclipse 6-gal.)


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