Eclipse 12 Gallon

[MasterDrummer]

Right now my Eclipse 12 gallon is sitting in my attic collecting dust and I was wondering if anyone had ideas of something cool I could do with it?
I can't decide between several ideas and wantied to get a few more to see what I like.
My ideas so far are a planted community tank or a shell dwelling cichlid tank. Unfortunately I don't know much about cichlids so I don't know whether this is a good idea or not...

So any ideas appreciated.

 

[jarcher1390]

well planted with some ammano shrimp and various tetras

 

[Lhutch]

im not a hundred percent on the shell dwellers but i think you could

 

[Hobbit]

im going marine with mine. Im retrofitting new lights on, and growing some corals. And im putting a mantis shrimp in there. google that and see how cool they are.

 

[MasterDrummer]

Seeing as it is 12 gallons and would be considered a nano for SW, I think I'll stick to freshwater for now. How are you planning on retro fitting a new light to yours? Because I might want to do that if i go with live plants.

Any more info on the shell dwellers?

 

[jess6905]

im going marine with mine. Im retrofitting new lights on, and growing some corals. And im putting a mantis shrimp in there. google that and see how cool they are.

you just gave me a really good idea for mine.. i see my next project now.....

 

[Hobbit]

96 watt quad retrofit light on hellolights.com its power compact. I've heard its fairly easy. the holes are aa;ready matched up i guess. just screw it in. on live aquaria, there's power compact retros that are made for eclipses. i think the highest is 55 watts

 

[stang1]

You could have shelldwellers in that tank, it would house about 4 quite easily.
You need to decide which ones you like but they pretty much have the same needs. I use sand substrate in mine and have lots of Golden Apple Snail shells for them to live in. They prefer a PH of 8 or above and one way that you can achieve that is by adding some tufa rock.
They eat most foods such as flake, pellets and frozen but mine do seem to prefer flake above anything else.

 

[MasterDrummer]

Thanks for the info. Looks like it will be awhile before I can get the tank going since school starts monday And I'll be pretty busy. Then again, I might just re-vamp my 40 gallon community tank, not that it needs it but it would be less time consuming...
EDIT.
I have a few questions...
What is Tufa Rock? never heard of it before
And where do you get the snail shells?
Apart from shells what else would be good in the tank? Plants, rocks, wood, etc.

Thanks

 

[starrynightxxi]

hmm.. small fish...

badis badis
- dwarf chameleon fish
- scarlet badis

rainbowfish
- threadfin rainbowfish (Iriatherina werneri)
- gertrude's rainbowfish (Pseudomugil gertrudae)

gobies/gudgeon
- peacock gobies (Tateurndina ocellicauda)
- goo-obo gudgeon (Allomogurnda nesolepis) [i forget what the tank size is for these guys, but i think it's close to that. check the oddball profiles]

dwarf cichlid
- nannacara and lateacara sp.
- you could probably keep one ram or apisto but i think a pair would be pushing it.

there are a lot of microrasboras too. they aren't all coming to mind but include fish like the galaxy rasboras

that's all i got for more unusual little fishes... I'm setting up a 20g for some of these characters so i've been poking around a bit. hope this helps

 

[PRW1988]

I'm lightly planting mine, and having a shoal of neons, cory cats and some other shoal of small, similar sized fish. I'd say plant it and have a neon tetra species tank

 

[stang1]

Thanks for the info. Looks like it will be awhile before I can get the tank going since school starts monday And I'll be pretty busy. Then again, I might just re-vamp my 40 gallon community tank, not that it needs it but it would be less time consuming...
EDIT.
I have a few questions...
What is Tufa Rock? never heard of it before
And where do you get the snail shells?
Apart from shells what else would be good in the tank? Plants, rocks, wood, etc.

Thanks

Tufa rock is a porous limestone rock that helps keep a high PH.
You can either ask your lfs if they have any empty shells or have a look on e-bay for some.
Some people have plants in their tank but I chose not to as a lot of shelldwellers like to shift the sand around which may cause plants to uproot. I keep a few pieces of Tufa rock, plenty of shells and some cobbles.