Question About Small System Filtration Methods

[sillysidewinder]

Hello Everyone.

I am on the brink of making some changes to my tank setup and had a few questions. I just got some new lights complements of Kris, (thank you very much :splitspin) They are 18" Metal Halide lights I believe 24 Watts each and there are 4 of them. I will soon be building some sort of platform and a pendant for them to be housed in. I was wondering if anyone knew any good methods for building a safe housing for these lights.

Also, when these lights are going to be hung they will most definitely be partially blocked by the big hunky filter that came standard with my Eclipse System 12. I have wanted to somehow upgrade this for some time now. I have been told that canister filters are not so great because they tend to trap bacteria and things of that sort and redistribute them in the system. I would not be opposed to some sort of a sump setup, although it seems somewhat foolish on a 12 gallon tank. Does anyone have any other ideas for a filtration method off the top of the tank.

Another question that I had was whether or not I should have a battery backup. I had this image in my head the other day when I was out of the house of the electricity blowing out and my helpless tank slowly dieing while im out of town. I assume a battery backup would be the way to go to prevent this, but is that the only way?

Thanks for the time and I hope to hear some responses soon!

Josh

 

[JimmyR1rider]

First of- youre lights arent metal halides. They are T-5's most likely- metal halides arent long and there are no such thing as 24w halides most haldes are 150W - 400W
T-5s wattages usually correspond pretty close watts to length- my 36" T-5s are 39W.

Just put any low light corals in the shady areas and your higher light corals where the lights get to them.

For a small system you can make a canister work fine- just really try to keep it over maintained in a way make sure you clean it out often so nitrates dont have a chance to build up.


The battery back up is really for powerheads not for your lighting, no battery back up will last long powering a tank unless you have a good sized battery bank for the stuff to run off of.

If your worried about corals not having light they can go a few days without light before they will start to be to where you have to start worrying. Its flow and surface agitation for oxygenation of the water purposes that are the real important things not so much light. If that happens unless you have a generator your going to lose your livestock to some degree.

Heres something you can do----

custom king on here can build you a sump for it if you chose to do it. I saw this on youtube a while back with this guys 29G biocube. real good inginuity and obviously by looking at the tank works awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjTkLcMfFE


You can do something like this planned out specifically for your system with Jeff.(custom king)

Best of luck with your tank......Jimmy