[tremendotron]

Here's some progress on my 6-gallon Eclipse. It's a continuation of another thread, A tale of two tanks.

It started with the stock Eclipse Six used as a breeder tank. Ew!



I cleaned it out and added Flourite Black, some rocks, some plants (ludwigia, micro sword, corkscrew val, algae ball) and some shrimp (amanos, red cherries).



The algae came and the ludwigia melted. The Eclipse Six comes with some weeny little 8W bulb so I purchased the 28W retrofit kit from HelloLights.com. (I used wood screws to mount the kit since I had no bolts and was too excited to drive to Home Depot.) Yay!



One week later and I had an epic failure. Boo!



Over the next few weeks I cranked the timer back bit by bit. 6 hours a day seemed to be the magic amount of time where the algae stopped growing and the plants bloomed. The plants sprouted so much that I removed about four fistfulls of water sprite and riccia prior to taking this picture.



Success! :thumbsup:

 

[tremendotron]

Rusty bulb update here!

 

[epicfish]

Here's some progress on my 6-gallon Eclipse. It's a continuation of another thread, A tale of two tanks.

It started with the stock Eclipse Six used as a breeder tank. Ew!

Looks like gumballs! Mmmmmm.

 

[itstony]

neat little tank that you have. loved the first approach on the tank lol. but im glad theres no more algae .

 

[ming30g]

picture of retro fit

Impressive! that is some great improvement with the retrofit kit. Could you please post a picture of the inside view of the retrofit kit? I have a Eclipse6 as well and am thinking about getting the retrofit kit.
Thanks!

 

[tremendotron]

Here you go:

The ballast is pretty heavy — I've been meaning to bolt it to the back of the hood but I never quite got around to it:

 

[tremendotron]

Oh yeah.. Don't forget to seal the bulb with silicone. Otherwise you'll have this happen:

 

[rasetsu]

The hellolights website says to not use the lights where they are directly exposed to water.

 

[tremendotron]

The hellolights website says to not use the lights where they are directly exposed to water.

With the Eclipse filtration and lack of an air stone, there's not much risk of getting water in the lights other than condensation. If there was lots of splashing in this tank I'd think differently.

 

[foster400]

With the Eclipse filtration and lack of an air stone, there's not much risk of getting water in the lights other than condensation. If there was lots of splashing in this tank I'd think differently.

Im not trying to bash you by no means, but condensation and humidity can be just as bad as direct contact. Plus looking at the pic you have a ton of condensation just waiting to drip.

Just be sure you have the light on a GFCI receptacle just to be safe.

 

[ming30g]

Thank you! I am getting one.

 

[tremendotron]

Followup: Still no trouble after sealing the lights with silicone. It's been nine months.