[doHTML]<img src="http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c158/Gatbunton/Eclipse3.jpg" alt="Eclipse from Marineland" style="float:right;" />
<b>Eclipse 3</b> Lighting and filtration from <b>MARINELAND</b>
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<br><br>I purchased my eclipse3 a little over a year ago. It has been running on my 29g FOWLR tank for about 10 months. I simply have to rave about the filter pump. Although the intake appears clogged with algae, the flow remains outstanding. This really turns over the water in the tank quite well. My only complaint on the filtration part is with the design of the filter itself, in short order the filter clogs and then the water simply runs over the top of it without filtering through it. If the filter media were more coarse, it wouldn't have that problem (incidentally, here is an article about making your own coarse filter media: <a href="http://www.well.com/~debunix/fish/filters.html">http://www.well.com/~debunix/fish/filters.html</a>
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As far as lighting goes, the dual T8 florescent bulbs do a fairly decent job of lighting the tank, as long as you're not looking to keep corals. There are some retrofit kits that allow for more light, but those can be quite expensive.
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I do love the clean look that the Eclipse hood gives the tank, and how it hides the electrical cords and whatnot. I don't like the fact that there is so little room for expansion on the system though.
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On Durrability, I have found the system to have worked quite well. The light tends to flicker when I open the lid, and there was one power-outage after which the pump didn't self-prime as it was supposed to (in all fairness, the water level was 3 inches lower than normal at the time) . Overall it has served me well though, and I plan to keep it around for a long time to come; so I had to give it four and a half stars.
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