What do you all think of the Eclipse III hood for a saltwater tank?

any links to a pic by any chance?

The eclipse hoods are perfect for nano tanks, so I could only think it would work for a 29 gallon. I hear that if you use any type of HOB, which I guess is what the biowheel in the hood is considered, creates excessive nitrates in the tank, which can be bad if you are using live rock or corals. I guess it all depends on the application.

Here

Here's a pic of it... albeit not a very good one.

I think Eclipse hoods are a bad choice for a saltwater tank especially a 29 gallon. Basically you are stuck with the filter that is built into the hood and if you wanted to add a HOB filter or HOB skimmer you would have to modify the hood by cutting part of the back off. The filter that is built in is pretty insufficient when it comes to filtering a saltwater tank. The lighting the hoods come with are fluorescent bulbs which can't sustain any photosynthetic corals. So imo you would be better off buying a everything seperate.

If I may ask Sergeant Major are you thinking of using an Eclipse hood for a saltwater tank? :)

Well we've got the 29g tank and an eclipse III hood, and for the time being it's going to be saltwater, until we bring home the 150g tank that's in layaway later this year (like christmas). Once we get that home, we want to set that up as a FOWLR/Reef Tank... and turn the 29g into a freshwater planted tank.

Is the lack of filtration capability going to play a major role if we've got LS and LR in there to help with the bio-load?

As far as stocking goes, we're thinking of doing one clownfish to start and one young yellow tang a little later (young so that we can upgrade the tank before it really needs the extra swimming space). Other possible tankmates we are considering... 1 dwarf mexican hermit crab, 1 cleaner shrimp. I'm not sure about those though, it might be trying to get too much in the tank.

Would you recommend I do what I have done with some of my other tanks, and fill the filter cartridge area up with polyester batting to provide better bio-filtration?

Since the filter that is built in has a filter cartridge and biowheel you should just not use the filter at all or take out the filter media and use the filter for flow. Since you are not using a fuge or protein skimmer then I would suggest getting at least 25lbs of live rock and a couple powerheads rated at 200gph. Live sand imo is a waste of money as the live rock will seed the sand overtime.

As I stated above if you have an adequate amount of live rock to do all your biological filtration there is no need for polyester. Also sponges and such when used in a saltwater aquarium can be Nitrate sinks, which is basically when food and waste that the filter sucks up gets trapped in the sponge and contributes to high Nitrates. Also if you use a sponge you would have to rinse it every day.

About stocking. What species of Clownfish were you thinking? If you do decide to add a Yellow Tang to the 29g I would only keep him in there for a very short time as Tangs get big and need tons of swimming room.

If you have anymore questions just ask. :)

Don't know yet what kind of clownfish. Probably won't get the tang until after the 150g comes home, but might get it a couple of months beforehand.

Thanks for the help. B)