"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message
...
I'm about to purchase a new tank to use for QT and to try to raise some
fry. This tank will go in the master bedroom, on top of a wooden chest
of
drawers. The tank will be planted, of course...
I was thinking of getting one of those eclipse combos, a 30 gallon
looked
nice. It comes with 40W of fluorescent light.
Does anybody think it's not a good choice for the location? I certainly
don't want to deal with hoses and cables all over the place. The
eclipse
concept is certainly convenient, but does it work?
Any advise would be most appreciated.

Fry, plants, quarantine (inconsistant and conflicting requirements) &
bedroom operation (new set of requirements). You might be trying to
squeeze too much out of this one tank Victor ;~) FWIW, planted tanks are
inconsistent with quarantine set-ups. If there is a disease, you can
damage the plants with the treatments and reseting and sterilization
becomes far more problematic JMO ). As far as water spillage, the
Eclipse is a good choice to contain the droplets & humidity, but your
filter intake might not be consistent with fry. For quarantine, I tend
towards no substrate, simple Aquaclear (disposable sponge instead of a
bio-wheel to contend with), no or low lights, in a quiet corner of the
house. In regards to weight, your wooden chest might be adequate for the
vertical weight vector, but suspect for strong horizontal loading. Take
the drawers out and look inside at the vertical framing (do they transfer
the weight directly to the base/feet or through fasteners?). If you are
satisfied with the vertical framing, check what holds the framing
upright. Sometimes simply attaching a sheet of plywood along the back is
all that is needed to provide the extra needed horizontal (twist)
reinforcement. You also want the end of the aquarium to fall on the
vertical framing or the cabinet top will distort. In this case, you
might be better with a 30g instead of a 20g, if the 20g sits in the
middle and not above the cabinet sides. Putting a heavier thicker board
to keep the top from warping is not as easy as you might expect (been
there, done that). as always.. ymmv ;~)

NetMax

Cheers.

Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv