"Memories13" wrote in message
om...
I just moved to a different house and have set up a 55 gallon
Freshwater Chiclid tank. I have this tank in the middle of the room
(not backed up to
a wall). That being th case, I am attempting to do this with out
having anything ugly hanging out of the tank.

I have the following fish:
(1) 3" Jack Dempsey
(1) 6" Magunese (sp)
(1) 6" Oscar

I am going to build an additional oak hood to cover the black plastic
hoods
thatcame with the fishtank. Aside from this oak hood, I only hope to
have one
wire coming out of the oak hood which will be an extension cord
goingto an out let (and covered in decorative wire loom). I want to
have all filtration contained within the oak hood.

My initial attempt at doing this was to purchase (2) Fluval 2-Plus
internal filters which I did. These seem to be working okay but it has
only been a week so not totally sure yet. The tank is clear and the
fish seem to be fine though there is a cloudy layer of film on the top
of the water which I do not ever recall having when I had a power
biowheel filter in my tank at my old house (can't have this type of
filter now because will not fit properly with my hood/scheme). I was
considering taking out one of the internal filter and replacing it
with a small/cheaper canister filter if I could find one that is small
enough to fit in my hood area (only about 6" high. Not sure if this is
a good idea though as I have only ever had biowheel power filters in
the past.

Just some of my ideas. Not to sure what to do at this point. I don't
want to invest alot of money into this project as I don't have the
money to spend right now. Thank you very much for any help that anyone
here might be able to provide to me.

The absolute best way to run this would be to get a tank that was drilled
through the bottom - then you could run all the pipework & powercables up
through what could easily be a dry conduit.....

Otherwise Old Fluval 103 cannisters are faily slender but obviously they
were not designed to work on their sides - then again I suppose there is no
reason why they shouldn't work quite adequately like this.

The film you are getting on top of the water would tend to indicate not
enough turbulence at the surface. If you increase that it should disburse
over a day or so.

I.