Starting again

[Jen]

Hey all. It's been a while! 4 or 5 years maybe....

Hubby and I are finally settled and have a house with room for a tank and we have been itching for fish, so here goes.

55g tank. 2 wpg. CO2 tank.

It seems that I have forgotten everything I used to know.

I am going to get substrate with some nutrients it in, and a co2 diffuser. Apart from that, I'm at a loss for what I need. Test kits obviously, fertilizer of some sort.

Can anyone hold my hand and walk me through this?

 

[SnailPocalypse]

Seachem flourish is a good fertilizer that I believe has everything you need in it.I know most members here use it.What kind of plants are you planning on having?

 

[Jen]

I figured flourish would be a good start. I know I used to use that and excel before going the EI route.

The tank will be Forest themed, so big and leafy plants. I haven't gotten that far yet as up until 2 hours ago we weren't going to do co2 and I was going to aim for 1wpg.

I would love moss and crypts, sword, hairgrass or my old standby hydrocotyle. Basically an overrun forest with lots of different types of plants running wild.

 

[SnailPocalypse]

Ah ok for hairgrass I would say a little stronger than 1wpg should suffice.Maybe 2WPG

 

[Jen]

2 is what we have. I have planning on cutting back to 1 when we werent doing co2, but now that we are I will use both bulbs. Glad to hear I can have hair grass!

 

[SnailPocalypse]

Yeah 2WPG should be fine for all your plants you chose.I don't know much about hydrocotyle so I can't give lighting adivce there but I would say your off to a great start.What kind of fish are you planning onm?

 

[Jen]

Angels and khuli loaches are all that we've agreed on so far (sharing a tank is hard!!). I would like a good number of angels and then a large school of something smaller, he would like a few of 6 or 7 species.

 

[SnailPocalypse]

Ok.sound good.I dont know how well angels will do with small schooling fish though.