200gal cycling?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

As some of you may know i am planning on getting a new tank when i get a bigger house; in fact i have decided on a 200gal tank, 6/7ft long, 3ft at the ends and about 1 and a half high- working out costs so far i'm looking at a £1000's but anyways, ahem...I have a few questions since i am trying to plan ahead as much as posible;
a. Suppose i was to cycle the tank using fish, how many fish would i need minimum to do so or maximum(i have mollys, platys and guppys to choose from) and how long would it take roughly to do so?
b. I have been looking into sump systems for filtration of the tank but they seem so complicated; at my lfs they use a pond pump to pump their 6ft plant tank and i was wondering wether i could use this instead?
c. The tank was originally for my plecs(and still is); 2 of my plecs are common ones(one 5inch and the other 7inchs) and a little one which appears to be a common plec crossed with somthing else- would a 200gal tank be okay for them when they are fully grown say they grow to 20inchs+ each? How much room would be left for other fish and how many(say they are guppy/molly/platy sized)?
Thanks for your time and any info is much appreciated

 

[Paul_MTS]

best way to cycle the tank is using filter media from another tank.

when i started up my 210g i just threw some media from another tank into the sump and hey presto, ready cycled tank.

sumps are very basic really. the tank is drilled with a weir surrounding the hole, the water being pumped into the tank overlfows into the weier and drains through the hole leading to the sump under tha tank. the water goes through the media and then reaches the pumps being pumped back up to the tank, with sumps you get everything out the tank apart from the weir and the inlet tubes.

IMO you have a bit of a dodgy mix. ok so you want to house your plecs which will do fine in a tank that size but there going to wreck any decorations you put in apart from large chunks of wood. which is what the smaller fish are going to want...plants and decorations for cover.

in all honnesty i think your wasting a tank that size on livebearers. maybe you should consider stocking it with some cichlids instead??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The livebearers and plecs won't be the only fish in the tank- i have various corys and khuli loaches, neon tetras and posibly some pearl danios if the fry survive. Im also thinking of getting some fish types that i have lost in the past like bettas(use to have 2 but both got lost to sickness over the 5 or so months i kept them-started with 4 actually but 2 got rehomed shortly after getting them) and maybe get some all-new types like barbs or some rare catfish like zebra plecs.
I did consider the cichilds(and they are a beautiful group/family of fish ) but from what i have gathered there are not many types of fish you can keep with them that are not cichilds and they can be quite aggressive- i tend to go for the more peaceful fish.
With the plecs i havn't had any trouble with them so far as far as them uprooting plants and stuff- all my plants are planted in the centre of the tanks next to large objects and the plecs just seem to use the path roots which are not planted.
Apart from that(sorry for being so slow on this subject!), so a sump system is basically a spare little tank where you can put all your filter stuff out of sight of the main tank?

 

[Paul_MTS]

there's plenty of cichlids you could succesfully keep with your fish in a tank that fish, blue rams come to mind quickly.

i don't think bettas would be suitable as they would literally die of exhaustion trying to patrol the whole tank, I'm pretty sure thats right but i'm sure a betta expert will post soon.

your plecs are relatively small at the moment, when they hit 18" 1 swish of there tail will knock alot of things over and unroot plants.

zebra plecs are a nice choice but have no place in a large community with a couple of large plecs charging aorund. by all means stock it with a shed load of nice L numbers but just pick them out wisely.

yep thats kind of the workings of a sump, as a general rule the sump should be 10% of the volume of the main tank.

they do work out more expensive but IMO it's well worth it.......well more expensive if you have to buy new, can be alot cheaper if you find a good set up second hand.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks for the info so far i have been thinking of rehoming the smallest plec for a while but i feel realy guilty in doing so because it would only be so it doesn't tear up plants when it grows older....Say you had a fully grown 20inch plec how bigger tank would it need if it were to live on its own?
Blue Rams look nice are there any other discus that are ok with small fish like guppys etc?
With the bettas, would female ones be ok to handle a big tank?

 

[WILDER]

Massive tank tokis good luck with it.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Massive tank tokis good luck with it.

Cheers i'm trying not to think about how much its gonna cost me at the mo but its somthing i've wanted to have ever since i took up fish keeping ; when i get my new home i will probably have to take up the floorboards and fill the bottom in with concrete just to take the weight of the tank.

 

[CFC]

i don't think bettas would be suitable as they would literally die of exhaustion trying to patrol the whole tank, I'm pretty sure thats right but i'm sure a betta expert will post soon.

i think bettas manage to survive in areas a bit bigger than 18 square feet in the wild, just because its a bigger tank it doesnt mean the fish will use every part of it.

 

[Paul_MTS]

i don't think bettas would be suitable as they would literally die of exhaustion trying to patrol the whole tank, I'm pretty sure thats right but i'm sure a betta expert will post soon.

i think bettas manage to survive in areas a bit bigger than 18 square feet in the wild, just because its a bigger tank it doesnt mean the fish will use every part of it.

lol...true!!