Changing From Marine To Tropical, Advice Needed!

afrosamuari · Feb 18, 2012

Hi all,

After 3/4 years of running a marine tank I have decided I want to try tropicals main reason being the cost has escalated so much on marines in recent years, plus would like a change.
My setup at the moment consists of -

trigon 190ltr open top tank
150watt 10k Blv halide
ehiem pro3 2073, which has carbon and nitrate remover in the baskets
2 x Tunze 6025 powerheads
atc 800 controller
2 x 150w heaters
1x phosban 150 whihc has phosphate remover in.

I would like to try and have a nice planted tank with nice community fish.
I dont plan on using Co2 so looking at plants which are easier to keep.

So my questions are is any of the equipment ive got any use and if so whats the best way of setting up the kind of tank i want??

thanks in advance!

regards
chris

DrRob · Feb 18, 2012

You're pretty much all the way there already.

It's a good tank,
the light may be a bit bright for a low tech tank,
tis a nice filter, but the carbon and nitrate remover are pretty redundant, you need to fill it with some biological filter media and some mechanical media,
the powerheads can be useful if you end up heavily planted,
the controller and the heaters should just move across,
the phosphate reactor is probably overkill for anything tropical, occasionally people play with phosphate removers to try to keep algae down but that reactor may be useful for running some other chemical media in, otherwise you could just sell it.

afrosamuari · Feb 19, 2012

so the light is ok just get a lower kelvin rated bulb?
when making water shall i still use my RO unit?
whats best stuff to put into the 3 baskets of my filter?
sorry for all the questions!!

chris

DrRob · Feb 19, 2012

Bright as in high wattage. You're at about 3w per gallon there, which is well into the intense lighting category and puts you into CO2 and fertiliser usage for plants, otherwise you'll be growing plenty of algae. Kelvin wise, not really a problem, several tanks ship with 10k bulbs that are intended for tropical use and the light looks fine.

You can use RO water for freshwater. I do, you just need to remineralise it with something (think salt light compared to marine). Some people do mixes with tapwater, but generally it's used by those with terrible tapwater (like me), those who want to keep soft water fish, or those who want to keep delicate fish (like discus). It's worth taking a look at what's coming out of your tap. Some hard water areas are great for keeping malawi cichlids in, some areas are great for keeping soft water fish, with the minimum of fuss and a good dechlorinator.

Controversial question, but basically, mechanical, then biological, then chemical. Generally you don't "need" chemical. Eheim do their own media, which I'm using for the simple reason that it came with the filter, and it's been fine, but you can get recommendations by the thousand if you ask for them. I'd take a look at what media the filter usually ships with, and then decide from there what you actually want to put in it.