Hooray!

[Misskiwi67]

Hey all!!! We just got a YES on our 700 dollar proposal to purina to upgrade the Vet School Fish tank!!!! I"M SOOO EXCITED!!!

We're completely replacing the substrate with eco-complete, getting new (water resistant) lighting since our old system has rusted out, ordering approximately 150 dollars worth of plants, and adding 12 Rainbow fish that are currently in quarrantine...

Any tips on a timeline?? I keep having nightmares that we're going to spend all this money on getting the tank functional (I really don't like plastic plants and getting electrocuted) and then its just going to crash into a giant algae bucket....

 

[nino]

You get to start a tank up from new and the school pays for it? Lucky you. I'm majoring in Bio and have been thinking of ways I could do my senior thesis that would incorporate fish in a way where I'd get to do even more fishkeeping.

 

[Misskiwi67]

You get to start a tank up from new and the school pays for it? Lucky you. I'm majoring in Bio and have been thinking of ways I could do my senior thesis that would incorporate fish in a way where I'd get to do even more fishkeeping.

Actually, the tank has been in place for 70 years, and one of the school organizations pays for basic (very basic) maintenance costs. We had to get the money from a drug company sponsor and agree to make sure everyone knew who made the donation. The tank has had cut corners for years, and its just finally hit the point where it needed some serious upgrades.

 

[lljdma06]

Congratulations on the budget approval.

What is the size of the tank? What Watt per Gallon do you plan on having? If it is above 2.00, I would seriously consider CO2 injection and get it working properly before you add plants or extra fish. What types of plants do you want to keep? I wouldn't go too fancy and keep things that are easy to grow and propagate. What will be the maintenance regimen on this new tank?

Sorry for the questions, I just want to make sure that your $700 budget gets stretched to the max.

 

[jimbooo]

congratulations, sounds like your gonna have a lot of fun. once you have the substrate sorted as lljdma06 said you need to sort out the light and co2. if you want the WOW factor your going to need co2.

what size is the tank in litres/gallons AND WxHxD

if you want some help with it i'll do my best.

 

[Misskiwi67]

Hey, the money is for new lighting and fixtures, a new hood so we don't have wet lights/electrical like we do now, ecocomplete substrate, ~150 dollars of plants, and rainbow fish.

We should end up with about 1.8 or 2.0 WPG. I don't remember exactly because lighting isn't my forte, so somebody else did the research. Whatever it is, its high enough for plants to grow, but low enough we hopefully won't need CO2 because we don't have the money or time to maintain a system. We have a weekly maintenance schedule in place right now. Fish are fed 3 times a week. Each friday the tank is either topped off or a 30% water change is done. At each water change we clean one of the two canister filters for the tank.

We're ordering plants from arizona aquatics because they say they'll put together a package for us based on our tank, water parameters and lighting.

The tank is a 125 gallon, which mean 6 foot long by 18 deep by 22 high??? Something like that.

So anyway, we're completely gutting the tank, and I was curious if we should add substrate and plants all in one day, or do it gradually over 1-2 weeks I just don't want the tank to crash and kill all our plants and fish

 

[lljdma06]

All tanks, especially one this large would benefit from CO2 injection, even at 1.8 or 2.0 WPG. I would go for easy to maintain sorts like anubias, crypts, java fern, and simple stem plants like some varieties of hygro. Make sure that the filter has a low current on it, and I would, if possible, to prevent algae, have your lights timed to include a siesta period to avoid algae. A good setup is 5/on 2/off and 5/on again. You also might want to consider dosing with some type of fertilizer to give your plants a head start.

 

[Misskiwi67]

All tanks, especially one this large would benefit from CO2 injection, even at 1.8 or 2.0 WPG. I would go for easy to maintain sorts like anubias, crypts, java fern, and simple stem plants like some varieties of hygro. Make sure that the filter has a low current on it, and I would, if possible, to prevent algae, have your lights timed to include a siesta period to avoid algae. A good setup is 5/on 2/off and 5/on again. You also might want to consider dosing with some type of fertilizer to give your plants a head start.

For those of you with CO2, how much time do you spend daily/weekly maintaining your systems? The problem is that this tank is maintained by a group of very busy graduate students, and the group changes every year. We're often gone for a week to 3 weeks a year with nobody to maintain the tank. During periods of time where the schedule is busy (finals especially) there may not be anyone willing to take time out of their schedule to do maintenance. I would LOVE to add CO2 to this tank, I even think we could have gotten the money, but I really think the varying schedules and knowledge of the majority of the caretakers really limits us here.

The lights are currently on a time (10/14 right now), but we cannot regulate the ambient lighting. In fact, the lobby is lit 24 hours a day!! I think we're pretty much stuck with algae, no matter what we do...

The filter is a fluval 304, and something else that barely runs. For the tank, I think we've got as low a filtration rate as we can pull off. Is there a way to maintain filtration and limit the water movement??

What kind of fertilizer dose would you recommend to give the plants a boost???