Hopefully My Last Piece Of Advice Is Needed Before I Start My Tank :)

[fiskkeeperpro]

Right to start of:

I am using the juwel black structured background, so what ubstrate colour would look better, i am going for sand as im getting corys. I was thinking either black, white (normal colour), or a mixture of black and white, please advise on that one or say a totally different colour that you think will look nice or that you've had experience with.

For the plants, im getting them from greenline http/www.aquaticplants.eu.com/acatalog/S...ollections.html, im getting the 4481 package on that link. Anyone know what plants are most likely to come to my door?

http/www.aquaticplants.eu.com/acatalog/Foreground.html looking on that link, what plants would be suitable for carpet plants.
Do you think ill have enough plants for an 81x36x50cm (lxwxh) aquarium?

What co2 unit is better, im either going to go for the hagen nutrafin or the Hydor CO2 Green NRG Natural System (1st one on the link below)
http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/catalogue/co2-systems.asp

That all for now,

Thanks

Will

 

[lisa_perry75]

Definately go for light coloured gravel as that backing is very very dark!

What lighting do you have? Are you going high-tech or low-tech?

 

[angel-al]

Had good results with the Tetra plant Co2 kit. Its 15 pound for kit and a lot simper and effective than the hagen one. Never used the Hydor one.

 

[angel-al]

Also, uni pac do about 5 different sorts of sand. Theres on with black specks and one with white specks, silica sand (wash well!) and silver sand and maybe 1 mure. Ive never seen proper black sand only river gravel which is a bit coarser

 

[fiskkeeperpro]

im not sure what tech im going for, my lighting is 2x28w t5s over a 125l tank, i think that getsme about 1.7wpg but i thought the wpg didn't work with t5s?

Ill have a look for the different types of sand in my shop. How many kgs do you think i will need. Im using tetra plant substrat, ill probably use all of the 5.4kg tub.

 

[angel-al]

2 or 3 bags of 5kg. Just put the bags next to a similar size tank to gie you an idea but allow for your plant substrate too. If you get too much just take back what you dont use.

 

[SuperColey1]

Silver Sand is nice but I would just get it from the garden centre. cheaper and its the same stuff without the aquarium labelling. This of course should be used over a nutritious substrate.

Your lighting and tank size comniation means that you need pressurised CO2 and not DIY because a 125Ltr tank would need minimum 2 yeast kits with stock 1WPG lighting. Your T5s 56W/1.7WPG could be nearer the equivalent of 3WPG on the WPG rule.

Therefore you have enough light for any plant but it needs to be countered with a stable ppm of CO2 which of course means pressurised.

Andy

 

[nry]

It's nigh on impossible to keep stable CO2 with the Optimat system. All you do is manually fill the cylinder and then it enters the water at its own rate. You'll need two fills per day to keep some form of CO2 entering the water. Far far better off going DIY with two cannisters or splashing ~£100 for something like the D-D pressurised set, has everything inc. solenoid etc. I tried Optimat and DIY for 6 months, and gave up - algae was a nightmare, mainly staghorn which loved my unstable CO2. Since the switch to pressuried (I use EI for fertilising too) things have settled down and I'm 99.9% algae free and CO2 is truely controllable to keep a stable 30ppm/green 4dkh drop checker.