I Am New In This--i Need Help On 20 Gal Set Up -

[sarahline]

I am new in this hobby. I have been keeping aquatic turtle for all my life. I want to try to keep a tropical fish tank too. I know may be there is a site I could read this but I am kind of lazy. I need help on things I will need to start a fish tank.

So far what I have are these
1. 20 gal long - no light fixture or hood
2. 50 watt heater
3. Rena xp 2 canister filter


I can't think of anything else.

I need to know what light I will need for this tank.- please if you can give me the name brand and watts needed I will appreciate. What media needed for the tank? What king of air bubble I need? I have read so many sites and I am so confusing by now. If one has a tank I'll be glad to know what you have in your tank. With the brand name please.
By the way I like to keep two or three red shrimps and few fish ...later I will add some plants too.

Thanks in advance

 

[-SPB-]

Hi

Welcome to the forum. Have you read about fishless cycling. Here is a link to info about fishless cycling: FISHLESS CYCLING

Also, what size tank did you say you have. Thats one mighty filter for a 20 gallon. Will certainly do the job!!!

I use a rena airpump with an airstone attached. You can pick up an airpump from your local fishshop. Not everyone uses them, its personal preference.

Anyway, hope you enjoy keeping fish.

sambangert

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I too would suggest reading about fishless cycling. It takes soome patience but prevents a lot of loses from high toxins (ammonia and nitrite) and a lot o daily water changes to keep the toxins low.

While the filter you have is a good one, it may be too strong for your tank. It will certainly provide enough filtration to allow you to overstock the tank but may create too much current for a lot of tropical fish and shrimp. The heater is borderline on not being enough as the general rule of thumb is that you need at least 3 watts per gallon. With the filtration you have though, you could probably go with something like white cloud minnows which I believe like a strong current (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and don't need a heater but that might prohibit having shrimp.

As to the other items:

Media: Did the filter come with media or did you get it second hand? Most come with carbon but it is ainly a chemical filter and there are better biological filter media out there. Any of the ceramic medias work well. I personally use SeaChem Matrix.

Hood: You can get a standard 30" hood at Petsmart (for a 29 gallon tank as the 20" long has the same footprint). It should include a flourescent light that I believe is 17 watts. That will be fine if you don't plan to have live plants. If you want live plants, you will probably just need to get a glass cover for the tank and then get some power compact lights. Generally, you need 2 watts per gallon or more for live plants and power compacts are the only way to get that much. There are soome slow growing, low light plants that will still do ok with flourescents though.

Air Pump: You don't necessarily need an air pump. They aren't necessary and if you have live plants, they probably do more harm (driving out CO2 that the plants need) than good. If you get one, I caution you against going cheap. Cheap usually means noisy and a noisy airpump can drive you crazy. I have several Rena airpumps and they are dead quiet.

Bob

 

[Musho3210]

people overestimate canister flows, my xp3 has about 200 gph coming out of it.

 

[sarahline]

Thanks guys. I was hoping when I received an answer it would auto notified on my email. Anyway maybe I didn't check this "enable email notification" thing. ... I just got a 30 long gallon now. I am trying to do a fishless cycling. I just got the tester today (master text kit) I don’t know how to use but I will figure it out tomorrow. I am trying to follow each step before I add any fish in my tank.

Is this filter too much for this tank too? By the way I changed to RENA XP1 and I changed the tank to 30 gallon long. I forgot to return the heater too but I will go back tomorrow. Those sales people are not helpful at all. They will just agreed to anything I ask. So I only depend on forums and online infomation.

 

[rdd1952]

That filter shoud be fine. It's rated about 200 gph which gives you about 7x the tank capacity. That will allow you hae a little heavier stock. For the 30 gallon tank, I would try to get a 150w heater. A 100w would work but the 150 won't have to work as much.

 

[Musho3210]

my xp3 has 200 gph coming out of it with media. Rena admits that the flowrate declines with media and will slowly decrease more as the media gets clogged. On the xp1, the box says with media the flowrate is 142 gph. So really you arent going to be getting 200-250 gph with media in there. The xp2 would have been better IMO since it has more room for different media and the flowrate is pretty similar to the xp1.