Just Bought A New Tank - Need Advice

[PERCY]

Bought a new tank yesterday. Clearseal premiere lifespace 60 x 26x 18. The shop has a 15 % off sale this weekend so got it for £517 delivered.

I still need to buy lights, heaters and filters so could use some advice on what to buy. I just wanted to check if there was anything online cheaper or if I should buy from the shop while the sale is on. I was looking at filters from All Pond Solutions. Are they any good? What one is best? Will one be enough?

I could also use some ideas of stocking? I don know what to go for so any advice at all is appreciated

 

[Mybbygotsauz]

From my experiences I have found that looking online is usually cheaper than buying in stores, unless a great sale is going on with the store.
And I think a a large shoal of tetras with some different forms of Rams would look great
with a semi-heavily planted setup
but ive always thought live plants are simply much greater than fake

 

[PERCY]

I'll definitely be buying live plants. And a load of bog wood. I don't know if I should go for a gravel or sand substrate.

I've really only kept large fish in the past eg. Arrowana, oscars etc. so dunno if small fish like tetras would suit me

Would it be easy to convert to marine?

 

[PERCY]

Any ideas on lighting

 

[Noahs ark6]

Is there a lid on the tank?
And what units are your tank dimensions in? i'm guessing inches?)

 

[PERCY]

Hi, yes sorry those dimensions are inches. The tank is 5ft and yes there is a hood with it. I not after any fancy lighting just something basic and cheap tbh

 

[Noahs ark6]

If it was me, i would get two of these. And 4 40watt, t8, 122cm glo bulbs that accompany them and attatch them to the hood. 160 watts would be a good wattage and you could keep most plants.

 

[PERCY]

Are the Arcadia light units better?

 

[Noahs ark6]

I've not had experience with them. But i have with the glo lights and they reasonably good and relatively cheap
(altogther would come to about £135.04 on that website, but it's possible you could get it cheaper with some digging around or second hand.

 

[PERCY]

Yeah should find them a bit cheaper I think. What bulbs do you recommend? That's lights sorted then

Thanks for your help BTW

Now on to filters.

What do you recommend. I've been looking at filters from APS, the price is right but don't know if they are good



http/www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquarium-1/aquarium-filters/external-filters.html

 

[Noahs ark6]

I would use 3 aqua glo and one life glo if you're not keeping african cichlids. If you are planning on having African Cichlids, 2 aqua glo and 2 power glo.
I've not had any experience with the APS range, but i've seen mixed reviews on them; some say it's noisy, some say it's deadly silent, some say it keeps the water crystal clear, some say it does'nt, sorry i can't help on that

 

[OldMan47]

Don't forget the option of buying used equipment. Compared to new it is far cheaper in most cases.

 

[PERCY]

Yeah I've been searching online for used equipment.

I've been looking at a tetratec ex1200 external filter. Would this be sufficient for the tank or would I need 2 or possibly upgrade to the ex2400? Or are there better filters out there?

 

[OldMan47]

Not bad equipment from what I have read here. It looks a lot like a Marineland C series filter which I do have in my home and have found trouble-free.

 

[dbanner]

For the money the tetratecs are great. A friend of mine has just bought one for his 4 foot, 350 litre. Got it for £89 new and that was delivered too. I use a fluval fx5 on my 5 footer but your looking at around £200 each. I'd go with 2 ex1200's