Need Some Guidance On Equip For 50 Gallon Planted Tank...

[Saver]

I'd really appreciate some guidance on what equipment to buy.

I'm wanting to create a planted tank. I've decided on a medium lit 48 gallon bow front and a RenaXP3 filter. I don't want to add CO2 now, but down the road I can see myself going that direction. I do plan on using Eco-Complete for my substrate (60-80lbs or so) and something a lighter in color for the foreground....though I don't know what.

I don't understand what to get for a light fixture. I want something that will allow me to do a high lit tank in the future. I don't want all that light now, but I don't want to have to buy another light fixture later. Is this possible? The tank is 36 inches long. I've looked at stuff on-line and at the LFS, but I don't know what I'm looking at.

Also I would prefer not to have a cover on top of the tank, but will I have a problem of fish jumping out?

I may suit this tank for Discus, though I really haven't made up my mind and still researching.

This will be my first tank, so don't assume I know anything. I grew up with fish, but my dad took care of the tank all we were allowed to do was feed them when he said it was ok. (Understandable.)

Thanks!

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum and the hobby.

First off, it’s good that you are asking questions first rather than making mistakes and trying to correct them. It looks like your filter is fine. I don’t have any experience with Rena filters but I have several Rena air pumps and believe they are the best on the market. Hopefully, their filters are equally as good. Your filter is rated at 350 pgh so that will be processing the water 7 times per hour which is good.

Eco-Complete is a good substrate. I have it in my 75 gallon tank and it works well. The best part about it is that you don’t have to wash it like sand. Just dump it in, smooth out and add water.

My tank is pretty heavily planted and I don’t use CO2 other than one of the these. I don’t think it helps much but someone gave it to me so I thought I would hook it up. For 75 gallon, I probably need at least 3 or 4 of them to be effective. You can grow a lot of the easy care plants without CO2.

One of the suggestions I heard when I first started was to load the tank with lots of fast growing stem plants and then start weeding out as they become to dense. This site has pretty good info on plants and the care they need as well as how big they get. They are sorted by Background, Foreground and Mid-ground. As for ordering plants, I have ordered from Aquarium Plants twice and been happy both times. Their prices seemed to be good too.

For lights, you generally need a minimum of 2 watts per gallon but more is generally better. Some plants will do fine with less but others need more. To get that, you will have to upgrade to power compact lights. Fluorescents won’t get you enough wattage. Some fish, however, don’t particularly like a lot of light so they need broad leafed plants to get shade under. Hello Lights is a good site for lighting. I haven’t bought lights in a couple years but they had great prices at that time. I don’t think you will be able to do the high light thing as I don’t think that will get your plants the light they need unless you go with very basic plants like amazon swords, anubias, anacharis and such.

And you will definitely need a cover unless you want to leave the water level down enough to prevent the fish from jumping out. They can actually jump through the tiniest hole. I have lost 2 fish, a betta through a 1†square hole and a tetra through a 2†x 1†slit, to jumping. They both ended up dried out on the carpet.

Last but not least, I would recommend a fishless cycle (link in my signature). It will save you a lot of water changes to keep ammonia and nitrite levels safe for your fish (cycling with fish). And the discus are very delicate. They really need a mature tank with very consistent water conditions.

You might want to read through some of the pinned threads in the Planted forum. There’s lots of good info there. Good luck.

 

[Saver]

Small world. I live down here in Greensboro.

Thanks for the info. I went up to the LFS and ordered the tank and stand. I looked at their lighting, but couldn't tell you what it was. All I know is it would hold two 96 watt 6500K bulbs. It may have been Coralife Aqualite Deluxe or something. Maybe that would work if I could just turn on one bulb. I don't know. I'll look it up on-line and look at the Hellolights. The girl at the LFS wasn't much help.

Is there anything I need to look for in a heater, or will any of them do fine? I was looking at some in the 150-250 watt range.

I do plan on doing a fishless cycle. I found plain ammonia at the grocery store a few days ago. I still need to get a test kit too.

It is really hard putting all this together when you don't know what you're doing. Thanks for your help.

 

[rdd1952]

Running into a lot of NC people lately. tmack is from Charlotte and nckate is from Greenville. You are right with the heater. Wattage should be 3 to 5 times the tank size. Since you're doing a fishless cycle, the larger one will probably be better as you will need to get the water temp into the upper 80s.

For your test kit, I suggest you get a liquid kit rather than strips. Strips aren't very accurate. You can get a API Master test kit at Petsmart. Look it up online at Petsmart.com ($17.09), print out the page and take it to the store. They will honor online pricing. At least they used to. You may have to get one of the managers though as some of the clerks don't know how to do it.

 

[Saver]

Thanks. I think I'll go with an external in-line heater just to keep it out of the tank. I'm looking at the Hydor in line 300w heater.

Do I need an air pump? Other than adding bubbles, what purpose do they serve?

Thanks for your help. I can't wait to get the tank started. It'll be a few weeks or a month before I'm ready.

 

[rdd1952]

Since your going to have a planted tank, you really don't want an air pump as more oxygen means less CO2. If you do a fishless cycle though, you will need one to keep the oxygen level up at the higher cycling temperature. If you don't want to buy one just for cycling, you can still keep the oxygen up by creating some sort of surface disturbance. The oxygen isn't actually raised by the bubbles themselves but by the disturbacne they create when surfacing. You could possibly leave the water level low enough that the filter outlet is above water so the water splashes back into the tank.

 

[nckate]

Welcome, fellow NC person!

 

[tmack]

And another Welcome from another North Carolinian!

 

[Saver]

Hi you all!

Thanks for your help RDD. I think I have the equipment all figured out except I'm not 100% set on the lighting yet. I'll kick it around a little more before I admit defeat and ask my husband to fix up the lights for me.

I'm kinda thinking about the Aqualight fixture (96W) on feet. Then make a mesh/screen top thing instead of using glass. Does that sound ridiculous? (The LFS told me I couldn't put the Aqualights right on top of a glass top.) [post="http/www.hellolights.com/362xcofraq2x.html"]HERE[/post] This is what my LFS sells.

I'm just not sure. LOL I'm still reading so we'll see.

 

[rdd1952]

There are legs that fit most all of the power compact light strips. I put them on the lights on my 29 and 75 gallon tanks. The link didn't work but the one down side to not having a cover or using a screen type is the more openings there are in the tank, the more evaporation you will get.

 

[Saver]

Can I use the legs if I have a glass top? I thought the legs would get in the way of the top.

 

[Saver]

I'm posting here to say thanks for helping me get set up.

I just got the tank planted 4 days ago.

It's medium light for 8 hours a day (2wpg), excel every day, EI dosing at 1/3 of the dosage, no CO2. I intend to add some floating plants. If I still have too much light I'll raise the light up some.

I am seeing new growth on my wisteria and pennywort.

Ignore my spray bar. I was blowing my tall plants too much so I just swung it out of the way for now.

Here are my kids smearing vasaline all over the back of the tank. Then I put the black background on it and pushed all the air bubbles out with a CD case. I read others putting their backgrounds on that way.

 

[rdd1952]

Looks great. I really like the look of plants and fish against the black substrate.