Need some help....

[MamaFish]

I was thinking if I could get a 75 Gallon for the same price I plan on spending for a 55 Gallon, with moving everything from my 40 Gallon to the 75 Gallon and only buying a bigger filter. Would this work in my 75 Gallon....I know the plants and the driftwood will, but this is what I have in mind.

75 Gallon tank: $320.86
Glass top : $78.95
Filter: $55.00 (rounded)
total without extra gravel: $454.81 (leaves me 45$ for extra gravel)

I have a 150 Watt heater in my tank, would I need to get bigger one now or would a 150 Watt heater heat my 75 gallon? Or should I just buy another 150 Watt heater and seperate them on each side of the tank?

Besides the extra gallon space, would it be worth getting the 75 Gallon over the 55 Gallon and not buying more inhabitants now and buy them later?

How many lbs of gravel will I need to make a 2" bed?

I have 12-13 plants in my tank now along with 2 pieces of decent size driftwood.

Would this work?

TIA

 

[Alien Anna]

Sounds good to me! You get economies of scale with the bigger tank and no matter how big a tank, you always think you could have got a bigger one!

Prices are different in UK, but gravel is cheap anywhere if you go for the fine pea gravel (2-3mm). Get a large sack, that should be enough and is so much cheaper than buying those diddy little bags in the LFS. Try a pond place for really good bargains.

Plants can be grown yourself (assuming you've got live ones). You buy a few and then split them up. The other week I bought a bunch of crypts which I distributed about my tanks. Already they've trebled in size and soon I'm probably going to split them again, to make a more even spread over my tank. I can also recommend giant vallis - has to be pruned on an almost weekly basis, but grows so fast it'll provide some attractive greenery while you're waiting for more expensive stuff to grow.

If you want cheap pond decorations, buy a bag of cobbles from a garden center. Make sure they're inert by putting some vinegar on them (if any fizzing or erosion occurs, it's got limestone in it so stear clear unless you've got marine fish or West African cichlids). Piles of cobbles in the corner of a tank might quite an acceptable budget decoration and are good for tying anubias and java fern to.

If you're going for a more acid/soft-water tank and want some more wood, note that the spindly roots and branches take up more space, but weigh less (hence are cheaper than great chunks).

I don't like glass tops - too heavy and too much in danger of being broken. However, plastic tops are cheap and cheerful.

Someone was explaining to me about heaters the other day that since they are thermostatically controlled, the lower the wattage the longer the heater has to be activated. This has two disadvantages:
1. The heaterstat burns out more quickly
2. Fish are more likely to burn themselves on it.

However, the danger with the higher wattage heaters is that if they go wrong on the "on" position, they'll boil your fish! Lots of fish keepers prefer 2x150 watt for this reason. Don't forget you'll need a lot of plug outlets for all this to work!