xxBarneyxx
Fish Aficionado
Hi all,
Hopefully I'm not a complete newb so shouldnt ask too many stupid questions (though I'm sure one or two will slip through). Generally I just want to know if I'm doing everything right and if there is anything I have missed. Sorry it will be long so thanks to anyone who even reads it all the way through
Basically I used to keep fish a couple of years ago (a couple of fairly passive community tanks and one krib tank) so I understand that side of things ok. I have just got a 120X30X30cm tank which I was just going to make in a normal community tank with a few basic plantings and nothing really very special. Then I made the mistake of looking at some of the journals and pictures of some amazing planeted tanks (I'm sure I heard my credit card cry a little when I did!).
So I have decided to go all out and setup a nicely landscaped aquarium. I have all the normal fish keeping things (X2 204 fluval external filters, heater, etc) but need to get all the "plant" side of things (including lights, this tank only has a single 42" strip).
I have read through a large chunk of the posts on various forums and at a few other guides on the internet and have decided to go with Aqua Soil and dose with the 3 step green brightly fert.
The reason I choose to do it like this is that mainly it seems the simplest way and is not much more difficult then what you would normally do to keep your water well balanced for your fish. The other reason is that I live in a very high PH (about 8.6)/hard water area so a system that will lower this is an added bonus.
The fish I plan to have are:
X12 cardinal tetras
X4 Clown loachs
X1 whiptail
I wont be getting any fish until I'm 100% comfortable that I can keep the water chemistry balanced so in the mean time I will be using ammonia to cycle the tank and keep it fed. Maybe get some shrimp to sort out algae in the early stages.
Now on to the planting. I plan on having around 3/4 of the tank planted and leave an open area to the left side of the tank. I worked it out to roughly around 3400cm squared that will be planted split up into zones.
The back zone will be around 2440cm squared which means im looking for plants upto 40cm tall with a max spread of about 15-20cm.
The mid zone has around 400cm squared. Max height of 15cm, min height around 10cm. max spread around 10cm.
Front zone has around 300cm squared. max height of 10cm, min height n/a, Max Spread of around 10cm.
After I worked this out it was fairly simple to go through the plants on www.aquaessentials.co.uk and know roughly where they would fit in, how much space they would take and how the other plants around it would look. I picked 8 plant types that are mainly medium to fast growers and not to difficult to keep. I tried to get a good mixture of greens, reds and yellows so that individual plants stand out a bit more.
Back Plants:
Tropica Rotala Rotudifolia - Fast growing, easy to keep, reddish tint, small leaf plant.
Tropica Cryptocoryne Cripulata - Medium growth, broad leaf grass like plant.
Echindoras Rose - Stemmed plant Red tint, not to difficult to grow.
Medium plants.
Tropica Enchinodoras - Stemmed plant, slow growing but shouldnt be too difficult, will keep partially shaded to stop algee growth on leaves.
Mid-Front plants.
Tropica Pogostemon Helferi - medium growth and will add a nice highlight to the focus point of the tank.
Tropica Elecocharis Parvala - Medium growth, grss like easy to grow.
Misc Plants.
Tropica Riccia Flultans - Will be grown on and around the slate rock caves.
Tropica Hemianthus callitrichoides - To fill in the gaps and make a nice carpet.
From the descriptions and internet info I could find all of these should be fairly easy to keep and should be fine in a wide range of conditions.
Now to keep these all alive I have the follow on my shopping list:
D-D Complete CO2 set
ADA Green Brighty STEP-1 (500ï½l)
ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia (9 liters) - Normal X2
ADA Power Sand Special-S (2 liters)
Arcadia 120cm Freshwater with T5 lamps 4x54W
Now the big question, Does this all sound ok? Have I missed anything, should this all work ok?
Where is the best place to buy it all from? www.aquaessentials.co.uk has been recommended to me and they look good but I dont want to mess about sending checks or using paypal if at all possible.
If you read all the way through thanks a LOT!
PS. sorry almost forgot the Stupid questions.
1) If my PH gets lowered to say around 6.8 and I do a 20% water change with tap water how badly is this going to make my PH jump around and how badly will this effect my fish? Will i have to pre-treat all my water to bring it down to a similar PH before putting it in (This isnt a problem just want to know in advance).
2)I see that 30ppm is the golden amount of CO2. My question is do the fish cope ok with this? What do people do at night when the plants stop putting out oxygen and start putting out Co2 as well? Do you use airstones overnight to keep the oxygen up or does the CO2 not actually increase that much (obviously turning the CO2 off overnight).
3) Do you only keep your CO2 running while the lights are on or all the time during the day and in the evening while the lights are on (I guess this could depends on how much sun light the tank gets?)
thanks again.
Hopefully I'm not a complete newb so shouldnt ask too many stupid questions (though I'm sure one or two will slip through). Generally I just want to know if I'm doing everything right and if there is anything I have missed. Sorry it will be long so thanks to anyone who even reads it all the way through
Basically I used to keep fish a couple of years ago (a couple of fairly passive community tanks and one krib tank) so I understand that side of things ok. I have just got a 120X30X30cm tank which I was just going to make in a normal community tank with a few basic plantings and nothing really very special. Then I made the mistake of looking at some of the journals and pictures of some amazing planeted tanks (I'm sure I heard my credit card cry a little when I did!).
So I have decided to go all out and setup a nicely landscaped aquarium. I have all the normal fish keeping things (X2 204 fluval external filters, heater, etc) but need to get all the "plant" side of things (including lights, this tank only has a single 42" strip).
I have read through a large chunk of the posts on various forums and at a few other guides on the internet and have decided to go with Aqua Soil and dose with the 3 step green brightly fert.
The reason I choose to do it like this is that mainly it seems the simplest way and is not much more difficult then what you would normally do to keep your water well balanced for your fish. The other reason is that I live in a very high PH (about 8.6)/hard water area so a system that will lower this is an added bonus.
The fish I plan to have are:
X12 cardinal tetras
X4 Clown loachs
X1 whiptail
I wont be getting any fish until I'm 100% comfortable that I can keep the water chemistry balanced so in the mean time I will be using ammonia to cycle the tank and keep it fed. Maybe get some shrimp to sort out algae in the early stages.
Now on to the planting. I plan on having around 3/4 of the tank planted and leave an open area to the left side of the tank. I worked it out to roughly around 3400cm squared that will be planted split up into zones.
The back zone will be around 2440cm squared which means im looking for plants upto 40cm tall with a max spread of about 15-20cm.
The mid zone has around 400cm squared. Max height of 15cm, min height around 10cm. max spread around 10cm.
Front zone has around 300cm squared. max height of 10cm, min height n/a, Max Spread of around 10cm.
After I worked this out it was fairly simple to go through the plants on www.aquaessentials.co.uk and know roughly where they would fit in, how much space they would take and how the other plants around it would look. I picked 8 plant types that are mainly medium to fast growers and not to difficult to keep. I tried to get a good mixture of greens, reds and yellows so that individual plants stand out a bit more.
Back Plants:
Tropica Rotala Rotudifolia - Fast growing, easy to keep, reddish tint, small leaf plant.
Tropica Cryptocoryne Cripulata - Medium growth, broad leaf grass like plant.
Echindoras Rose - Stemmed plant Red tint, not to difficult to grow.
Medium plants.
Tropica Enchinodoras - Stemmed plant, slow growing but shouldnt be too difficult, will keep partially shaded to stop algee growth on leaves.
Mid-Front plants.
Tropica Pogostemon Helferi - medium growth and will add a nice highlight to the focus point of the tank.
Tropica Elecocharis Parvala - Medium growth, grss like easy to grow.
Misc Plants.
Tropica Riccia Flultans - Will be grown on and around the slate rock caves.
Tropica Hemianthus callitrichoides - To fill in the gaps and make a nice carpet.
From the descriptions and internet info I could find all of these should be fairly easy to keep and should be fine in a wide range of conditions.
Now to keep these all alive I have the follow on my shopping list:
D-D Complete CO2 set
ADA Green Brighty STEP-1 (500ï½l)
ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia (9 liters) - Normal X2
ADA Power Sand Special-S (2 liters)
Arcadia 120cm Freshwater with T5 lamps 4x54W
Now the big question, Does this all sound ok? Have I missed anything, should this all work ok?
Where is the best place to buy it all from? www.aquaessentials.co.uk has been recommended to me and they look good but I dont want to mess about sending checks or using paypal if at all possible.
If you read all the way through thanks a LOT!
PS. sorry almost forgot the Stupid questions.
1) If my PH gets lowered to say around 6.8 and I do a 20% water change with tap water how badly is this going to make my PH jump around and how badly will this effect my fish? Will i have to pre-treat all my water to bring it down to a similar PH before putting it in (This isnt a problem just want to know in advance).
2)I see that 30ppm is the golden amount of CO2. My question is do the fish cope ok with this? What do people do at night when the plants stop putting out oxygen and start putting out Co2 as well? Do you use airstones overnight to keep the oxygen up or does the CO2 not actually increase that much (obviously turning the CO2 off overnight).
3) Do you only keep your CO2 running while the lights are on or all the time during the day and in the evening while the lights are on (I guess this could depends on how much sun light the tank gets?)
thanks again.
