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I've decided to set up a 55gallon planted aquarium with some discus and tetra and rams in it. I just thought I'd run the list by you guys first to check and make sure this is all I need.

55 gallon glass aquarium
48" perfecto glass canopy
48" Satellite compact fluorescent 130w fixture
45 lbs. of Fluorite
Flourish Excel and Trace(I already have regular)
8" Aquatic Tissue Scissors
SeaChem Discus buffer
Penguin Filter
Heater
Nutrafin Natural CO2 ladder

I don't know what to do about water yet, I don't have enough money to get a RO unit and my source water is hard.
If I add a good number of plants to the system and put a seeded BIO-wheel in before I add fish, will I be able to cycle with tetras?

Would you consider 130w high lighting?

Thanks for the help!

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I like Led Zeppelin.

Looks pretty good. You're in the 2-3wpg range, so that's medium light.

Macros (N,P,K) are missing from your list, but if you're to have Discus, they're pretty heavy waste producers, so you may have enough N & P for the plants. I'd keep an eye on these though, just in case. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get some Potassium (Flourish Potassium or cheap, dry ferts like KCl or K2SO4) as this macro usually gets depleted quickly. But then again, if you're going to do water changes very often (as I assume you would with Discus), the K in tap water might be enough.

I would say the Hagen CO2 ladder by itself is too weak as a permanent source of CO2 for a 55g, unless you're planning on supplementing it with more yeast solutions (probably at least 2 more 2L bottles). I would seriously consider a pressurized CO2 setup if I were you.

What type of plants are you planning to have? You might want to look at Bob Wesolowski's old posts - he keeps a nice planted Discus tank supplemented only with Excel.

Good luck!

-P

I'm going to be adding Excel and keeping the CO2 ladder running, so I think I'll have enough CO2. As for the potassium, I should be able to find something good enough. For plants I think I'm going to try something relatively simple, maybe some clumps of different types of plants like vallisneria in the back, with glossostigma elatinoides for a cover. For the driftwood and rocks, I'll probably use Java Moss. If I decide to add different plants, I'll Take some out and take them to the lfs, I'm sure they'll want some.

What about the RO unit? My water is in the hard range and I don't have anything to get it soft except for TankSoft.

Can't wait though, It's gonna be great!

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I like Led Zeppelin.

Two things of concern.

What size filter and I suggest two heaters in the tank, using one as a back up, you never know when it will be required.
Also I still would prefer to cycle with Zebra Danios.

Get your water supply peramiters testerd first?

What plants have you considered or are you very open minded about that?

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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I'm very open-minded about the plants, I want some glossostigma or something like it for the ground though. The water is like 75 ppm hardness, and around neutral for the pH. That's all that concerns me, no nitrates or nitrites or ammonia. for the filter, probably the one with 2 BIO-wheels, and I'll get 2 heaters then.

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I like Led Zeppelin.

Bo,

I like redundancy in tank equipment. When you get your heaters, get two 100 watt heaters. If one fails on or off, you won't freeze or boil your fish. If you can, try to use two filters. My personal preference for a HOB is the aquaclear after a not so good experience with bio-wheels.

My discus are kept in hard water with a pH of 7.6. The discus are fine, happy, healthy and constantly trying to make fry. Eggs don't do well in the hard water but I really don't have space for breeder tanks. In a subtle way I am trying to say - don't mess with your tap water. RO is wonderful if you want to breed the fish and you are using a 20 gallon for a breeder, beyond that, you don't need it. The fish will do well as long as you maintain good water quality. In general that means keep your nitrates low with frequent water changes. In my case I do two 50% water changes every week. (Forget the discus buffer, you don't need it.)

You do want to buy a python. It is the best gadget for an aquarist since God invented the bucket. Read about it here: http://www.pythonproducts.com/.

Do read the article on planted discus tanks at www.tropica.com. Type the word, discus, into the search box to find the two articles. Also research the glosso at this site. It is very light demanding - high or very high light is needed to prevent it from becoming leggy.

At 130W over 55 gallons, you probably will not need CO2. If you boost your wattage to 3+ watts per gallon, you might consider CO2. I have 3 WPG and don't use CO2 on my 125G but I do not try to play with plants that cry for 12 hours of midday sun like glosso.

I did use EcoComplete instead of Fluorite for two reasons. The first is that I liked the color better. The second is that I did not have to rinse it. The third is that it was bio active - shorter cycle time. The fourth was that I didn't have to rinse it. Now you have both of my reasons.

Since Eco comes damp, I placed it in the aquarium (without rinsing) and then used a a plastic edge for wall papering to shape it. My rule of thumb for a planted tank is 4 inches depth in back to 3 inches of depth in front. I would plan on 80 pounds of substrate for your tank. After shaping the substrate I then added driftwood then began to plant according to my planting plan.

Notice that I didn't talk about adding water before I started to plant. No need to fill the tank as long as the roots stay damp. Eco takes care of that for you without rinsing. Besides, it is much easier to plant without trying to drown yourself or turning your sleeves into a giant water wick. See this link for a couple of pictures - http://fishprofiles.com/files/threads/27671.1.htm?8#.

Last comment - if you decide to use fluorite, rinse it very well. Hopefully, you live in a warm climate so you can rinse it outside and not clog your sink traps. Once you begin to fill your tank, fill it very slowly to minimize particulates in the water. If you think that the aquarium is filling too slowly, then cut your fill speed in half, you are still filling too fast for fluorite. Do use a dish or a plate to cushion the water flow and disperse it over the fluorite. I have a friend that used a sheet of newspaper to do successfully fill his fluorite based tank. It only took two days before he could see his fish.

Did I mention that there is no rinsing with Eco?

Send me a PM if I can be of help!



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"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Just read this article on how to rinse Flourite. May help someone.

-P

All that talk about no rinsingpush me to Eco-Complete, especially because I love dark substrate. I love that tank, Bob, and I noticed you didn't use rocks. I don't plan to use too much hardscape, but enough to make it look real. I might even wait a month to set it up just researching plants. If I can't get glossostigma, will I be able to get quadrofilia? check out this site for info on the quadrofilia if you haven't heard of it, I hadn't either. I also might be ordering driftwood from it.

Few more things: How much can I plan to pay initially for it? Bob, you mentioned not needing CO2, will I be able to risk that at first to save money?

I would get a Python, but my mom has this ubergay faucet with no screw-on adapters on it, you have to completely remove the faucet head to get to the screw-on, and it's only like 1/2 an inch in diameter.

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I like Led Zeppelin.

I got a picture of the faucet head, but the only way I could get it on the internet was to post it on a site I had to make.
Here it is:

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I like Led Zeppelin.

That sucks. I have a stupid faucet also, but I just bought a plastic piece that screws in. I had to remove the aerator and leave it out...because it was a pain to keep putting back in.

Before I moved my bedroom downstairs, I used another bathroom faucet and everytime I used my Python the pipes underneath the sink sprayed water everywhere. Not good.

Pythons are great...but it really depends on what type of faucet you have as to whether it will fit or not.\

Good luck with your 55g. /:'

*Kristin*

Thanks, I'll do my best being minus one Python!

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I like Led Zeppelin.

I didn't use any rocks although there are three large pieces of Mopani wood in the tank. Nice, dense wood, it sinks well and has two display sides to use. Wood and substrate are the "hardscape".

Marsilea quadrifolia or European Waterclover is classified as a noxious weed in 45 states. It is actually a member of the fern family that may be grown either emersed or immersed. You might weant to avoid this plant due to its classification and because you should maintain a water temp of 84F to 86F in the aquarium for discus. Many plants will die at those temps.

Head back to www.tropica.com where you found those articles on planted discus tanks. (Bet you didn't read them!) Now, hit the ADVANCED SEARCH button on the upper right of the page. Under KEYWORD in the form, type in DISCUS than hit SEARCH. On the right hand side will be displayed links to the plants that might survive in a discus tank. You can further qualify the plants by plugging in the height of the aquarium, size, light (medium) temperature and pH.

You are going to hate this part. Measurements are all metric! You have to convert gallons to liters, degrees of temperature from Fahrenheit to Centigrade, inches to centimeters and republicans to socialists!

Given your light level and tank size, skip the CO2. Oh! Look up sagittaria subulata and echinodorus tenellus, they may be your best bets for foreground plants... Remember 86F is 30C and a liter is 0.26 gallons.

Price for discus goes according to size. The larger and rounder the fish, the more expensive they are... Talk to your local fish club and find out who are breeders in your area. See if they have any fry for you to raise. Small discus (2 inch without tails) can be as much as $50 in LFS but may be purchased for $6 to $10 from a breeder.

The disadvantages of breeders are that they will NOT have the size or color discus that you want. The advantage is that you will receive healthy fish, see the fish before you buy them, pay less for the fish and learn about the fish from the breeder. Hell, I like going to breeders just to swap fish stories!

Let me know where you live, I might know someone in your area that can help you with fish...




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"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I live in North Alabama, and I haven't seen any discus in the local stores. I plan to order one from somethingsphisy.com, and I really like the golden dragon ones. I'll do the calculator thing too, it's gonna be a real pain though.

Oh, and I didn't read the articles word for word, but I read most of what seemed important to me(and that wasn't just the title!).

Have they started marketing those AquaCubes? Those look cool. I would buy like 5 and culture plants for my tanks in them.

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I like Led Zeppelin.