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Hey all,

Would like to know your thoughts on what needs to be done next. I still have to stain the cabinet and hood and l cant put water in the tank till the carpet guy does his work (few weeks). Till then l want to get pretty much all the chemicals, foods, and test stuff out of the way before moving onto the plants and fish.

So far this is all the hardware l have.

4’x14”x18” 190lt tank
Cabinet and hood to suit
Fluval 204 external Filter
2x Fluval Tronic 200w Heaters
3” thick of ironstone gravel
4x 48” T8 Fluro lights + reflectors each light is on a timer
Medium size driftwood

Next things l want to get

Plants
2x Amazon Sword (Echinodorus amazonicus)
4x Contortionist Val (Vallisneria sp.)
2x Annbias x. “Frazeri” (if l can get any)
2x Cuban Broad Leaf Chain (Echinodorus quadricostatus)
4x Narrow Leaf Chain Sword (Echinodorus tenellus)

Fish
6x Guppy
2x Angelfish
6x Black Widows
2x Bolivian Rams
1x Zebra Pleco
2x Bristlenose Pleco

I’m expecting my water to be the following
Ph 7.0
Temp: 27deg
Hardness: 10dGH

My questions
1)From the type of fish and plants l have picked, can you see a problem with it?
2)What do you recommend to feed/treat the plants to grow well?
3)What test kits will l need to test all params of the water to have healthy fish and plants
4)With this setup, do l really need C02? I prefer not to have one setup.
5)Once the water is in the tank and the PH, GH and Temp is set, what do l do next? Plants or Fish?
6)Have l missed anything

Thank you all for your time and knowlegde in advance

Wayne

What's the total wattage of your lights? That will determine whether the types of plants you've chosen are ok, whether or not you *need* CO2 supplement (it's always good to have, but not absolutely necessary in low-light tanks), and what kind of ferts you'll need.

As far as test kits, I'd definitely get Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate kits. Or you can go with one of those test kit set that has all 3 plus a few others (I have the Aquarium Pharmaceutical Freshwater Test Kit and it's good value).

Fish stocking seems ok to me. Do you plan to have mixed-sex guppies? If so, be prepared for lots of frys (i.e. live food for the angels).

Plants first before fish.

Good luck!

-P

Wayne

After being extremly carefull and cleaning all my plants I still got snails, apprently the eggs were in the gravel.

I would add two small Clown Loaches before the snails get a start on the new plants.

I would also consider a few rocks of different sizes.

If you have a look at my photos you will see how I spent many hrs planing out the aquscape and how I went about it.

Blackburn Aqu have a very good selection of DW and rocks and their plants always look healthy.

[link=Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tanks]http://photobucket.com/albums/b209/keithgh/Betta%20desktop%20tank/" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]

Keith

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do you already know where you can get the zebra plec? if so what price are they? also if you could put some water in the tank now in the garage or somewhere and get the filter running that would help with cycling the tank letting you get fish in there sooner and give you some practice using the test kit

OH TOLEEDY!

Hey all,

Fisrt of all thanks for helping me out.

Each tube is 36w-40w so a total of 144w-160w is what l’ll have at the end of the day. Not sure on the globs to get.. thinking of the Aqua-Glo with Power-Glo.

Went to my LFS last night and found a very simple, cheap and easy to run C02 unit that will be more then enough for the plants l want. $75AU for the “Red Sea, Turbo C02 Bio System.” Running this system will cost me around 10c a month.. so l don’t think it will hurt getting one.

Does anyone know the website for the Red Sea brand?

In regards to test kits, l was looking at the hagen Master test kit, l think this might cover all the params l need to test for both fish and plants… what do you guys think?

I wouldn’t mind breeding guppies as l do have a 60lt breeding tank, but this will be down the track.. might just get a few males to start off with.

Ok.. so the plants should be the first thing to do. How long do you think the plants should be in the tank before putting any fish in there? Week, 3 weeks?

Eggs in the gravel!!!! Is there anyway to be sure l have cleaned the gravel enough to kill and rid of the snails? What type of chemical solution would do the trick?.. if any. Do you have the same gravel l just bought?

I was thinking of putting some rocks in the tank, but l haven’t really sat down and thought too much on this area yet. Once l know l have everything covered l can relax and start thinking on the outlay of the tank. I was thinking of making a little cave, might do this out to some rocks. Would that be worth while?

Blackburn has some mad DW.. l was going to buy one large cut, it had a nice cave like tunnel and was the right size for my tank. The problem was l had spent more then l wanted on the gravel so l have to wait now.

Zebra Plec.. wow. All l can say is people who like this fish has “Expensive” taste. Spoke to the Guys down at Hi Fin on Blackburn rd. They told me it cost about $700AU if you can get one. One of the guys knows someone that has 13 of them, but not sure if for sale.

There is a new Plec coming out next week at Hi Fin.. looks very much like the Zebra, but dose not have big price tag. I saw some photos of them and was impress with what l saw. I still want a Zebra Plec,. But $$ might be a problem.

About running in the fitler. It’s a little hard for me to do this as space is limited. The garage has no room and l cant move the tank anywhere in the house. Don’t want to put water in the tank till that carpet man comes and does his work.

with your light tubes find out the colour temperature you want and then go to an electrical wholesaler and get a price , should be less than half the privce of the brand name tubes

OH TOLEEDY!

Thanks dan,

Well if l wanted

2x Power-Glo's
http://www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/product.cfm?CAT=1&SUBCAT=112&PROD_ID=01016300020101

2x Aqua-Glo's
http://www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/product.cfm?CAT=1&SUBCAT=112&PROD_ID=01015870020101

How do l find out the colour Temp? Do you recommend a electrical wholesaler? Brand?

both the power glo and aqua glo are rated at 18000k which i think is a bit of an overkill. most plants will do fine with a standard tri phosphor tube which has a colour temp of 6000K. the bulbs you have are more suited to deep or marine tanks
as for wholesalers i can give you names for qld but i dont know if they are different in other states. just try the yellow pages

this 80l tank has 2 18w tri phosphor tubes to give you an idea

dan76 attached this image:


OH TOLEEDY!

try again

dan76 attached this image:


OH TOLEEDY!

The Red Sea CO2 unit you're talking about (http://www.redseafish.com/Product.asp?dir=&catID=112&subID=64&proID=229) is only for aquariums up to 160L, so you'll need 2 units or double the cartridges, if that can be done. Also, are you sure about the 10c/month cost? If the refill canister costs AU$15 and only lasts a month, then that's more like 50c/day. Of course you could probably use DIY mixture instead to refill it, which would cost much less.

Which tests does the Hagen Master Test Kit do? If it has Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate then it should be fine. I've never used the Hagen Kit so I don't know if the tests are easy to do or not. I know the AP ones are easy and fairly accurate.

Here's a good article on starting a planted tank: http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_newtank.htm

Good luck!

Last edited by upikabu at 20-Oct-2005 23:22

-P

Dan, l think you have a good point running 6000k lights instead. Might go to a hardware store and see if they have a 48” 6000k “Day Light” tubes. I’m tipping this would be cheaper then what l was thinking of getting in the first place.

I didn’t realise you were from QLD. Hahaha, I’ll see what l can dig up in Vic.

Upikabu – The person who recommended this unit to me has one in his 6’ planted tank and it’s going very well. Due to the small amount of plants I’m having l don need to go “full on” with a C02 unit. Yes you are very right, it is a DIY unit, but the good thing is its neat, tells you the right mix to use and so on. The power head matches the can and pressure so the tube doesn’t collapse and chops up the C02 to tiny bubbles better then those dodgy diffusers.

In regards to refills, you would never buy the refills for them, just go to Coles/Safeway and buy some sugar and brewers yeast. This would cost about $18 as the yeast is $15. The yeast will last over a few years as l saw how much you need in the unit. A kg of sugar would last 6 months min.

Sorry.. more like 10c a day/week.. didn’t bother doing the maths on it. At the end of the day, it will be far cheaper to run this providing to buy your own refills.

Thanks a heap for the link and very nice pic dan.

i think the daylight tubes are more like 5000k which is good for plants but makes the aquarium look a bit pale yellow, maybe half triphosphor half daylight tubes will do the trick
also on the packet for the tube will be the output in lumens the higher the better,but make sure the tube has the right colour temp

there are many , many different types of fluoro tubes about and with a bit of googleing you will find out what each bulb does

please keep me up to date on what you decide on

and how about some pics

edit lumens = lm

Last edited by dan76 at 21-Oct-2005 02:58

OH TOLEEDY!

Hi,
Bulbs that are labeled SUNLIGHT or DAYLIGHT are 6700K
and perfect for plants and viewing fish in a standard tank.

I say standard as those that have tanks that are
very deep 2 ft or more should consider shifting up in
K ratings to the 10,000K range. The higher the K rating
the bluer the light and the more the light penetrates
through the depth of the water column.

The WARM or COOL labels on regular bulbs are designed for
subdued lighting and reading. They lack the harsh glare
that comes with the outdoors, noon day, sunlight.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 21-Oct-2005 08:52

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