My First Planted Tank

Hi all

I would like to post you some images of my new planted tank. I was set up on 9th July.

The tank was originally supposed to be a marine tank but after collecting all the equipment together we decided to move house. I can no longer afford to stock a marine tank (as I would like to) so I sold some equipment and set up this tank. Having kept marine fish for so many years this was a nice change anyway.

TANK SPECS:
60x24x30 (155 UKG)
stand made out of 2" box section (by (me and) my dad)
Rena XP3 external canister filter
300 Rena Heater
100w Rena Heating cable
Aquamedic PH controller, Probe and solanoid valve for automatic CO2
100% flurite (2")
2 x 400w 6500k metal halide lamps

The room does not have any windows in so I will not get any light pollution. I plan on putting doors on the tank or even making the doors so it looks like the tank is in the wall.

I am still undecided what fish to keep in the tank. I currently have some plattys, white cloud mountain minnows and a flying fox. These were all in a small bowl I had. Yesterday I bought another 4 flying foxes, they are excellent workers.

Anyway here are some pictures, let me know what you think I should stock it with:

Another one of the heating cable layout:

Looking good, only thing I would say is maybe think about getting 2 filters for a large tank such as this. An XP3 won't be enough filtration once you have everything in there.

Ben

with gravel, water and lights. These are the original lamps that came with the units. They do not have to correct colour, these will be changed!

with plants and new bulbs...

plants

Looks good so far. Question though: the tank seems planted on one side only....is there a reason for this (I am too curious perhaps you are still putting plants in or something).....

I think cories and swordtails would do well in your tank

mate 800 watts is huge, looks like u might have to make a water top up device to kep water in the tank lol, nice . Whats the plan for it? discus for sure

Nice set-up.

You realise with that much light, CO2 and inevitable plant growth (nutrient uptake)you will need a decent fertilisation schedule i.e. macronutrients (N, P, K) as well as the commonly available micronutrients. Otherwise algae may prevail if any one nutrient goes deficient.

Sorry if that sounds obvious - it's just you don't mention ferts in your spec.

Also whats the point in that much heating and lighting if you have really thick gravel! You should get proper quartz gravel with sand or fertilizer underneath... Gravel that thick will usually lead to a load of horrid looking plants in months to come.

It's not gravel, it's flourite isn't it? It's going to be a mega setup! We *demand* loads more pics

wow. I'm really jealous.

Sounds like you got everything sorted...CO2, lights the lot....thats a really tall tank too. So I guess you'd need the 5 watts per gallon for that?

I can't believe you got an entire fluorite substrate, that must have cost a bomb.

Angry_Platy said:

Looks good so far. Question though: the tank seems planted on one side only....is there a reason for this (I am too curious perhaps you are still putting plants in or something).....

I think cories and swordtails would do well in your tank

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Yes this is because I'm tight (if they are only on one side I only need one light on). I'm experimenting with the plants at the moment. I dont really know what is what and how well things will grow with the conditions I have. I bought a variaty of differnt plants to play with. They have been in 2 weeks now and still look really healthy.

In the past when I have bought plants leaves would have dropped off and eventually the plant would die. There has been hardly any leaves drop off I hope it carrys on this way.

gf225 said:

Nice set-up.

You realise with that much light, CO2 and inevitable plant growth (nutrient uptake)you will need a decent fertilisation schedule i.e. macronutrients (N, P, K) as well as the commonly available micronutrients. Otherwise algae may prevail if any one nutrient goes deficient.

Sorry if that sounds obvious - it's just you don't mention ferts in your spec.

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What ferts would you recommend (not forgetting that I'm using flourite)?