Dry Set Up Solutions ?

[OddBod]

Morning all

Right after reading through a lot of posts last night on new tank set up and also seeing some of the forum members planted up tanks i would really like a little advice in getting the dry set up of my Rio 180 sorted before i even think of adding the wet stuff.

I really want a planted up tank and i am going to have a sand substrate, i have purchashed my cork base and under tank vivarium mat, we have the stand constructed and the living room in bits ready for the instalation.

I have read that if using a sand substrate in a planted tank it is best to add a bottom layer of compost, i can understand the need from a plant perspective but is this not going to cause problems with clouding and to many nutrients in the tank... ? Also is the sand alone enough to keep the compost in situ, so my questions are ???
Based on a planted out Rio 180 Tropical Single Species (Neon Tetra) .....

1. If using compost which type and how deep ?

2. Does the compost require gravel on top before adding sand and how deep ?

3. I am using an under tank heater but do i require any other form under sand filter/airation ?

Any help advice would be appreciated please keep it simple they dont call me Simon for nothing

 

[soritan]

It actually depends, quite a bit, on the type of plants OR lighting you are going for. If you find yourself fancying plants before lighting -- generally, lighting winds up being very important. if you find yourself looking at lighting first, then lighting is more important.

May I ask what size tank you're looking at? If you're at over 20 US Gallons, your lighting is less an issue. If you're at 10 US Gallons, you'll be hearing people exclaim "but your light is too high!" until the day you decide to stop telling people what your light is.

Congratulations on making these decisions beforehand, however. I did it quite the reverse, and the cost of this reverse plan is forver kicking my arse.

 

[OddBod]

Thanks Soritan, my Tank is 180 litres or around 47 US Gallon.

I am using the standard lights that come with the rio 180 unit that being 2x 895mm x 30 watt bulbs, i have no plans to upgrade this lighting for the foreseable future although i may add the factory reflectors to increase the WPG output of the above.

Not overly concerned with the lighting as that is easy enough to alter/change with it being above water level, would really like to know the substrate set up as my original question though.

I am planning on doing a 6 week semi fishless cycle running a cool tank with Goldfish as i have a established pond i can move them to prior to heating the tank ready for tropical.

Have been advised that gold fish and bloodworm will be a good way of stabilising the tankprior to warming it up.

Open to all advice )

 

[soritan]

Substrate almost doesn't matter, unless you're getting rooted plants, and even then, almost doesn't matter, unless you're high light, heavily planted, fussy plants.

I'm sure you've heard this already, but goldfish will likely eat up your plants, so something that grows fast will probably be ideal, like anacharis, which is a stem/floating plant that can be weighted down.

What I've been reading in general, is that most plants get their nutrients from the water column, so the substrate can either be inert (like sand or gravel) or special aquatic plant 'soil' or 'soil' additive.

I'm changing my substrate over to a 1" layer of Latrite and gravel and 2" of sand, and my plants are primarily Cryptocoryenes and Anubiases. I hear they do quite well in that combination.