Loads Of Advise Needed Please, For A Newbie

[jdyer]

We're hoping to buy our first tank soon, and as you can imagine, have loads of questions.
When I was a kid, we had a small aquarium, which never really worked well, all the fish died, etc.

This time, I want to do things properly so, my first barrage of questions (I know I'm going to have more later!):

1- We're thinking about getting a Fluval Roma 240 tank. The consensus seems to be the bigger the better as
far as buying a tank is concerned, but do you think this tank is too large or otherwise wrong for a beginner?

2- The online descriptions for this tank all say that it includes everything you need (apart from fish and water of course!)
But, it doesn't seem to include an air pump? I'm sure air pumps used to be considered essential a few years ago - have
thoughts on needing an air pump changed over the years?

3- We're wanting to have live plants in the tank, 'coz it'll look better, help control the nitrates better and, I hope, help
keep the algae under control. The tank comes with 'Fluval GLO lighting, one of each 40watt PowerGlo & AquaGlo.' - will that
be good enough for plants? Should we also be adding a CO2 unit as well for them?

4- I'm planning on using fishless cycling for this tank, hoping to get some filter medium from someone to speed the process
up (posted elsewhere on these forums about this).
The tank comes with 'Nutrafin Aqua Plus & Cycle' - it seems to me that Cycle is basically a bottle of bacteria - could I use this
instead of someone else's filter medium to jumpstart the cycling process?
I was in our LFS yesterday, and they showed me one of the bottles of bacteria that needs to be stored in the fridge (I forget
the brand) - they said just put it in the tank, leave for a week, then add a few fish. I was wondering if that stuff would work to
jumpstart the cycling process?

All advice gratefully received! We've spent hours looking into this, and are finding the amount of information really daunting to be honest.

thanks

 

[Matty P]

1) That tank sounds fine, the bigger the better especially for beginners.

2) An air pump is an optional extra, as long as the surface is agitated by your filter then the gas exchange will be perfect.

3) That was my first light and I had no problems growing live plants without ferts and CO2. CO2 and ferts are again an optional extra which really do help but are not neccessary.

4) TBH (to be honest) I really don't think the bottled bacteria works at all, if you think about it the benificial bacteria in your filter require constant water flow to provide it with food and oxygen. The bottled bacteria won't be getting either of this. Getting some mature filter media from another tank will work well.

Good Luck

 

[ollyhtafc]

With regards to tank size, a larger tank could actually be viewed as easier to maintain for a begginer, due to a larger volume of water so it takes longer for toxins to accumulate and water quality to deteriorate.Whereas if you had a small volume tank things tend to go wrong much quicker!

 

[Matty P]

With regards to tank size, a larger tank could actually be viewed as easier to maintain for a begginer, due to a larger volume of water so it takes longer for toxins to accumulate and water quality to deteriorate.Whereas if you had a small volume tank things tend to go wrong much quicker!

A larger tank would be easier to maintain.

 

[loachman]

We're hoping to buy our first tank soon, and as you can imagine, have loads of questions.
When I was a kid, we had a small aquarium, which never really worked well, all the fish died, etc.

This time, I want to do things properly so, my first barrage of questions (I know I'm going to have more later!):

1- We're thinking about getting a Fluval Roma 240 tank. The consensus seems to be the bigger the better as
far as buying a tank is concerned, but do you think this tank is too large or otherwise wrong for a beginner?

Bigger is better if you can afford it. They are more stable, and therefore more forgiving. You also have more stocking options.

2- The online descriptions for this tank all say that it includes everything you need (apart from fish and water of course!)
But, it doesn't seem to include an air pump? I'm sure air pumps used to be considered essential a few years ago - have
thoughts on needing an air pump changed over the years?

As long as the surface is agitated, it should be fine for gas exchange.

3- We're wanting to have live plants in the tank, 'coz it'll look better, help control the nitrates better and, I hope, help
keep the algae under control. The tank comes with 'Fluval GLO lighting, one of each 40watt PowerGlo & AquaGlo.' - will that
be good enough for plants? Should we also be adding a CO2 unit as well for them?

It really depends on what plants and how much growth you want. Vals, amazon swords, java ferns, java moss, anubias, crypts and some others will grow in just about any lighting. Fertilizer/root tablets help for most but aren't necessarily required.

4- I'm planning on using fishless cycling for this tank, hoping to get some filter medium from someone to speed the process
up (posted elsewhere on these forums about this).
The tank comes with 'Nutrafin Aqua Plus & Cycle' - it seems to me that Cycle is basically a bottle of bacteria - could I use this
instead of someone else's filter medium to jumpstart the cycling process?
I was in our LFS yesterday, and they showed me one of the bottles of bacteria that needs to be stored in the fridge (I forget
the brand) - they said just put it in the tank, leave for a week, then add a few fish. I was wondering if that stuff would work to
jumpstart the cycling process?

All advice gratefully received! We've spent hours looking into this, and are finding the amount of information really daunting to be honest.

thanks

Most of the magic cures in a bottle don't do much. I'm not familiar with the Nutrafin product, but nothing beats filter media from an established tank. The refridgerated product (the name escapes me) is considered the best of those types of products, but unnecessary if you have the filter media from another tank.