New Ideas Please Help Im A Newb!

[e17jo1]

I always end up learning the hardway @ things and my fish tanks are among them. Its time that I start all over! Here are my specs of my 2 tanks. Maybe you guys can help me out by giving me some ideas! Yes Yes I am a hard-headed newb haha!

10 Gallon Tank: (I would prefer to keep this a planted tank)

20lbs eco complete
10lbs natural gravel
36watt compact fluorescent hood
100 watt tronic heater
2 whisper 10 power filters
hagen c02 natural plant system

I just want some VERY easy plants that will do fine in those conditions
The tank aids I have are:
seachem flourish
seachem ph balancer to 7.0
amquel plus
amquel (regular orange bottle)
amquel (blue bottle)
stress coat
ich aid
various water conditioners


40 Gallon Tank: (I would prefer fish only, maybe if I can grow some VERY easy plants in here then that would be cool)

TBD on gravel (I have a 4" playground sand bed right now)
60watt double bulb fluorescent fixture normal output
150watt ebo jager heater
aquaclear 300 power filter with carbon and amonia sack on top of sponge
no co2 and will not consider co2

I need fish ideas and plant ideas. Please help as I don't want to waste anymore time and money trying to fix mistakes. Thanks everyone for your time and help!

 

[kgrehm]

Hmm. It is hard to give you ideas. What kind of fish do you want? What temp. do you want to keep your tank at? What is going to be your PH? Just ideas post back so we can help you out more.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

amquel plus
amquel (regular orange bottle)
amquel (blue bottle)
stress coat
ich aid
various water conditioners

All you need to add to your water is a conditioner that nutrilizes chlorine--stress coat is the only product on this list that you need. Filling a tank with chemicals is not recommended.

 

[J_acon]

Well if both tanks are cycle and since you want the 10 gals for plants just go and pick the plants you want to have in there. Since you don't want fish in it you might need to get some liquid fertilizer for the plants and CO2.

For the 40 gals, you can make it a community fish some guppies, tetras, mollies, a couple of gouramis, some otos and corys. Do some research on a fish you plan to buy before you buy it. Check their agreesion level, temp, ph, food requirements. You can add some plants to it the fish won't be bothered by it, in fact they will love it and it will help you keep nitrates low

Or you can go for a African Cichlids tank which can be kept free of plants since you will need plenty of rocks to make caves. But this guys need more attention and i have 0 exp with them. So if you want Cichlids check the section for them.

I would also use the 10 gals as a quarantine tank and hospital tank to keep new and sick fish until the look alright to be put back into the larger community tank.

The link below got a nice gallery with pictures of the most common fish and plants you can find on most LFS and they got some comments by ppl with them. Go and check it out.

Link

Hope it helps and good luck and have fun stocking those tanks. Wish it was mine

 

[e17jo1]

I pan to keep community schooling fish with some bottom dwellers in the 40 gallon like tetras, mollys.
I plan to keep the tank @ 78 degrees F with the ph being somewhat neutral but would change depending on the fish I plan to keep.

 

[tstenback]

Pretty much any plant would do alright in that 10 gal. You have 3.6watts per gallon of light which will pretty much allow you to pick what you want for plants. Also with that substrate and co2 system you could probably grow trees in there . It is a aquarium gardeners dream. Are you looking at putting any fish in there at all?
As far as the community tank goes some great schoolers (probably the best actually, just ask modernhamlet ) are harlequin rasboras a school of 12-15 would be fabulous to watch. Mollies would be a great livebearer just make sure you get at least 2 females for each male. There are lots of great bottom dwellers, my favorite right now are cories. you could get a trio (they like company) of panda or skunk cories they stay pretty small about1.5 inches and you could top it off with a lovely pair of pearl gouramis(another favorite of mine). HTH