New Tank Planning Help.

[henryfg]

Hi!

I am planning a new tank. It's 70l and I want it to be heavily planted. I plan on getting the plants (amazon swords, ludwigia, hygrophilia, crypts in the foreground) in, and then cycling the filter once the plants are in, so my first step is decide on aquascaping and plants.

I want soil in the tank, topped with sand or gravel, but I have also been thinking about lawn plants. Can anyone reccomend a good one? Hopefully one that will be OK with corys, however I would rather have corys than lawn cover.

I defintely want a shoal of black phantoms, and maybe another tetra shoal (perhaps bleeding hearts, or something with good schooling behaviour like rummynose) as well. So do you think I should be looking at bogwood or rocks as ornaments? And finally, what would be an appropriate centrepiece fish for this set-up? I was thinking a pair of bolivian rams, but I think the water here (SE UK) might be too hard? I have also heard about Apistogramma species being suited to small-medium community aquaria, but I don't know anything about these. Any ideas?

 

[kiriyama]

Have a look at Lemon Teras, I had over a dozen in with my Black Phantoms, they have definate shoaling behaviour and it's fun to watch the males displaying to each other, always twisting and flaring but never fighting.....
Apistos, don't know your tank dimensions but check out:

Macmaster's Dwarf Cichlid - Apistogramma macmasteri
Agassiz's Dwarf Cichlid - Apistogramma agassizii
Cockatoo Dwarf Cichlid - Apistogramma cacatuoides
Borelli's Dwarf Cichlid - Apistogramma borelli

These are just a couple of the better known ones, the agassi and borelli are stunning
Good luck.......

 

[henryfg]

Thanks! I will have a look into those for sure. My tank dimensions are 66cm by35cm by 35cm, if that makes a difference to which apisto species I could put in? Is it always best to keep apistos in pairs or is just 1 OK?

I just had another thought too, what kind of filtration is best for a tank like this? I know internl filters are popular, but don't they create a LOT of water movement? I was thinking of perhaps growing some delicate plants. What about a hang on back type filter?

 

[natalie265]

When you say "lawn plant" do you mean a short, grassy type plant that will carpet your tank? I've found these to be difficult to grow. What is your experience with planted tanks? How many watts per gallon do you have? Any Co2?


If you are doing a fishless cycle it's actually best to cycle the tank first (in the dark), THEN add the plants. OR, if you plant the tank heavily from the start, you might be able to add fish slowly with no ill effects (i started my own planted tank like this and it worked great)

I prefer the look of drift wood in planted tanks myself, but this is entirely personally. Choose what you like.

 

[henryfg]

Yeah, that's the kind I meant, but I think now I will go with sand studded with low plants. I haven't set up a light in the hood of the tank yet, and I plan on using the CO2 producer I made for my old tank on this one as well.

Is there a formula or method to work out what optimum WPG is?

 

[OldMan47]

Hi there Henry. I find that the plants each have their own lighting needs so a calculator just doesn't work out. Instead what we end up doing is choosing some plants that we like and then determining the light needs of each one. If you like low light plants, then about 1 watt per gallon seems to be about right. If you like medium light plants, you will be faced with providing about 2 WPG. Higher light plants also mean more careful controls to avoid algae problems. If you are pushing 2.5 or more WPG, you will have algae problems in your tank unless you also provide lots of plant nutrients and that includes a pressurized CO2 system. Another approach, and one that I like, is a Walstad style NPT. In that approach, you use relatively high light, a dirt or planting soil substrate and you feed the plants by being generous in feeding your fish so that the waste can become plant food. It works out fine in the long run but is not a very pretty picture when you first set up the tank. In my own NPT I use a cover of about 1 inch, 2.5cm, of coarse sand over the planting soil to make the planting soil stay in place. The result is a veru easy to maintain planted tank that can look like this after about a year of growing time. It is not a cultured landscape but the fish seem to think it is fine and they thrive in it.

That tank is a 40 gallon breeder with 110 w of T-5 lighting over it. It does not have any CO2 equipment on it and gets no artificial fertilizers. What it gets for fertilizer is the surplus food that the fish in the tank enjoy. I feed the tank "generously" and the decaying fish food and fish feces provide all of the fertilizer for the plants. There is no CO2 system on the tank at all and since the plants became established there are no algae problems either. I did have a cyano-bacteria, blue green algae, problem in the tank when I first set it up, but that cleared up on its own. The tank gets a 50% water change every 6 months or so to replenish the trace minerals in the tank water. Without the trace minerals that come in with new water, the plant growth would stagnate. The plant growth also ties up any poisons in the water so that the fish never see anything but clean water. The tank in the picture is heavily populated with a breeding colony of Xenotaenia resolanae who have never known anything but high feeding rates and a well planted tank. I expect to be selling many of them on to other livebearer keepers at the ALA convention this year and that will reduce the numbers to something near a tolerable level in that tank. In the meantime, the water in that tank is cleaner than anything in my tap water and the plants are pulling much of the mineral content from the water. Where that leaves me is a tank that is almost maintenance free, with a rare water change and some plant removal to control mineral build ups. I love the result because I am lazy at heart and a tank that does not need much attention beyond feeding is close to my ideal.