Thinking Of Starting A 55 Gallon Tank...:d

[Kejiiraa]

Hey I'm new to the forums but not to fish keeping. I was pretty successful with fish, but not the plants but I want to start over. I want a low tech, low light and heavily planted tank with easy plants like Java Fern and Anubias with Malaysian driftwood as hardscape. Last time I went with medium light and CO2 and within weeks my entire tank was covered in algae and I just gave up
So my plan is to have between 1 and 2 watts per gallon I'm using this advice (copied and pasted):

nitiate with 1 to 2 watts per gallon of linear normal output fluorescent lighting. Use two lamps (bulbs). There is no need to purchase expensive aquaria specific bulbs; choose bulbs with a color rating between 5000K and 10000K. I suggest you use a mix of 6500K and 9325K bulbs.

Then thinking of using ECO complete substrate (used it in the past and loved it) with whatever filter I can find that fits a 55 gallon tank and isn't an undergravel one.

As for fish I'm thinking of maybe this:
8 German Blue Rams (would be added last)
6 Peppered Corydoras Catfish or 3 Pictus Catfish
1 Gold Nugget Pleco
4-6 Sparkling Gouramis

Is this a good plan for fish and would I be fully stocked or could I add more? I do understand the cycling process and would be adding about 2 fish per 2 weeks

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Kej and welcome to TFF!

I'm not the best with stocking so maybe someone else will count up, it looks like it could be a bit overstocked in the end to me but it might depend on filtration and I'm not sure of the max size of the sparklings.

Your new planting plan sounds like its shaping up well. Going with lower light will help some guarding against repeating your former algae problems. I'd look in to going pretty high with filter turnover rate and consider one or more Koralia or other powerheads in the lower part of the tank to keep the water moving. You probably should have reacted with drastically reduced light hours when the algae started happening and increased water changes. Were you dosing EI for the fertilizers? Have you had a look at our pinned articles in the planted section?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Kejiiraa]

Yes I can get a powerful filter
The sparkling gouramis are tiny, about 2" max. I think I had too much light in the old tank (it was a 20 gallon) and I was dosing, I just forgot what I used, and I'm not sure how often I was using it. I'll go look at the articles now