300 Gallon Planted Aquarium

[orgetorix]

Hello all!

I recently purchased a 300 Gallon acrylic aquarium and have decided that a planted tank is the way to go. I have pretty extensive experience with aquaria, but no success with plants. I now know that this is almost certainly due to inadequate substrate/lighting/CO2. I have done quite a bit of homework nd have decided to go ahead with this. I would appreciate everyone's help in setting up this tank when it gets here (I haven't actually received it yet). My current questions are:

1) How hard is it going to be to light the bottom, since this tank is 30" tall?

2) How much CO2 will I need to inject (assuming a heavily planted tank)? I assume a larger tank requires more bubble/sec

3) What are some good online resources for purchasing lights/CO2 injector parts/plants themselves?

4) I held off buying lighting systems from the tank manufacturer (Tenecor) because they only offered Actinic and 10000K bulbs. What bulbs are most recommended?

5) Anything else you guys can think of by way of pitfalls, things to watch out for, places to get driftwood, etc.

I am a pretty busy guy and can't really afford the time to browse all over town so I really appreciate online venues to get items. I would prefer to spend my time looking for uniuque fish and plants rather than lights and driftwood.

Thank you very much. I am new to these boards and hope you guys can help me out. Sorry for not reading all the other posts as I'm sure many of my questions have already been answered. But I was just hoping that if money was no (or not a big) object, how would you guys set up a 300T (96"x24"x30") aquarium?

Thanks,

orgetorix

[superjohnny]

Wow, 300g is a BIG tank. Your 20% water change will be more water than most of us have in our entire tank!

There are two types of lights that work for big tanks like this. Power compact flourescent and metal halide. Honestly, if you want to do this right you should look at MH IMO.

A tank this size can easily turn into looking more like a hodge podge of plants than an aquarium. It would save you a lot of time and money if you carefully research and figure out what you want the tank to look like BEFORE you start buying and putting it together.

Check out some books by Takashi Amano. He tells you what hardware he is using, what plants & livestock he puts in the tanks etc. You can do a lot worse than replicating what he has already done.

I implore you to do your homework beforehand though. To learn by experimentation on a tank this size will be excessively expensive.

[djlen]

Welcome to AC!!
We are always happy to hear about another swimming pool going into the neighborhood. Yes, there is a lot of info on this site on most aspects of planting an aquarium. And you will get a wide variety of opinions.
These are mine:
1) Thirty inches is indeed deep. But good compact lighting will penetrate this depth. And don't forget you'll be adding substrate which will make up some of the distance. Hopefully 5 - 6" toward the rear of the tank.

2) You will need pressurized CO2 and a good system for dispersing it. Your bubble rate will depend on how effective your reactor is and the type of filtration you use. I love a cannister system for a tank your size. They are very effective and cause little or no surface agitation which tends to gas off CO2.
Many of us mix and match systems to save $$, but since you are obviously independently wealthy, you will find many vendors on line that will sell you a complete CO2 system. They are not terribly difficult to run and the plants will love it. I would suggest that you use at least a ten lb. CO2 bottle or you'll be making a lot of trips for re-filling.

3) www.ahsupply.com will be able, not only to fix you up with lighting, but will assist you on the best way to do it for your tank.
I think the general consensus is that www.bigalsonline.com is the cheapest and best supplier for most things other than CO2 and lighting. You can't beat them for prices on filters, heaters etc.

4) I like 6700K daylights for lighting. That is the closest to natural daylight and IMO, looks the most natural in the aquarium.

5) Pitfalls all over the place. My advice is that before you do something ask questions and/or look it up in our search engine.
There are many people who are quite knowledgeable on different aspects of planted tanks who will be very happy to help.
As stated in the previous thread, a mistake in a tank your size can be costly, not only in money, but in aggravation.

This response has been very general in nature. As you come up with specific question we'll be glad to confuse you as best we can.

Len

[TomFromStLouis]

Congratulations on your new tank. We are all quite jealous. I suspect that your question and the above answers imply a high tech tank (high light, injected CO2, etc.), as opposed to a Walsatd style low tech tank. Low tech is less work once set up though you get slower growth rates.

I just wanted to point out that there are alternate ways to go, but most questions we get here are for the high tech approach. High tech encourages the most rapid plant growth, and in the words of George Booth, makes hard plants easy and easy ones weeds. My point is this: make sure you want to invest the time in maintaining a high tech plant tank; I spend maybe 1+ hour per week changing water and pruning my 75g. It is worth it to me. 300g might be a lot more time.

FWIW I began with almost all stem plants ("easy plants") and after only 3 months have already begun shifting some emphasis toward slower growing Aponogetons and Crypts. If I were you and had no specific idea what plants to try, I would buy a good plant book (Kasselmann's might be best) and look for ideas. The kind of plants you focus on will tell you how much wattage you need and what kind of substrate to use. Think of the tank as an aquatic garden that has fish added and your focus will be right. If you decide to include discus or somehting with special temperature needs, your plant list will be shorter. Good luck and please show us the results!

[andruboz]

wonder if you could light a tank like that with solatubes (http://www.solatubetexas.com/sola.htm)

[Timmain42]

Having planted a tank nearly that large, I can tell you that you need to make sure you can determine how much water in actually IN the tank for correct fertilization purposes (i.e. it may be a 300g tank, but you lose 20-30g in water displacement from rocks, substrate, driftwood, etc.).

Also, if you decide to go the route of Metal Halide for your tank, consider buying lights from a source away from the aquaria business. I purchased 2 400W MH lights & ballasts for a total of about $540 from a... <ahem> head shop, as opposed to paying $750+ for the same kind of wattage from an actual aquarium store.

These are just suggestions, now... follow at your own risk.

[PikeLee]

Boy am I jealous. :p I can create all kinds of algae in 300g :D .

Before you do anything, I would suggest reading some of the alternative route that TomfromStL suggested. That is the "Low-Tech" Set up. I read this book and find that it's an excellent way to go.

I love this hobby. 4 years in and after 1 10g tank, I now have 6 tanks. It can be very rewarding, but the maintenence can be a pain. Especially with algae blooms. And you will probably get that with a "high-tech" tank.

I would think things over a bit and find out if you have the time in your life to water changes for a 300g. For a tank with CO2, most people here will suggest a 50% water change a week. Diana Walstahd's way is about 40% every several months.

This guy did it extremely low-tech, but he's successful. Take a look and good luck.

http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/plant/lotech.html

I'm trying out with this method right now and I'm very happy that I decided to go this route on my 90g rather than the "high-tech" way.