Help For A Newbie?

[JasDownUnder]

Hi All!

I am really new to plants (i.e. i've never had any before) and i'm wanting a bit of help.

I'm in the process of setting up a 50 gallon tank, its going to be planted, but not excessively. It's also going to house probably a dozen or so small to mid-sized fish.

I have 3mm gravel as a base, and i'm looking for advice on lighting, filtration, tips for beginners etc.

How should i go about cycling the tank? How much light do i need, and what sort of bulbs should i get? what is this DIY CO2 injection that i keep reading about? What form of filtration would be best? i was thinking an undergravel filter (biological) and something like an aquaclear 300 (mechanical) filter... would this suffice? for my tank?

Anything else i should know? I'm relatively new to the whole aquarium scene, only ever having had a 10 gallon tank with a couple of cheapish fish, and plastic plants, lol

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thankyou in advance
Jason

[Cearbhaill]

Nutshell answers :D

Fishless cycling is faster and doesn't kill any fish ;)

Basically you can go low light/low tech with 1-1½ watts per gallon. There are a huge number of plants that you can grow well with this approach, and it has worked really well for me- check out the link in my sig. Bulbs in the 5500-6700ºK range are recommended but it depends on what you find pleasing visually. I prefer 6700's- lower is too yellow for me and higher gets washed out looking.

Flourescent or power compact? The newer T5's?
What's your budget?
Simple cheap flourescent shop lights can work but don't always look the best lying on top of an aquarium, and high end reflectors are expensive. Retro fits are "just the basic parts" that you install into an existing wood canopy- does your tank have one? This can be an economical way to get great lighting.

But if you want to grow all the high light plants you'll need more light (double that amount or more) and a pressurized CO2 system. This is just a simple CO2 cylinder hooked up to pump small amounts of gas into your tank to facilitate growth.

Which of these two approaches you favor depends on a lot of factors, especially set up cost (lighting is expensive), what look you are going for, and how much time you envision interacting with your tank. Pruning gets to be time consuming, and it has to be done regularly to keep your jungle looking tamed.

With filtration you want to have as little surface agitation as possible so cannister filters are recommended for planted tanks.
Too much surface agitation allows all your CO2 to escape into the air. UG filters can get all clogged up with roots, and HOT filters generally splash too much.

There are tons and tons of threads in here on these topics. If you could carve out a couple of hours just to read past threads you can get lots of varied opinions and the always present conflicting advice. Read everything and do what feels right for you.
There's a row of 7 purple buttons at the top of this page- the sixth of which is "search". Just enter any phrase like "watts per gallon" or "pressurized CO2" and specify "Aquatic Plants" forum. The results will keep you plenty busy.

It feels like a very steep learning curve at first, but there are loads of folks here to help, and you'll get comfortable with the basics fairly quickly. Just keep reading and asking and don't do anything until you are sure why you are doing it.

Good Luck!

[JasDownUnder]

Thankyou for the quick response.

I'm not wanting to spend OVERLY large amounts of money on the tank. I don't really care what the lighting 'looks' like, as long as it does the job (i.e. i wouldn't care if it was just a shop light fixture on top of the tank) As its not really a display tank, its just in my bedroom for me to enjoy :). So if i wanted to go without CO2 (don't really want to spend too much on tank :)), i should go for around 1.5 to 2 watts per gallon? so about 100W max?

How does algae grow? and how do i stop it from growing? I had the tank sitting outside full of water in the sun for about a week (was cleaning it out, lol) and it was full of a green algae by the end of the week. (i emptied that water out etc)

I had a look at your tank pictures, and i saw a few of the plants that i had picked out to use in my tank on there.

I was mainly looking for some of those long, grassy type plants as a type of 'wall' at the back of my tank, with some smaller 'ground cover' type plants at the front, and maybe a stick/log with some javafern growing on it, a few strategicaly placed rocks, and a couple of other medium sized plants scattered around towards the front/sides just to make it appear to have a bit of depth.

How much are cannister filters usually? would they provide sufficient filtration to cope with the fish as well? Should i have a underwater pump (i.e. powerhead) to have a bit of current throughout the tank? (but no surface agitation).

[MrGoodbytes]

Algae spores float around in the air and are also on surfaces too, like from an old empty aquarium with some green on the sides. As soon as there is light and food (it doesn't take much) it starts growing. You need to establish the right nutrient balance to get rid of most of you algae, but there will always be some. Have a look at the sticky at the top of the forum on fetilizers.

If you want tall grassy, Vallisneria is the way to go. Another great group of low-light plant I'm fond of are the Cryptocorynes. They come in many differnt sizes so you could have a big middle-ground plant, or a short carpet of a smaller species.

In Canada, a good canister filter for a 50 gallon aquarium will cost you about 80-100 dollars, so it's probably close to that in Australia.

I have a 35 gallon planted that is lit by shop-lights and I am very happy with the results. You just have to change the tubes more often.

Best of luck with you aquarium,
Graeme

[JasDownUnder]

Hi again all

I have pretty much decided on getting a Fluval 404 filter... will this be too big for my 55 gallon tank? (claimed flow of 345 gallons/hour)

Are there any other filters that you would recommend that would be a good size? i cant find a Rena Filstar xP3 for sale here in Australia, and i'm not quite sure on the sizing of Eheims (what would be a good model for a 55 gallon... flow rates etc?)

Sorry for keeping asking stupid questions, but i'm still learning :)

Jason