Hello,
This is my first post here after lurking for the past few days. What a terrific site for teaching people like myself valuable information for a very enjoyable hobby.
I need some advice. I purchased an Eclipse 12 tank system a couple of years ago for my son's 6th birthday. He wanted to have a pet and since my wife wasn't about to allow a dog or cat into the house, we decided tropical fish would be a good choice to start out with. I remember having a 10gal. tank when I was growing up in the 70's and thought it'd be fun to get back into.
We started out with tiger barbs, neon tetras, and another type of tetra. Unfortunately, between my failure to do some recearch and poor advice at the big-box pet store, our tank didn't perform very well. The fish survived for around a year but we had various problems with algae, cloudy water, and more algae.
I eneded up tearing the tank down for a six months while I did some painting in the kids bedrooms. I also decided to finally get some good advice at a specialty fish/aquarium store. The light finally went on regarding regular water changes, selecting appropriate species and populations for my size tank, and significantly throttling back the feeding schedule.
During Christmas break I got the Eclipse back up and running. After stabilizing the water I added the following at intervals of a few days:
2 - silver mollies (M/F)
1 - orange platy (pregnant female...I think anyway)
2 - African dwarf frogs
2 - Oco's (algae eaters)
1 - ghost shrimp
Three different species of live plants as well
Everything has been going great with no problems. Water changes approx. every 5-7 days 20%. I've been feeding Tetra flakes 1 and sometimes 2 times a day.
***Here's the problem. I've been bitten by the bug. I've been having so much fun with the 12 gal. that I want to add a bigger tank next to my home office downstairs. I have a 42 inch space that would allow for an aquarium with a 36 inch footprint to fit nicely. I've done some prelim shopping and discovered an Oceanic 58 gal. reef ready that looks really nice. I also was introduced to all sorts of new stuff like sump filters, MegaFlow overflows, and all kinds of other stuff.
Finally, here's my question. What types of things do I need to be thinking about going forward? Is a reef ready system the way to go? The set up looked pretty slick. Is Oceanic a good brand and are there any other quality brands I should investigate also? What kind of price range should I be prepared to expect?
Thanks in advance for all of the help!
Email is in the profile if that works better for anyone.
This is my first post here after lurking for the past few days. What a terrific site for teaching people like myself valuable information for a very enjoyable hobby.
I need some advice. I purchased an Eclipse 12 tank system a couple of years ago for my son's 6th birthday. He wanted to have a pet and since my wife wasn't about to allow a dog or cat into the house, we decided tropical fish would be a good choice to start out with. I remember having a 10gal. tank when I was growing up in the 70's and thought it'd be fun to get back into.
We started out with tiger barbs, neon tetras, and another type of tetra. Unfortunately, between my failure to do some recearch and poor advice at the big-box pet store, our tank didn't perform very well. The fish survived for around a year but we had various problems with algae, cloudy water, and more algae.
I eneded up tearing the tank down for a six months while I did some painting in the kids bedrooms. I also decided to finally get some good advice at a specialty fish/aquarium store. The light finally went on regarding regular water changes, selecting appropriate species and populations for my size tank, and significantly throttling back the feeding schedule.
During Christmas break I got the Eclipse back up and running. After stabilizing the water I added the following at intervals of a few days:
2 - silver mollies (M/F)
1 - orange platy (pregnant female...I think anyway)
2 - African dwarf frogs
2 - Oco's (algae eaters)
1 - ghost shrimp
Three different species of live plants as well
Everything has been going great with no problems. Water changes approx. every 5-7 days 20%. I've been feeding Tetra flakes 1 and sometimes 2 times a day.
***Here's the problem. I've been bitten by the bug. I've been having so much fun with the 12 gal. that I want to add a bigger tank next to my home office downstairs. I have a 42 inch space that would allow for an aquarium with a 36 inch footprint to fit nicely. I've done some prelim shopping and discovered an Oceanic 58 gal. reef ready that looks really nice. I also was introduced to all sorts of new stuff like sump filters, MegaFlow overflows, and all kinds of other stuff.
Finally, here's my question. What types of things do I need to be thinking about going forward? Is a reef ready system the way to go? The set up looked pretty slick. Is Oceanic a good brand and are there any other quality brands I should investigate also? What kind of price range should I be prepared to expect?
Thanks in advance for all of the help!
Email is in the profile if that works better for anyone.
