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cichlidcichlid

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Jun 15, 2006
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I have a new 29 gallon tank up and ready to go for becoming a planted tank.

I currently have a penguin 200, a stealth 200, and a 55watt 8,000k light on the tank. Is the penguin filter going to have to be swapped out for an internal filter or power head with spong?

I don't want to waste the Co2 injection if it can be avoided.

I read some where that when the surface of the water is moving it expells more gas than when it is still and the currently is kept minimal underneath the surface.

Can i stick with gravel or should i get that flourite?

I would be willing to use those root tabs if they work instead of a new substrate.

What would be the equiptment i would need to properly get this done?

Do the plants go in before the fish?

At night is there going to be an issue with the oxygen level of the tank?

If i add a 1 or 2 plecos of the small cariety would that be enough to handle all of the algae?

Is a uv sterilizer a good idea or is it a waste of money?

Bogwood or driftwood what size/shape is the most appealing in a small tank setting?

What plants would you recomend?

I wanted to have it large in the back and as it got toward the frot to feathered into medium and ground cover.

What fish would work in this enviroment?

I pretty much got my fill with giant cichlids so i am ready to try using small fish that stay around the size they are when you get them like tetras etc.

Th fish i had in mind were maybe either a betta or gourami for the center piece fish and some small schooling tetras or dianos. Also i wanted for a change to have maybe a bamboo shrimp and 1 or 2 plecos of the smaller varitey that will eat some algae.

Since i will be mostly tending to the plants in this setup i would perfer it if it was properly stocked so that the plants could get most of the attention instead of those large water changes for the cichlid tanks.

I am hoping that this will come out looking great.

By the way could you use a Co2 canister for the soda machines or a smaller version like a butane container to be refilled for CO2?

Thanks in advance for your help. :)

cichlidcichlid
 

oblongshrimp

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Oct 12, 2008
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If you are adding CO2 then I would recommend dumping the HOB filter since it will outgas more CO2. If you are using pressurized then its not a huge deal since you can just crank up the gas more and then upgrade when you have the money. If you are not using CO2 then surface agitation is a good thing since it will help keep the CO2 level higher then it would if you had none and not adding any (plants would use all of the CO2 in the water and it would take longer to replenish the small amount that normally is dissolved in water.

How big is your current gravel and what kind of plants are you looking to have? If your gravel is finer then you are probably fine keeping it depending on what kinds of plants you want. I prefer the look of eco-complete over flourite.

If you plant heavily from the beginning you can add some fish right away. The plants carry the benificial bacterial on them and they also use the ammonia directly so if you plant heavily and don't stock to crazy to start it shouldn't be a problem. This is especially true if you already have a cycled filter.

If you don't have any surface agitiation it could become a problem. You want surface movement just not splashing, more like a ripple. You will know if its a problem if you see your fish all at the surface in the morning. You can either increase surface flow or add an air stone at night. With a HOB filter it shouldn't be an issue, with a cannister just make sure the outflow is two inches or so below the surface and it probably wont be a problem.

I would say one bushynose pleco would do fine in there. They don't eat all kinds of algae though and if there isn't enough for them to eat you will have to feed them other stuff or they will starve.

UV sterilizer kills green water and anything else floating in the water. I have used mine several times if i get green water as its the best way i have found to solve that problem. Otherwise I dont use mine though, I would save my money and get pressurized CO2 or a cansiter filter first.

To start I would recommend a lot of fast growing stem plants. As the tank matures you can remove them and add slower growing plants that you like more. The reason to add lots of plants to start is to prevent algae. You want to cram the tank full of a bunch of fast growing plants to soak up nutrients and out compete the algae.

I would stick to smaller fish in this type of setup. Maybe a school of rummynose or some kind of tetra. Your betta or gourami should be fine in this setup also.

Bamboo shrimp are filter feeders so they will not eat most algae (green water they will eat). They often do not have enough food in a home aquarium and will start picking at the substrate trying to find food. Amano shrimp are much better algae eaters. If you want some shrim that don't eat as much alage but breed in freshwater I would recommend one of the many neocaridina species. You can check them out at my website in my signature below.

With higher light and CO2 you will need to dose ferts. I would recommend using pfertz if you have the money and are lazy, or dry dose if you want something cheaper. I would use EI (estimative index) dosing as its simpler. The downside of it is it recommends 50% water change each week so your don't build up ferts.
 

cichlidcichlid

AC Members
Jun 15, 2006
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The gravel is pea sized, could i take off the biowheel and just run the filter?


Do you have any plants that you would recomend starting out with apart from the amozon sword i want to grow in there?
 
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