I bought the 180g off craigslist.......

A

amy

a.k.a. achu
Dec 1, 1999
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Austin, TX
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......and I'm kind of paralyzed :eek:

The long term plan is to turn it into a planted tank with angels and a huge school of cardinal tetras.

The short term plan is to get some fish into the monstrosity so I don't feel like a fool for moving this thing into my house.

The tank is currently empty. Once I get it cleaned up and put down some kind of plant friendly substrate, I know I can get it up and running with the 3 HOBs and 2 powerheads it came with, and cycled with some "seed" gravel from my existing fish-only 15g. Unfortunatly the 15g is a largest tank I have ever owned, lso I'm at a loss when it comes to filtration for a really large tank with plants.

I'd appreciate your suggestions about what kind of filtration to get, and a plan to install it over time as finances permit.

Thanks!
 
No plans for CO2. Just plans for DIY lights; and those won't even happen for a while because I have too many other things to do with my kids, etc...
 
My first thought is that seeding that tank with EVERYTHING you have in the 15 would be a challange but I've never tried something on that scale. Let us know how it goes.

Q
 
Trust me, once its running and you get used to it, in a few months you'll look at it and say yeah...I could go bigger. ;)
 
Mgamer20o0 said:
well if you dont want co2 i would think about a sump and a canister filter. you can get shop lights for it to grow low light plants. not the best but can work.
Click to expand...

What's a sump? I thought those were things that go in basements... and Austin doesn't have very many basements.

If I were to do a 2 canister approach in anticipation of adding CO2 far, far into the future, why do you recommend such large units?
 
A sump is basically a holding tank that goes underneath your main tank. You can buy one or two hang-on-back overflow boxes, which will let water drain down into a sump (which could be a second fishtank, a rubbermaid tub, trashcan, basically anything that will hold water). They are particularly useful for holding wet/dry systems. A return pump then pumps water back up into the main tank.

As far as why getting such large units....it's a large tank! You need filtration to match.
 
I so don't understand sumps. What's to keep it from draining my whole tank on to the floor? Is there a picture I can see?

As far as the big canisters, one fx5 is rated for 400 gallons.... two of them seem overkill for 180g but maybe I'm missing some key info about why I would want to over-over-overfilter a planted tank.

Oh, one more requirement. Anything I hook up to the system should be something I won't regret having around a very curious 1 year old baby. A sump might be one of those things....
 
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