Another "educated" Newb opinion Request

[merlin4260]

Hey all, be forwarned that this is another one of those long and pesky "educated" newb opinion requests posts.

I'm one of THOSE people who absolutely have to try and find out everything there is to know about a hobby b4 I go and sink my money in it, so I've done my homework and have a grasp on all the common mistakes and how to avoid them, so now it's down to a matter of opinion.

I'm looking for any and all opinions on some various filtration plans I've been tossing around in my head, but first I'll give you the short and skinny on my tank plans.

I'm looking at getting a 72 gallon bow front tank (www.all-glass.com) with a corner overflow and adding about a 30 gallon sump. I plan on doing an Angelfish community tank, and like many other greedy aquarium keepers I want as many fish as possible.

For starters, I had previously been looking at the new TetraTec PF's until I read some posts on this forum that bashed them, ranging from saying they were noisy to saying that they are poorly constructed, so any feedback on these would be helpful.

My general plan was to have a canister filter or possibly a fluidized bed filter as my main filtration and a HOB power filter in the tank as a secondary. The main questions I have relate to how many and how big. I read another post on here telling someone with a similiar situation to use 2 FilStar XP3's along with their HOB.

Also when it comes to the canisters I'm looking for feedback here as well. Fluval?, FilStar?, Magnum?, Proquatics (think that is a PetSmart exclusive?) ?? Any opinions and info on any fluidized bed filters would be appreciated as well.

Any feedback welcome, don't feel like you have to respond to my entire novel.

 

[carpguy]

I've also heard some less than good things about the TetraTecs. Most folks around here seem to split into the AquaClear or Penquin/Emperor camps for HOBs and the Fluval (cheaper and plenty good) or Eheim (more expensive and very good) camps for Canisters. Some Filstar folks will make the same claims the Fluval owners do (its reasonably priced and does its job) but others have made less favorable reports. The Eheim thing seems to boil down to this: its the Mercedes of filters, but do you really need a Mercedes or do you just want a good reliable car for half the price? If you answer "nothing but the best, money is no object" go with the Eheim; if you answer "good, reliable, affordable" go Fluval.

But…

Usually in a setup with a sump, the sump is at least the main filter. You can set it up to take care of most filtering tasks and keep your heaters in there as well to minimize hardware in the display tank. After that you might add supplemental filtration to that to handle specific tasks, like maybe a fluidized bed for additional bio if you're planning on putting a heavy load on the biofilter. But the sump can be a good filter on its own. Not really sure why else you'd set one up (except to increase biocapacity).

Which brings us to overstocking. You'll be happier if you don't. You can count the sump as part of the tank and treat the whole system as 100g. But don't push it -- you've got room for plenty of nice fish. The one single item that just about all of the folks hereabouts who seem to have the most knowledge and experience (the "gurus") agree on: conservative stocking is better than overstocking, when in doubt go lighter. Beyond the matter of waste processing and gas exchange, consider free swimming space and territoriality.

The natural impulse is to be greedy and try to overstock. Resist. The more subtle perspective is that you don't actually want a lot of fish, you want a really nice tank. More fish=nicer tank is not necessarily true. At healthy stocking levels you'll have healthy thriving fish in good color and exhibiting normal type behaviors. Push it too far and you'll have increased stress levels (less colorful fish, more disease), more aggression, unhealthy fish that live shortened lives, and ultimately a tank that you're not as happy with as you might have been.

If it were my setup I'd feature a handful of angels as the centerpiece fish; I'd add a nice school of tetras, maybe two; I'd add a shoal of smaller cats; I might look for a pair or three dwarf cichlids; I'd plant it like nobody's business. This would mean spending sometime wandering the Plant and Cichlid forums for beter info on those two aspects.

It sounds like a great tank in the making! Enjoy and welcome to AqC…

HTH

 

[wetmanNY]

The thing about a "school" of Angels is that they graduate so soon! (sentimental tears)

After several happy months hanging out together, when they're about a small fist size, pairs will start to form. Spawning angelfish are great, but they'll remind you that after all, they are Cichlids. Cichlids are territorial.

 

[merlin4260]

Thanks for the info Carpguy. Don't take me wrong when I say I want as many fish as possible, I still mean within reason. I just would rather my tank size be my limiting factor and not my filtration. My general feeling is that too much filtration is just enough if u know what I mean , I'd rather error to the safe side.

As far as budjet goes, less is better to an extent, but I realize that sometimes you get what you pay for. I'm a graduating college student (translation=poor) but I'm asking for money for graduation presents specificlly to put this tank together.

Now in terms of using the sump as the main filter, I'm not sure I completely follow. My sump is going to be a plain 30 gallon glass tank, not a wet/dry filter type sump. I planned on using some bio-balls, but that wouldn't meet all my filter demands. My purpose in adding the sump is twofold in that it will allow me to move the heaters and such from the main tank and also to increase the bio-load sticking to the more water is better theory.

As far as your input on the fish and plant setup, that is more or less exactly what I had in mind. Which brings another question to mind about CO2. How neccesary is a CO2 system with a planted tank? Anyone have any feedback on any good systems? I've read about DIY CO2 and am considering that as a possibility as well (I'm an Engineer=I'll build anything once for fun )

Thanks again

 

[serjuanca888]

If you do go with CO2 of any sort you will need to minimize water agitation. More than likely that means no sump, or at least no bioballs in the sump. DIY CO2 on a tank over 30 gallons is a waste. I would go with a good aluminum tank and a regulator, this will cost you about $100 but it will give you great results with plants. Also you will need to get a special substrate for plants (ask the folks in the plant forum). Fertilizers will help as will. Also you will need to be careful on what fish you get as some will either rip up your plants or eat them.

 

[carpguy]

Cichlids aren't my fish and I don't know all that much about them -- I'm a carp guy. For the territoriality and behavioral characteristics you'll want to listen to folks like the Wetman and the friendly folks in the Cichlid forum (and bookmark the Wetfeller's SkepticalAquarist right now before you forget).

Try a few searches for "sump" and "filter" and cruise the DIY forum for details on that. After that try cross referencing it against username "Slipknottin". He's the moderator for DIY and a very knowledgeable guy on the mechanical stuff. A canister is really a very small sealed sump. I don't know what kind of filtering you want to do that you don't think is acheivable with a 30g sump but I'd research this detail further. HOB's will tend to run off your CO2 if you're planning on going planted. I started with an HOB and am planning on switching to a canister for that reason and for greater control over currents in the tank.

Lower light tanks with healthy plants are very doable. I think the WetMan takes this approach with his own tanks. Plant selection will be somewhat limited and growth will be slower but it can be done. Search for "low light" crossed with plantbrain, and look for Diane Walstad's Ecology of the Planted Aquarium at the library.

For planted tanks in general, work your way through this thread.

I started with Flourish Excel and tried DIY CO2. I got frustrated with it and just bought a 10 lb. canister, regulator is on the way. For DIY check this article and this thread at another forum.

If you want to go with higher light and CO2 you'll probably find the effort on a 100 gallon system to be substantial. Think pressurized thoughts.

 

[merlin4260]

Thanks again Carpguy. Hit the jackpot with one of the websites that was linked in the first thread you linked to.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/articles.htm This site has all kinds of useful stuff, from how to make that sump I was planning on using a whole lot more useful to a really nice CO2 system.

After reading through that site, I'm thinking I'm going to use the sump design he has, along with a canister (thinking FilStar Xp3) and the CO2 system he has. Very helpful site.
Thanks again, more comments always welcome.

 

[JSchmidt]

My $.02....

I don't think overstocking is generally a successful strategy with angelfish. I think you'll just end up with more dead angels than if you had stocked normally.

WetMan's correct in his longitudinal assessment: all those little angels that do so well together will start beating the #$^&)!@% out of each other when they start pairing off.

Your mix of fish sounds nice, though. If you want more action in the tank, I'd up the number of tetras, not angels...

Jim