Aquarius0015 said:
Hey guys,
I used to be a huge Aquaria Central addict back in the day. My nano reef was like fishie crack-cocaine to me: Just as exciting and just as expensive.
Anywho, the delightful housing office decided to enact a "No fish" rule for my junior year, so I said goodbye to my clowns, my cleaner shrimp, my hateful hermit crabs, xenia weed, frogspawn, shrooms, chaeto, sea star, etc etc. (Now I'm getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: a Thighmaster is neither a thigh nor a master. Discuss!)
Now I'm a senior, and the horrid rule is still in place. I got a mother-in-law's tongue, but it isn't the same.
On a whim, I mentioned to the biology department chair that it's a shame we don't have a nice display tank to show off the bio department. She agreed, and told me that we have an empty 70 gal tank just sitting around in storage! A few conversations later, and I got the greenlight to set up a freshwater tank (as long as I perform the maintenance until graduation).
I haven't seen the tank yet, and I don't know what kind of equipment we have. Nor do I know what ballpark budget I'll be working with. However, if I have a definite plan for the tank, I think it will be much easier to get more money and more support for the project (to get it placed in high-traffic area, not in the back of some small classroom).
Seeing as how we're a biology department, I'd like to go with something close to nature, i.e. no ornamental breeds, no neon gravel, real plants, no bubbling clam shells. Also, I think it'd be ideal if we could capture the essence of a geographical region by using species and design elements from the same place, so no African cichlids with South American cichlids, for instance. Additionally, I'd like the whole thing to be as low maintenance as possible (without looking sparse) since I don't know who will take over maintenance responsibilities after I leave.
Whew.
That being said... any suggestions?
Ok per your post, the setup needs to be natural, low maintainence, intersting, and can be taken care of by someone once you graduate. I would suggest the following:
1) a couple bags of aquasoil to reach a 3inch substrate (
http://www.adgshop.com)
2) canister filter (probably an eheim 2028 for reliability)
3) coralife aqualight strip with 150-200W 6700k CF light output
4) coralife powercenter autotimer to turn on and off the lights
5) eheim feeder for automated feeding
6) a large driftwood center piece (search ebay for good deals) and a few smaller ones
7) marineland vis thermal stealth heater or hydor inline heater.
8) plants:
carpet - pygme chain sword, no maintaince, easy to grow/spread, very beautiful bright green color under good light
driftwood - tie some javafern/anbuias nana, both no maintaince and easy to keep
background - this is a tough one, most fast growing stem plants i know of all require weekly trimming which is not realistic in a public tank. Hmm let me think about it. In the breakin period, you can always float some hornworts in the tank.
9) livestock: you want to mimic a relatively complete bio system, and overstock slightly to provide co2 and nutrients for the plants since you will not be adding either manually.
Inverts: 30 nerite snail (freshwater acclimated) + 30+ red cherry shimp. Both are excellent algae control, breakdown fish waste and adds an interesting natural dimension to the tank.
Fish: 24x h.rasboras, 24x dwarf neon rainbow, 6x true SAE(more algae control), 12x neon rosy barbs(for a touch of red). All those fish are beautiful, hardy, compatible and easy to feed using the autofeeder.
Did not pick any pleco or cory cats because they cant be autofed easily.
