Final planning for my 55 gal. Tips, pointers, or critiques?

I wouldn't add the otos for a few months or more, they need some established algae to feed on. They can be finicky eaters and won't always eat flake food, sinking pellets, algae wafers, etc. They, as well as a bn pleco, would enjoy some blanched zucchini or cucumber occasionally, and lately I've been feeding them Repashy. (soilent green) And I wouldn't worry too much about adding a bn pleco with your plants, although one of mine used to torture a sword I had.
 
countryboy said:
I think T8's are 32 watt. You should go with T5HO's in planted tank.
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The 48" T8s are 32 watts, but the wattage depends on the length. I disagree with getting HO's...the plants listed are not light needy in the slightest.
 
I checked the lighting now that I am home. It matches this product that I found on Amazon, except the bulbs are 18 inches. Light. As I am new to live plants I am really in the dark here as to what I am going to need for the plants to thrive. Also, I am not planning CO2 at the moment, but may introduce a DIY solution down the road.
 
Sounds very close to my tank I just finished, if you have a pH problem you could add peat moss to your filter. It will leech tannins into your water and stain it yellow but under t5ho you don't really notice. But it lowers pH and hardness. Most of all have fun and I'll get you a picture of my water of you like


Edit: also my albino BN doesn't mess with my plants

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My girlfriend is getting sick of me planning this all out! She wants to see what I keep telling her we'll have.

In terms of the order of adding stock, I am likely wanting to go cardinals first, GBRs second, Corys third and otos fourth? Obviously this depends on availability of what I am after. I'm assuming that if I do go the BN Pleco route he should be added last so that any algae has had time to propagate?
 
With the BNs it would matter what type of algae you have since they wont eat everything...and to be quite honest you wont be able to sustain one anyways so plan on giving them prepared foods.

DIY CO2 on a 55g is going to be more pain than it is worth. They're really only good up to the 20-30 gallon range.
 
I read that rams do best with multiple females to one male? Otherwise the female could be "mated to death". I'm not sure as I don't have them (want them though, lol) but it seems to me you could have at least 3 rams in that footprint. Otherwise I think really nice choices!
 
I am also thinking of increasing the school of Corys. I'm thinking a large school of tetras, large school of corys and some GBRs would look nice.

Filter question... Should I be buying the filter media for the Penguin or should I be packing it myself? I've been reading that the carbon is really not necessary and am thinking that I can probably skip it for some of those ceramic bio ring things.
 
I use my 350 with mechanical media because the wheel has the bb on it. I do however buy the bonded blue filter media and cut my own using the old cartridge frame. If you don't use the old cartridge frame or equivalent the media will get pushed into the wheels causing them to stop rotating.
 
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