First Post, couple of questions (For now)

H

husky_1

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Jun 2, 2007
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Hey Everyone,
So I am new to planted tanks. In the past I have had fish only tanks, but have not had FW tank in about 5 years. Currently I have a reef tank, and love it, but now my wife is bringing home her FW tank from school, so I decided that I will make this a planted tank.

Currently she has a 10g tank, I will be buying a stand for it today, unless I find a bigger tank :). I will probably work on a hood with some t5 lights in the near future. Right now the 10g has one of those cheapy little hoods that have 2 light bulbs to plug in. If we end up buying a 29g today, I have a spare 36" 96watt pc I can use (It will hang over, but thats ok for now).

My questions are :
1. When I had my fish only freshwater in the past I used an underground filter. Should I use this with a substrate like Eco-complete? Or skip it all together.

2. RODI Water. I have an RODI unit that I use to top-off water in my reef tank. I did try to search for an answer but never saw any good arguments on this. Should I use RODI, RO, or tap water with Amquel +? If I use RODI, or RO what would i dose to get nutrients back inline? I have read adding a little Salt mix is good. Having the reefer mentality, I would rather control what goes in my tank by adding stuff, than having unknown contaminates added to the system.

3. Sumps and FW. I drilled my 38g fw tank so that I could have a non-siphon overflow. Is it common or recommended for sumps in FW. I love the idea of hiding stuff in the sump. Any good suggestions on FW sump designs. Chances are I wont do a sump unless I go with a 29g, then my sump will be the 10g.


Thanks in advanced, and here is a pic of my young 38g tank.

tankwithls2.jpg
 
1. I take it you are using eco-complete as you intend to heavily plant. in that case the normal recommendation would not be an undergravel filter...however i personally like them, but i see you are considering a sump anyway
2. normally tap water with a dechlorinator is used, some will use maybe 10% RO water when water quality is epsecially important such as Discus breeding, but most would say it is unnecessary unless your tap water is especially bad
3. sumps, go for it if you can!!! I use 2 external cannisters on my 100l which is good, but probably doesn't beat a sump!
 
If you are going to a heavy planted tank, I would stay away from a UGF. If you are haveing an average amount like me, I use RUGF and pretty much have the plants containerized and hidden by substrate.

Unless you have extremely bad tap water, skip the RO/RODI. There are minerals you need in the tap water to keep it running smoothly and provide proper buffers, with out resorting to all kinds of additives.

Not a lot of sumps in the FW world, unless on the larger tanks by the more experienced folks.
 
1 i would go with something like Eco-complete and a small canister filter
2 tap water is fine
3 you could use a sump nothing wrong with a sump but before you do you might want to ask your self how high tech do you want your planted tank? if your going to put a lot of light over it you will prob need co2 and ferts. sumps gas off a lot of co2. 96w of light over a 29 gal is a lot. you should start out with a lot of plants and might have algae problems without the co2 and ferts.

http://www.rexgrigg.com/index.html you might want to read that site. has a lot of good info all in one place.
 
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