getting starting

phishtail

AC Members
Feb 2, 2007
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hi everyone, my wife & i want to start our 75gal with live plants & fish. afew questions come to mind. substrate?,cycling?,filtration? :help: thanks
 
well read this for cycling
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598

i have used sand and gravel for substrate in my planted tank. both from home depot. for the filters go with canisters. i would look into the rena xp3 magnum 350 fluval 405 (never liked my fluval though) also Eheim.

any other ones?
 
Good morning!
Thanks for the advice about the sand. If I use sand in a freshwater tank when I go to clean with the vacuum won't the sand get sucked up?
also am familiar with cycling (learned the hard way with our other two tanks.) Found this sight - rexgrigg.com- that said filling it with fast growing stem plants one could *** med. to large fish load never see amm spikes,?really?are there other issues about this we should be aware of? Thanks
 
Personally I think Mgammer bought a lemon of a 404. It happens. I haven't had any issues with my 404, but if I were to buy a cannister today I would buy the rena xp-3 simply because it currently costs less than a new 405. I also like to keep an extra HOB filter around as a back up and also should I have to medicate the aquarium I find a HOB filter an easier way to work carbon in afterwards.

As for a sand substrate I personally found mine hard to keep clean so I'm pretty much sticking so small gravel nowadays. I know some people love using sand and I definatly like the look, but its just not for me.

Even on a planted aquarium I wouldn't go fully stocked right from the start. When I first started back into the aquarium world I actually worked in small batches of 4-5 fish spread out at about 3 month intervals. Well 3 months for the second batch and then every 2 months after that. I have heard from a couple of people that they were able to fully stock an aquarium with plants right from the start. These people however had a fully planted aquarium and were veterans with planted aquariums. I still feel it is best overall to work in batches.

One consideration I don't see here yet is whether or not your going to be using compressed c02 injections or are you looking for a low light low tech type aquarium?
 
hi everyone,thanks for the input. we got our 404 witha complete 55gal. setup we bought used for a 100 bucks. broke the aquastop trying to get it apart(fiddling with it). contacted hagen about parts,we'll see. still a little confused about the gravel. maybe i'm as dumb as a box of rocks?lol. Hound, how small, like the kind from the lfs? don't the plants root in this stuff? do they use the waste that settles at the bottom at all? now i'm wondering if vacuuming would hurt them? confused. sorry for the dumb questions, but we want to start this tank out right. thanks for all your help everyone
 
as far as the lights and CO2 goes, probably. i'm going to build my own canopy & stand. i was tinking of compact flour. any thoughts? according to rex(thanks,rex,i saved that), i need at LEAST 2 wpg. 2.5wpg leads me to CO2. how full blown do we need to get? (read $$$$) aso i heard there are spraybars for can. filters. do i need them? thanks
 
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