Lighting options for 45 breeder

[ianmoede]

Hey guys, first post here, im generally a cichlid guy but i got sucked into planted tanks by my roomate. ANyway, i have a south american biotope aquarium and wanted to try and turn it into a heavily planted tank. First off let me list the species i have in there currently and get opinions about whether they should stay or go.

2 Large angels
10 Bleeding Heart tetras
5 Lemon Tetras
6 skunk cories
2 monster 7" comet goldfish (refugees from my pond that is getting redone they will definately be out before the plants come in.)
1 Large plain pleco

2nd question lighting I plan on building a custom hood.
Currently i have one wussy *** 36" (30 w) 6500k flourescent on there that im gonna take off and wire into the new hood im building.

I was thinking about going with a 1x96w 36"PC fixture, and i kinda like
the 50/50 bulb. Would the old 30w + the new 96 watt light be sufficient? Would you change the color temp any?

3rd With the bioload in there, should i do C02 injection? If so, i plan on building a sump so i can do the c02 reaction in there, as well as a heater and some bio filtration and topoff/dosing.

Thanks so much!

 

[Timmain42]

Hey guys, first post here...

Hokay... I'll take a stab at it. Don't take this as gospel, now...

1) Welcome to AC and the slight insanity that is... LIVE PLANTS. You're going to hear a lot of weird stuff. Get used to it.

2) The comets and the large pleco need to go. Comets get HUGE and are exceedingly nasty (as you no doubt already know). Plecos are great, but they like to eat plants, for the most part. There are a couple of species that handle plants well, but large plain ones most likely will eat off your crops.

3) The 96W should be ample lighting for a 45G. Stick with low-light and easy-care plants for your first tank (yes, you WILL have more if you stick with LIVE PLANTS), and hang onto that 30W fixture for that 10-15G plant tank you'll be seting up in about 4 months.

4) IME, you will regret using a 50/50 bulb. Blue looks nice, but actinics are made for SW tanks, and every single FW tank I've seen with an actinic bulb has had some weird algae problem. EVERY SINGLE ONE. If you like the blue coloration, use 6500-10000k bulbs.

5) That is kind of a med-heavy bioload. CO2 benefits all plants, but will lower your pH on a regular basis. Unless you are heart-set on growing high-light plants, you could likely NOT use CO2 and get away with it. My two best tanks have less than 2 watts per gallon, no CO2 and minimal fertilizer. Those two tanks hold only ferns, anubias and crypts tho.

6) Having a sump is a mixed blessing. It increases your biofilter greatly, but tends to add "surface" ripple, decreasing the amount of CO2 in the water. If you're going to do a sump, spend some time with the overflow to make it as un-"waterfall"ish as possible. Also check your return to ensure as little actual surface ripple as you can.

Hope that helps.

 

[ianmoede]

Nother question popped to mind. I have about 1/4" of substrate in there already, its a medium sized gravel. I was planning on adding about 10 pounds of Seachem Flourite Red I have leftover from a project. What is the disred depth and what brands of gravel are people having success with? The comet and pleco are going I also think that im gonna go ahead and wire up a 96 watt with the pre-existing 30 watt, perhaps ill do somekind of cool dawn/ dusk type of lite with the 30 watt, an actinic maybe.

 

[Timmain42]

2-3" is a good depth, maybe a tad less in a small tank like yours. Flourite is great, but I haven't tried the Red version yet.

Dawn/dusk setups are neat. I have one running on my big tank, and the cats love it.