New 37 Gallon Aqaurium

L

LoSx

Registered Member
Jul 2, 2005
4
0
0
Ok this has the footing of a 29 gallon tank 30" x 12" and is really tall 22"

For the substrate I used 10LBs of flourite on the bottom and covered it with another 10 - 15 pounds of black gravel with small neon ones as well to give it a good look with the fish I have. (has a black background too)

Ok the bulb I have no cost me way too much $30 and its only 20 watts of output... its a triton bulb supposedly made for promoting freshwater plant growth and coral growth...It emites a white and blue type light it seems so that it gives a reactive effect almost on neon tetras and the color pieces in the gravel..looks strong in the 200 and 625 light bands... LFS recomended it... well they recommended a $230 unit first but that stood above the tank and had a ton of light output and as a poor college student it will be a nice future upgrade possibly..

Did I spend $30 on this bulb pointlessly?

Oh yeah I have a fluval 304 and airstone I turn on in the AM (I cant stand the noise at night)

Ok... now to the rest of the tank... im planing to have: (I apologize for spelling):

3 kuhli loaches
1 small alibino cory cat
3 otos
1 SAE
5 shrimp (depends on what I can find)
15 neon tetras
10 fancy guppies

I also want plants of course... (I have .5 wpg EEKS) Why did I listen to the LFS about the bulb instead of reading here first.... Im a little backwards I guess... but man this site has soo much information.. I love it!

With this limited ammount of light (temporary until I get a new one or build one) Could I support a light plant growth??
1 large amazon sword and maybe 10 or so other plants...

Im assuming CO2 is pointless being that I dont have much light so my plants wont photosynthesize much BUT I also heard some CO2 is better then none at all... If I did use any I would use the DIY 2L bottle to supply it.

Hmm my questions are scattered throughout so let me consolidate:
1) Do I have too many fish??
2) Is my little puny light completely useless?
3) Can I support a light load of plants?
4) Will I take care of my algaeproblems with the above fish?
5) Should I use CO2?
6) Any recomendations?
7) Do You need any additional information?

P.S. As of now I have most of the fish in the tank but will be adding the rest slowly... (3 or so a week)
 
LoSx said:
Ok this has the footing of a 29 gallon tank 30" x 12" and is really tall 22"

Hmm my questions are scattered throughout so let me consolidate:
1) Do I have too many fish??
2) Is my little puny light completely useless?
3) Can I support a light load of plants?
4) Will I take care of my algaeproblems with the above fish?
5) Should I use CO2?
6) Any recomendations?
7) Do You need any additional information?

P.S. As of now I have most of the fish in the tank but will be adding the rest slowly... (3 or so a week)
Click to expand...

1. You should be fine with that amount of fish.
2. .5 wpg is pretty low but some plants will live with it. Any chance you could DIY something into the hood to get it to 1 wpg anyway?
3. It's not about the load of plants. It's about the type. You can have as much of whatever will live with that light output. In terms of beating algae you want large quantities of plants - think "supersize that order".
4. Most people rely on having balanced water parameters and lots of plants to keep algae in check but critters can help. Your Siamese Algae Eater will help with this. Make sure it is the real McCoy. There is a lot of confusion ID'ing these. Do a google search and you'll find articles explaining the right way to ID them. I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure your loach will eat any shrimp you get but double check on this. If you can do shrimp then Amano's are the best foot soldiers in the algae war IME. The "barrreport.com" has a great article on low light (1-2wpg) plant tanks and how to care for them. I'm not sure whether you have to subscribe to get into the article but if you do it is a well spent 12 bucks.
5. No, any energy expended on CO2 would be better spent on saving for increased lighting.
6. Do a google search on low light aquarium plants and you'll come up with plants that'll even grow with the .5 wpg. Java moss and Java Fern are 2 that come to mind. I have a goldfish barrel outside that only gets 2 hrs of sunlight a day and I have Hornwort in it that grows like a monster and it's a prettier green than my aquarium Hornwort under 3wpg. Did I mention having lots of plants to beat the algae :joke:

Good luck, Bill
 
While the price tag gives me massive guilt felings, I still like the "look" of Tritons and use them on most of my display tanks. IMHO & IME, for equal wattage, Triton outgrows anything else on the market, but that difference is not great enough to justify the cost. To me, the "look" is.
 
I would add more than one of the albino cory catfish. THe cories are a schooling fish and do better in groups. I'd get about three of them. They will grow to about 2-3" though. I'm not sure about cories and kuhli loaches, but I do know that cories don't tend to do well with most loaches (but kuhlis may be an exception, they are not quite like other loaches). I'm also not sure I'd do the shrimp with the cories and/or loaches. once the cories get bigger, they might snack on the shrimp..

Java fern and Java moss are great low light plants. THey don't root in the ground, but will attach themselves to driftwood and other tank decorations, just tie them onto the decoration with string or fishline or use a hair net to hold the javamoss on, and they should root on in a month or so. Anubius is another low light plant that does the same thing. You could put it on some driftwood nearer to the light (i.e. raised up from the bottom of the tank) and then it would get some more light. Crypts tend also to do well in lower light, though I'm not sure about .5wpg. I've got some lutea and lucens (both types of crypts) in a 20g with 1wpg and they are doing great. (these guys do root into the ground, and I"ve got flourite for my substrate in that tank).

Emily

Emily
 
Well the triton does look good albeit way too much money!

The replies really help.. I actually went out and purchased some java fern some anubias (big ones look like sword plants sort of) and crypts which are all low light plants.

So Far I have 3 ottos and 2 dwarf pleckos (instead of the siamese algae eaters) I went to 3 fish stores and none had them unfortunately... one is suppose to be getting them in soon another pointed me at the wrong fish and the last one didnt have it altogether

For CO2 I will make a DIY system... im already thinking 6" PVC or so and two tanks interconnected with screw off tops which should be better then 2L bottles and im decent with PVC... I was goign to use normal PVC pipe glue to glue the pipes together but now im thinking maybe just using marine silicone is a better idea because I dont know what the PVC chemicals will do!

As for a DIY Light Im already looking into it... I was thinking about keeping my triton and the old bulb (also 20 watt) and going to Home Depot or Loews and picking up some MDF and a light holder... would get me to 40 watts... then maybe either 2 more bulbs for 80 watts or

would it be better to get a kit from http://www.ahsupply.com/

And do 1x55 and 2 20 watt bulbs OR 2x55 from them?

I really like the look of the triton bulb and hate to see it go soo soon after i bought it so im leaning more towards the cheap homedepot approach with 3 regular bulbs and the triton bulb for 80 watts total... 2wpg

Or I can go 2 20 watt bulbs and a 1x55 for 95 watts for 2.5wpg and possibly only keep the 1x55 on a portion of the day so as not to get insane growth...

Or go all out and get the 2x55 kit for ahsupply and have 110 watts or 3wpg.

Im not planning to have my tank swarming with plants but I would like rather tall plants because decorations only get soo high when yoru tank is 22" tall... the ferns and other smaller plants make the bottom look great but I need to get some light so I can get some plants up top...

Also I usually try to get species that stay small as I liek lots of small fish as opposed to a few large ones.

According to peopel I have spoken with and what I have read and LFS peopel kuhli loaches seem to be the exception to eating shrimp luckily... they have been ok for a little now but ill watch out just in case!
 
also my albinocories stay close to two inches max length it seems... a year and a half old nearly... maybe it was a short one of the bunch LoL...

I had 2 but one died for some misterous reason... No other fishes died within 2 months of that time before or after and all readings were clear....

Also this is my first tiem with live plants... ok well my re attempt at it... My first time I listened to a LFS which I dont frequent much anymore... I had a 20 watt or less lamp with amazon swords and a bunch of other plants which require 2 - 3+ wattspg and they didnt tell me anything about checking water or supplementing resources.... then again they also told me that with some liquid junk (I dont remember the name even) that I could do a water change of 75% every 6 months..... So yeah thats why I dont frequent them much anymore... also they tend to have disease spread around that place.
 
LoSx said:
As for a DIY Light Im already looking into it... I was thinking about keeping my triton and the old bulb (also 20 watt) and going to Home Depot or Loews and picking up some MDF and a light holder... would get me to 40 watts... then maybe either 2 more bulbs for 80 watts or
Click to expand...

If you can do basic wiring and construction, you can make a decent hood on the cheap. You can buy standard bulb holders (screw in type ~$2 each) and use compact fluorescents. I have some I got at walmart for about $4 each. They make some heat, so allow for ventilation.

If you have the dough, I say go with the AHSupply retro kits. I haven't used them but have heard only good things about them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom