New South American Setup

[nterry]

Hi,

I am about ready to setup an Amazon tank and am looking from some advice. I have a 75 gallon tank--here are the future inhabitants: cardinal tetras (20-30), blue rams (two pairs), apistogrammas (2-3 pairs), cories (maybe a half dozen) and a few coolie loaches (asian fish, I think but too cool to be left out of the tank). I am also thinking of adding a second shoal of maybe a dozen lemon tetras, or maybe rummynose or glass catfish. I am using two whisper 60 filters.

Questions:
Do I need an air pump to aerate the water?

Right now I have standard aquarium gravel on the bottom--can anyone recommend a better substrate?

I will be using RO water. What is the best way to to treat the water to make it ready for the tank? My plan is to mix the RO water with some amount of tap water to get the proper pH. Weekly water changes will then involve removing tank water and replacing with some amount of RO water and some tap water. It's the best way I can think of to get stable pH. Is there a better way?

Should I use RO/DI water instead?

I also have a question about lighting. I'm only going to have plastic plants, but I would like lighting to highlight the cardinals. I'm thinking of a mix of a white light bulb (40W) and a 40 W blue/actinic bulb? Is there better lighting to highlight the color of the cardinals?

Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[CaitxSith]

Don't know about others but I'll try to answer what I know/heard of.

Aerating a tank can raise pH. Do it if you want though.

Peat might also be good substrate(naturally darken water, dark substrate, soften water...)

I heard driftwood or something like that can lower pH (not alot) and keep it like that... Or at least my driftwood is keeping my tank a constant 7.0.

The rest, I don't really know

 

[Marinemom]

It is not necessary to use an air pump to airate the water unless you just perfer the look of the bubbles. If your filters are the right size for your aquarium, then they will airate and aggitate the surface enough to oxygenate the water. I am not that familiar with the whisper series of filters so I cannot comment on those but if you want a good HOB filter for a tank that size, may I suggest the Aquaclear series. They are extremely efficient and very quiet. For the 75 I would recommend either the Aquaclear110 that is adequate for up to 100 gallons or two Aquaclear 70's that are suitale for just a little bit smaller tank. You might like the idea of two filters since if one filter goes down you still have the other one running on the tank. That way you do not have to worry that thier life support system has just gone down. (this ususlly happens in the middle of the night like 2:00 A.M.-Murphays's law).

As far as substrate goes, it really is a matter of preferance. Some poople like the look of sand but if you want a dark substrate you might want to consider something like eco-complete. This is a plant substrate that has a simuliar consistency of sand that is black in color. I really like it and have it in two of my aquariums. If you use this substrate and then decide later that you want live plants for this South American theme, you will already have the proper substrate in place for them.

Mixing RO water with tap water is fine if you want to go that route but really as long as your water paremeters are stable and that incudes PH, you should be fine with ordinary tap water and a water conditioner such as prime to remove clorine and cloramines.

As far aas the lighting is concerned, what you want to use is fine unless you want to get into live plants and then the lighting issues will have to be upgraded.

Hope this helps.

Marinemom