New Set Up

[tango]

Hi,

I am about to set up a tank and would be greatful of any tips u could give me. The tank is 48"x12"x15" I have an aqua pro 3 external filter 2l ehfemech,and 4l ehfesubstrat. One 300watt heater. I have one 30 watt gro lux tube. I do intend building a new hood with plenty of refelctors.
I have bought some ceramic half log caves and a ceramic root. To begin with i intend to use some plastic plants with a mix of some real ones, will discard the plastic when (if) the real ones take hold.
My tap water tests shows PH 7.2 GH 120 ppm KH 70 ppm

I would like to keep appistogramma cactuoides 1m 3f and a pair of bolivian rams. Would this be ok ?

I intended starting the fishless cycle of this tank tonight had all the playsand washed and ready to go in, then done a bit of reading on the forums and decided to go with pool filter sand , so will be starting next weekend.

Any tips on plants for my conditions would be much appreciated.

 

[Apistt_ed]

I'm not a plant guy so I won't be able to give you the scientific names of the actual plants, but the ones that i keep that do well in low to medium lighting are java ferns, red wendt plants, java moss that i tie onto bogwood until it grabs hold of it, and banana plants. I also have low patches of aqua grasses. All of these work well with the light only coming from the windows most of the time. sorry i can't help you out more... but you should be fine if you choose some of these. cheers and best wishes john

 

[Marc]

Any tips on plants for my conditions would be much appreciated.

Hi Tango,

i've found an very good page about plants in Danmark... jepp, i know it is a long distance, but here You can find a lot of informations. One of the best plant-catalogues i've ever seen. Take a walk here:
http://www.tropica.com/plant_print.asp

with a click at the plants there opens a new window with a lot of information about the individual plant, like light-reqirements, height, width, temparature, hardness tolerance, pH tolerance and so on.

Hope that helps, and please excuse me, my active knowledge in english ain't so good... (i should make this to my signature :wink: )

Greetings
Marc

p.s.: You can choose the language at the start-page. :biggrin:

 

[aspen]

hi marc, with the lighting you've got for now, there aren't a lot of plants that will grow. when you upgrade the hood you'll have a lot more choices. maybe wait till then for the real plants? there are some nice fake plants out there, btw.

a 300 watt heater for a 40 gal tank is over-kill, maybe a 150 would be a better choice. also, ensure that you can turn the flow down on your filter with a valve kit.

rick

 

[tango]

Hi,
and thanks for yer views
Cheers Tango