evilknieval69

Yea i wana see pics of what it looks like ATM. that possible chim?

Ohk, finnaly got some pics but they arent any good... Blurry pic without flash... Pic with flash Tank is only a 30L tank, downgraded from my 60L the other night. No corals or fish as of yet, but will be buying corals anytime now. Tank has been setup for a few months now, just sitting cycling. The plan is to have only corals (mushrooms, zoas, maybe a leather and whatever else soft coral will work in the tank), no fish, but may put a fish in later on. The reason for having no fish is so i dont have to feed it, creating waste. Rogan

Nice looking tanks peoples!! I will get some pics of my tank and post them once the batterys have charged!!

Hi mark, good thought about the questions there... I moved my marine tank into a 30L tank last night and will take some pics this afternoon.... I dont have any fish or corals as of yet, but am looking for corals now. Got any pics of your setup?

Haha, its not just that easy mate. You would've heard the ol' saying, 'good things take time' That saying is soooo true in a planted aquarium. The growth rate of the plants depends on the lighting, the carbon and the ferts (macros and micros) For a tank with FAST growth, you will need alot of lighting, alot of co2 and to have the perfect fert doses. All of these things are very hard to get right, and take alot of time. Dont just expect to put plants in a tank with a light, and expect them to grow, FAST..... My advice is to do ALOT of reading on planted tanks on these forums, on other forums and from articles, and decide the way you want to do it. I wrote a little bit about planted tanks here .Have a read of that, then read more and then once you think you have read enough, read even more. Then come back to here and ask specialised questions of things you need to know.... ALOT of people on these forums are more than happy to send you plants cheap/free. Alot of the plants in my planted tank have come from people here. All you have to do, is return the favour to beginners, once you have your tank sorted, which i have done a little bit lately 8) :lol: HTH Rogan

I hate you Nah but realy, how did you do it, i would realy like to know. The mist makes it look spooky lol. Not a bad little setup, but not REALY my piece of cake... lol Rogan

Brine shrimp and micro worms are both the perfect food for them. A little bit of crushed up flake would be good too. Well done

How do u do the mist?

Oh sweet, i shall do that then Ohk so this is the plan. Im going to move all of the LR and the coral sand i have to the 30L tank, then put 30L's of water from the 60L into it. Then just use the 1200LPH powerhead for water movement, the heater and the HOB filter. No skimmer or anything (no room for skimmer pump anyways probably) I will then just put soft corals in there. May put a clown or a firefish or a goby of some sort in there in the future but not for a while... ALSO, Would i be able to keep a pin cushion leather in the tank? I have had a bit of a search on the net about them but havent found much. There is a guy on these forums who is going to frag one and is local to me and i may be able to buy one off him...

Ok, i have another idea!! :lol: Is it possible to keep a tank with no fish, only corals?? I am still realy thinking of moving over to the 30L setup, and just having corals, no fish, but possibly 1 fish in the future?? Is this possible or do the corals need the fish waste etc in the tank?? Thanks

Hi. I would be interested in purchasing a frag of this coral as long as it is suitable for my setup. I will do more research on it but keep us posted on how you do. I dont have any corals in my tank yet and am going to buy some soon. Good luck

Whoa, so where would i source the parts needed to setup a t5 unit over my tank? 54W is alot more than 36 isnt it....

I have corys in my tank and they keep the top layer of sand turning over, keeping it from going 'off'. I reccomend keeping at least a few, as they clean up all the little bits of crap on the bottom aswell... Mine have never uprooted any plants so i think they will be sweet... Kelvin ratings for a planted tank should be around 6500K but plants look better and more natural with 8000K i believe. 14000K will look very blue and wont look good at all, those bulbs are more suited for marine tanks... i doubt that plants would even grow under that light...? I personaly wouldnt mix some peat into it as it will drop your ph/kh and may cause problems, but a little bit underneath the substrate may not be too bad..?? Yea go with sodastream. I dont see how a 'plug in generator' can make co2, its not possible surely!! Those things are absolute lies!!! :lol:

Rocks as in the substrate etc? If thats what you mean then it would be best to do it everytime you do a water change, but possibly every second time or something...

Things like that are bulls**t. Dont even touch the things, waste of money and time man. Just get a sodastream unit or go all out and buy a 'proper' unit...

LOL!! Haha it does too, different angles and lighting i guess...

Oh right sweet as. So they are algae grazers?? I need some of them in my tank!!! lol I see what you mean bout the coraline....

why would you want it to eat the coraline?? Coraline looks coolm bare tank glass looks yucky... Lol

Yea t5's are another thought, but for the expense over normal t8's and the extra wattage, I think its probably just best to go with 4-5 tubes. The tank being only 1000 long means that you will need to use 3 foot tubes im guessing, therefore they will only be about 25-30 watts each. the 4 foot tubes are 36 W which is good. Being such a wide tank (500mm) i reckon you could put 5-6 900mm T8 tubes accross it, which would give you some AWESOME light. I reckon for this certain tank, tubes would be the way to go, over MH, unless like ant said, you have 2 70W halides... Tubes are cheap as chips too, my 4 foot tubes, 6500 Kelvin, cost $7 each, so they can be replaced often and still hardly cost anything... Whereas a 150W MH bulb will be $80-$100 every year or so, as long as you can find the things!!! Heres a fewq quick pics. The stargrass, rotala macranda, rotala walichii etc in the back left corner looks like crap because the tank just go over a HUGE green water phase, so i couldnt see them to trim them back to stop the bottoms from dieing off.... This is the tank overall from an angle with the flash This is the tank right with the flash This is my regulator on the sodastream bottle. you can see the needle valve on the airline... The tank has heaps of filling in to do yet. The hairgrass needs to sort itself out, the tennelus needs to spread more. Ther stargrass etc needs to grow back (i gave it a huge trim (thats what is floating at the top) so i can send it away on saturday to jude) The tiger lotus has produced 4 babys already, 2 off which are still in the tank (the two i am sending to timtam22 on saturday) the other two have been given away. The left hand side is very cluttered, so i will be removing alot of the plants from there sometime in the future, so if you have your tank going by then, i could send you some if you like.... Hope these pics give you some ideas....

Yea i agree with ira. I would put it on the front pane of glass, but never the back...

Hi A 'proper' co2 system would be a bigger bottle, a regulator with gauges so you know pressures of the bottle and the co2 going out, a solenoid to turn the co2 off at night times, a needle valve and a good diffuser. This IMO is a 'proper' co2 system. As for ferts, you should probably join up at aqautic plant central And have a read there, about the EI dosing method. In short it is the estimative index dosing method, you dose a certain amount each week, then do a 50% water change. If you read lots, you will eventualy figure different things out, and will in the future be able to make your own/use PMDD (poor mans dupla drops) As for fish, In my 250L planted tank i have: 2 angels (soon to be gone) 2 big Bristlenose and about 40 smaller BN ranging from 1cm to 4cm 3 Bronze corys (although i would like more) 5 pygmy corys (never see them) 3 Harlequins (probly will get rid of them soon aswell) 5 golden pencil fish 2 Keyhole cichlids (male and female) and 2 kribensis (m and f) This is quite a good stocking level, though i am thinking of getting rid of some and keep less kinds but more of each kind as i think its better. I would like to have: 10 golden pencils 10-15 cardinals A few BN 5 or so otocinclus 10 of one kind of cory (bronze or sterbai or something) 2-4 Keyholes The keyholes being the feature fish (i love my keyholes ) As for substrates. I have an aquatic mix layer of about 1-3 cm in differnt places, then a layer of sand around 1-2 cm thick. I have it scaped so that there is a thick place at the back corner for heavy rooted plants, then normal in the middle, then a thin layer in one of the front corners, with prety much no aquatic mix, which is just empty ATM but the tennelus os starting to spread into it and fill in.... I will give you a list of what i have in my tank, and may get some pics later if the camera is here... I have: Hairgrass (a lawn at the front middle) Tennelus (trying to get a lawn at the front sides) Tiger lotus (feature plant right in the middle of the tank) About 4 differnt kinds of crypt (throughout the tank, one in the back corner, some toward the middle/front etc) A large marbled sword (feature plant to the side) A small rose sword in front of the Amazon (growing up) A small leapord sword Stargrass, rotala macranda, another type of rotala from caryl and rotala walichii (all together across the back/side of the tank as the backdrop) A couple tiger lotus bulbs i got given recently that im hoping are red lotus, but will find out soon once the leaves open out... Twisted val (a little bit just in behind the lotus as a back drop) a couple small amazon swords And a bit of anubius thats all i can remember off the top of my head but no doubt i have missed something. There are quite a few swords in the tank, but most are only small ATM, Im only going to keep two max in there once they get bigger, and the others can go into my geo tank (probably the amazons) and anything else i will just give away or something... And back to the metal halides, i didnt quite explain myself much. I was going to use the 150W halide, but because my tank is 1200 long, the light only covered part of it, making the ends alot darker, so i needed to keep my double tuber on it anyways. The double tuber takes up half the top of the tank though (tank is only 400 wide) So the halide wouldnt of covered alot of the tank. I realised that having the halide wasnt going to be very economical, and with just another double tuber, i can get the same wattage of light anyways... Since your tank is only 1000 long, i reckon you could just squeeze a 150W halide on there. Antwan has a 900 long tank with a 150W halide and its is awesome. I personally wouldnt go with the 250W unless you are going to have a co2 bubble rate of at least 1-2 bubbles per second (meaning that a normal sodastream bottle will run out in 1-2 weeks....) Man im blabbering on arent i!!! HTH Rogan

ohk thanks quack, im going to remove it when i have time. Thanks everyone else aswell

Hi Your tank is the same litreage as my planted tank. I have a 1200lph canister filter on it which is good, i would reccomend one of them. Co2, i would reccomend getting a proper pressurized system, as it is WAY better, but money is the problem... I have a sodastream setup on my tank now, but would love a god setup in the future. You need to buy the regulator from 'toolsonline' on trademe for $75.90 or something around that, then you need the bottle. I reccomend getting the big sodastream bottle from somewhere as they last much longer. Then you need a needle valve which can be found at hobby stores or similiar i think. Then you need a diffuser/reactor. I use the diffuser out of a nutrafin co2 kit on my tank because i had the nutrafin going before i went sodastream.. 250 MH would be awesome on that tank, BUT, IMO you will need a high co2 rate so the algae doesnt outgrow the plants, so the sodastream bottles wont last you very long. I only have a 76W double tuber on my tank ATM and i am getting pretty awesome growth, I am going to get another double tuber soon though. I originally was gunna use a 150W MH, but because i couldnt find any suitable bulbs, and the spread of the light meant i needed a double tuber on it anyways, i decided to not use it after all. If you could get a 150W halide over that tank it would be pretty good i would imagine... I dont use undertank heating, but it does keep the soil from getting anaerobic. If you dont use it (which is the easier way and most cost effective) all you need to do is 'fork' the sand every now and again the turn it over. The areas around plants will be fine though because the roots move it around a bit, therefore meaning that if the whole tank is covered with plants, it will be sweeet as. This is what im trying to get too ATM Mighta missed something but i gotta go to work, will check in later Rogan

Yea i agree with wok, externals wont be any cheaper than a sump, expecialy since you already have the 3 and 4 foot tanks that you could use, and sumps can handle a bigger boiload... They are pretty simple to setup and use once you get it going... Surunimensis!!! They are my favourite geo, and i would realy like some, but i got a GOOD deal on brasiliensis so got them instead