Newbie with a few questions

[jimboNZ]

Hi all,

Somewhat new at this, I have had a 60L tropical tank for a while and now ive upgraded to a 260L Fluval Vicenza setup. Just had a few questions regarding tank maintenance:

How long should the lights of the tank be left on? I have some plants growing and this tank has a built in light timer which I want to setup but am not sure how long for.

I set it up yesterday and have had the heater running since mid afternoon yesterday but the temp this morning is at 23 (I have the heater at 26), is it normal for the heater to take this long to heat the tank up? or should I be looking for insulation?

Thanks in advance for any advice given

[ryanjury]

Hi and welcome good to see more locals

Lights are usually on for 10-12 hours a day but you may have to adjust that depending on how much algae grows etc (ie if you have algae troubles bump it back a bit..)

Even though you may have set your heater to 26 its likely that the thermostat isn't accurate sometimes you have to set a completely random number to get your tank to 26..

How many watt's is the heater? It is possible that the heater isn't big enough as it has been cold overnight.. Has the heaters light stayed on the whole time or flicked on and off?

[jimboNZ]

Hey thanks for the reply,

The heater is a 200W Jager Heater. From what I can tell it has been on the entire time since I pluged it in yesterday but then again I wasn't up all night watching it so I can't tell what happened during the night, I'll check again what the temp is when I get home from Uni

[ryanjury]

A 200W jager heater should be able to heat that tank they're good heaters..

[jimboNZ]

Yea thats what I thought, maybe ill just give it some more time. Ideas for insulation? Im going to get some polystyrene for the sides and then at night (when its winter) would it be advisable to put a blanket or something over the tank?

[whetu]

Yea thats what I thought, maybe ill just give it some more time. Ideas for insulation? Im going to get some polystyrene for the sides and then at night (when its winter) would it be advisable to put a blanket or something over the tank?

I always think insulation is a good idea - there's no point in heating the whole world while you're heating your tank!

Personally I find polystyrene a bit of a pest to use on the outside of the tank. Sometimes bits flake off and end up floating in the tank, and also the poly is quite thick so some of my hoses etc don't hang on the tank properly if I have poly on the back.

I prefer to use something like plastic bubble wrap or corrugated cardboard. You could even use one of those cheap hypothermia blankets that look like tinfoil. (I haven't tried that myself, but you can buy them for less than $5 so they might be worth a try!)

Wrapping the tank in a blanket would certainly be effective if you can be bothered doing it! Again, I wouldn't do it personally because my lights sit on top of the tank and they might overheat if I covered them with a blanket and forgot to remove it in the morning.

I'm not familiar with your setup, so if you have a wooden hood over your tank it might not be so much of a problem.

Try insulating the outside of your tank with polystyrene or whatever, keep an eye on it and see if you need to take any further action. Some fish are more sensitive to temp fluctuations than others, so your individual situation will determine whether you need to do anything more.

[jimboNZ]

Thanks for the advice.

Ill try polystyrene first as I have some left over from the packaging the tank came in.

With the blanket I was thinking of throwing one over the tank before I go to bed at night i.e. when the lights are off and then taking it off in the morning. Ill set the lights to come on at 1-2pm and turn off at about 10pm.

Anyway, ill try your suggestions and see how I go, I just want to put some fish in there as its looking a little bare

[ryanjury]

What are you thinking of stocking the tank with?

[tHEcONCH]

Hi Jimbo - welcome to the forums. Your tank uses T8 lighting, so you could quite safely turn your lights on at 8am and off again at 9pm. That will give you good plant growth (assuming you have live plants in there)which will consume excess nutrients, which lessens the chances of problem algae becoming established (but being a new tank you will inevitably have to go through the brown algae cycle after a week or two - don't panic, it'll go away).

As far as temperature goes don't be too concerned by small fluctuations (+/- 2 degrees) so long as they are not sudden. Unless you house gets very cold (as in you can see your breath) your heater will be fine. Jaegers can be calibrated - if your themometer consistently reads a different temperature, then follow the instructions, pop the little knob up, spin the dial until it reads what your thermometer does, and push the little knob back down.

Have fun

[jimboNZ]

My 60L has neons, harlequins, corys, a bristlenose and a few guppies in it so id start out by transfering them slowly into it and then add some more community groups (more harlequins, :heart Harlequins:) and some bigger fish like a male betta, maybe a couple of blue rams, not too sure yet though, thats a long way off.

[jimboNZ]

Hi Jimbo - welcome to the forums. Your tank uses T8 lighting, so you could quite safely turn your lights on at 8am and off again at 9pm. That will give you good plant growth (assuming you have live plants in there)which will consume excess nutrients, which lessens the chances of problem algae becoming established (but being a new tank you will inevitably have to go through the brown algae cycle after a week or two - don't panic, it'll go away).

As far as temperature goes don't be too concerned by small fluctuations (+/- 2 degrees) so long as they are not sudden. Unless you house gets very cold (as in you can see your breath) your heater will be fine. Jaegers can be calibrated - if your themometer consistently reads a different temperature, then follow the instructions, pop the little knob up, spin the dial until it reads what your thermometer does, and push the little knob back down.

Have fun

Cool thanks for the advice, the house does get quite cold sometimes (only at night though, during the day we get glorious sunshine into the lounge which warms it up a bit) but ill see how things go first, ill be heading home soon and see what the temp is like and then go from there

[jimboNZ]

Just being doing some googling and the sites ive seen all say that the lighting is T5 not T8, can someone please explain the difference?

[tHEcONCH]

Whoops, my typo - but although stronger, T5 lighting is still fine for that length of time - I actually use 4 x 54Watt T5s on one freshwater tank 14 hours a day with good results.

The 'T' number refers to the fitting size - T8s are bigger than T5, but T5 is more efficient and produces more light per length of tube than T8 despite being smaller - they are also more expensive.

[jimboNZ]

To save me googling do you happen to know the wattage on the T5 lights?

[Navarre]

Another thing you can use to insulate your tank is some of that closed cell foam that sleeping/camping mats are made of. you can get it in diff thickness, it doesnt flake and is easy to cut and stick to your tank.

Lights are tricky different times etc work for differnt tanks it really depends what you have in the tank. Maybe start with about 10 hours and go from there. The thing is that tanks will SLOWLY respond to changes so patience is a virtue.

Maybe a pic of your tank would help?

Also stock fish slowly to start with. Plant growth depends or Light and nutrients. Fish provide (in general) the nutirents so once again stocking levels do impact plant and algae growth.

HTH

Navarre

[tHEcONCH]

To save me googling do you happen to know the wattage on the T5 lights?

They are most likely 39Watts each

[jimboNZ]

oooooooooooooo I thought of another question :lol:

Do I need to put a air pump with the tank? The filter circulates the water a bit and I would think that the plants provide a lot of O2 for the tank, do I need an airstone or something?

[Navarre]

It depends on teh look you are going for

Some people like them others dont.

Generaly in a plant tank you dont have an airstone as that disturbs the water a lot degassing it.

Plants generally do well in a tank with slower water movement and then the plants can use the gases in teh water rather than a filter removing them.

But it depends on teh type of tank and plants you have.

In my discus plant tank I have abig filter.

In my guppy tank with plants I dont have any filter at all.

HTH

Navarre

[tHEcONCH]

Generally no - but it all depends upon how heavily the tank is planted and whether there are any dead (calm) spots in there. So long as there is reasonable water movement at/along the surface, the O2 levels will be fine. Its a popular misconception that air pumps add oxygen to the water; they don't, but they create water movement (draw it up from the bottom) which results in gas exchange (CO2 out, O2 in). You can get even better gas exchange using submersible pumps, but they are comparitively expensive. If you tank has a spray bar, orient the holes to 'blow' water along the surface and it should be fine.

[jimboNZ]

Just got home and the temp is just below 25 so it is still going up which is good.

[jimboNZ]

After talking to the LFS I have pumped up the temp on the heater to 28 and will see how temperature changes from there, I can already see an improvement, in the past 30mins since ive changed it the temp has already gone up another degree

[jimboNZ]

For those who are interested, here is my new setup:

Put my harlequin group in there along with a couple of corys and they seem to be loving it, temp this morning was at about 26.5, and the heater is set to 28 so thats all good.

Oh, and just for cuteness factor:

[tHEcONCH]

[Caper]

Love your tank setup, really nice looking.

The cuteness factor...absolutely adorable

Have you had them both since they were small is that why they are such good buddies?

Caper

[jimboNZ]

Love your tank setup, really nice looking.

The cuteness factor...absolutely adorable

Have you had them both since they were small is that why they are such good buddies?

Caper

No not at all, the cat is about 3 1/2 years old and the rabbit is only about 8 months or so. They basically just got used to one another over time (probably helps that the rabbit is about the same size as the cat).