Hi All - Newbie to the forums and aquariums need some startup advice

[summit]

Hi guys and girls, so I bought a 8 gallon bowfront all glass tank, its a petcetera premium brand with the filters built into the hood of the tank, similar to that of the marineland eclipse systems.

I do not have anything set up at the moment, I want to take it nice and slow thinking about what kind of tank I want to show, and what I need to accomplish that. So far I am leaning towards a simple tank with some live plants, a few fish some some inverts, after some research of my own, I have become confused by the mass amounts of conflicting information out there, so I was hoping some experts might point me in the right direction.

So my first question is regarding the live plants, from what I have learned so far, live plants will grow in any kind of substrate (the kinda that are planted in substrate), but sand is not ideal. I really like the look of black sand to show the colors of the fish, and I like the sand look better than gravol, if I went this direction would I be asking for troubles being new to keeping live plants? Are there some beginner live plants that do well in sand that can be recommended? I believe they would also be lowlight plants since my lighting is only a single fluorecent bulb built into the hood.

my next one is on stocking the tank, I would like a blue lobster eventually, but the smallest I could find was for a 20 gallon tank, is there any that may fit my size, or am I out of luck? Would this be about all I could stock in a 8 gallon if I could find one, or how much of the inch per gallon rule would it take up? For stocking options I was thinking of dwarf gouramis (2) some neons (2-3) some sort of algae eater (open to recommendations, I have yet to find one suitable for a tank my size) and 3-4 inverts of some kind, this is all depending of course whether a blue lobster would be addable, and would be changed to accomidate this. So is there any conflicting fish in there? I was told they were all "community" fish, would this be overstocking at all?

one last question I had was this aquarium did not come with a heater, is it small enough that one may not be necessary?

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

For one, you should get a small heater, a 25watt one would be fine.

The stocking looks fine, a good algae eater would be to get 2 Otocinclus Catfish a.k.a. otto. They are small and stay small. Only get these if your going to get plants. For some inverts, I suggest 3-4 dwarf shrimp. Cherrys, snowball, yellow, tiger, and blue pearl types would look great in your tank with black sand. Hopefully your lfs will have some of these, if not you could always buy some cherrys off somone on the forum for a dollar a peice and shipping is usually 10 dollars.

The black sand will be fine, I actually use sand from my local river and it works great for all my plants. Some good low-light beginner plants are java moss, java fern, hornwort, most types of crypts, and anubias. There are a lot more if you want me to list them all.


Don't get an electric blue lobster unless you plan on getting a bigger tank, they get pretty big.

If you got any more questions ask away.

 

[summit]

thanks for the advice, I think my questions have been answered for now, I am sure some more will pop up as I move from the planning stages, to putting it into action!

Thanks again

 

[Jnam]

another sand like plant substrate would be eco complete its black and great for plants and does not have that gravel look... I agree with Ben the lobster is probably out they get quite large. All in all I think i would directly quote everything Ben told you...

 

[jsoong]

Actually, sand is fine for most plants. If you have heavy root feeders, you might need to add a fertilizer tab from time to time, but in a low light setup, even that is prob. not necessary.

The only thing you need to do with fine sand substrate is to remember to stir it up occasionally to prevent anaerobic pockets & toxic gas build up. you can omit that if you have lots of plants (the roots aerate the sand), or you can have some Malaysian Trumpet snails to do the stirring for you.

Depending on the light that is included, you might be Ok with more demanding plants. If yours is like my Eclipse clone, there will be a Power Compact bulb with a self-contained ballast. Mine don't have standard screw in base so I have to buy the bulbs from the lfs. However, they have bulbs as high as 25W. So you do have the choice of upgrading the light. If yours has the standard screw in base, you can just go to your hardware store & get the biggest Daylight CF bulb that will fit. You might be able to get 25 or 35 W of light into that hood.

 

[rionne]

Planted Aquariums

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and I was stumbling around the forum looking for some new fish tips and happened to open the aquarium plants section. I found most of your comments very familiar because I have had similar experiences with my aquarium plant challenges. Getting plants to grow well and positively impact my aquariums was my biggest challenge until I a friend of mine suggested I read this book called "Ecology of a Planted Aquarium". This book really shows you how to manage plants in an aquarium and how plants can impact every part of aquarium chemistry.

If you have a chance check out this book here.

 

[summit]

so how deep does the substrate need to be? Does is vary from sand to gravel? What is the general rule since its bought in lbs? I was thinking 8 lbs for an 8 gallon bow front tank.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

general rule is 1 lbs per gallon. But I sometimes get it deeper in planted tanks to make sure the roots have plenty of room underneath, I make it not as much when I have a non planted tank (no point of wasting good sand.

 

[summit]

So I ended up buying seachem fluorite black for my substrate, it came in 3 sizes, sand, small gravel, and larger gravel, I opted for the small gravel look, so far I am liking the look it gives. I put the entire 7KG bag in my 8 gallon tank, so it gives it a nice base, around 2.5" at the front, 3.5" at the rear, nice and deep for future plant root growth. I did not rinse it, from reading the bag instructions it said you can, but is not necessary, but wow did the tank ever cloud up when I added the water. Once I added the water, I treated it with seachem prime, and switched on the pump to let the filters try to clear up the cloudiness, as of this morning, the tank was still very cloudy, this is currently where I sit.
-will the cloudiness clear up eventually? should I not be running the filter?
-was this a good substrate choice for planted tanks? Does it restrict you with any kind of invertabrites? I figured it was the best happy medium.

After the cloudiness clears up, I wanted to start the cycle, this is where a few of my other questions come in.

-I could not find pure ammonia at the shop like what was specified in the fishless cycling sticky, so I picked up some aquarium pharmaceuticals stress zyme with live bacteria, it has directions on the bottle for a fishless cycle, where you add amounts on the first, 7th, and 14th day, and monitor and test it similar to what was outlined in the fishless cycling sticky, is this the same thing?

-I had 2 master test kits to choose from, tetra laborett test kit, which came with everything, including some saltwater testing, and a red sea fresh/plant kit which came with 2 tests for PH (low values and high values) Nitrites, and Ammonia. I chose the red sea test kit, the other one looked cheap, was this a good choice? I have heard of some test kits are pretty useless, and want to be sure to start on the right foot. I guess I will have to pick up a nitrates test as well pretty soon.

 

[bluerose]

'Stress Zyme' won't really help much-- the only bacteria supplements that work are generally refrigerated and rather expensive, and even then you need to provide ammonia for them to eat (albeit less). In place of liquid ammonia you can get a couple of raw cocktail shrimp and drop them in there (might be smart to put them in a piece of unwashed pantyhose so they're less messy).

 

[summit]

thanks for the quick reply, is it common to find liquid ammonia in a pet store? or do you get it from somewhere else? Does using a raw shrimp smell at all? And would this effect algae growth at all more so than using liquid ammonia?

Is the stress zyme worth keeping for a maintenance application, or should I take it back?

 

[bluerose]

Ammonia is probably not going to be found at a fish store... people have had luck at Wal-Mart in the cleaning section and the hardware store.

Make sure it doesn't have any surfactants or additives.

Shrimp shouldn't really be any different but your ammonia levels will be a little more varied.

 

[summit]

well that points me in a better direction, thanks, the aquarium store thought I was crazy when I asked them for pure ammonia, if I can't find it I will try the shrimp method.

Another question that popped up, is once I have the tank cycled, I do a large water change correct? at that point I would treat the new water with seachem prime to remove the chlorine and chloramine, and add it to the tank to top up to complete the water change, however the seachem prime also treats ammonia, and nitrites, so would this not kill off any ammonia in the tank that the bacteria are feeding off, depriving the bacteria of food? or only the toxic form of ammonia? or can I simply add a few more drops of pure ammonia right after the water change, to reintroduce some ammonia for the bacteria to feed on?

 

[Jnam]

Prime will not hurt your cycle. You dont need any additional ammonia, if you are doing a fishless cycle and its complete yet you dont have any fish to create the waste products your bacteria feed off, a little sprinkling of fish food will take care of "feeding" your bacteria until you get fish. Remember just because its cycled dont add all the fish at once that you plan on having, do it slowly so your Biofilter can "catch up" with the new bioload.

 

[summit]

so I got some ammonia, the only size it came in was almost 2L, but it was dirt cheap. I am however concerned, no where on the bottle does it have an ingredient list, it dosnt say anything about perfumes and it does not say what percentage. All it says it Ammonia, all purpose cleaner, and no phosphates so I am thinking this is not the one I want?