Best way to tear down and recreate my tank

[bballsosh]

Ok so i have a 54 gallon corner tank that is currently just a fish only tank with some driftwood and fake plants. I would really like to turn it into a planted tank. Here are my specs:

I have a coralife 24" lighting fixture 2 65 watt bulbs
Ehiem cansister filter 2215/2217 classic


What kind of lighting would this give me and is this a high tech tank? Also what c02 would you all recommend?

The fish i currently have are:
2 baby discus
3 green koreys
1 swanfaldi barb
3 rainbows
2 rosey barbs
2 flaming oscars


Would all of these be compatible in a planted tank or would i have to get rid of some. I kinda want to turn it into an all discus tank but i dont feel right about abondaning these fish.



My last question is how would i remove all of the gravel since i will probably be repacing it with eco complete and have some harscape based around a huge piece of braching drift wood and some rocks. After the tank is stripped bare should i wash it and how would i go about doing that?


Sorry for the many questions but your help is appreciated.

 

[azn_fishy55]

The oscars would be a problem, so I would take those out. The rest seem like plant-compatible. What I did to restart my tanks I'd move the fish into buckets then start siphoning the water outside into a bucket. I'd also suck up the gravel with the water. The gravel would stay in the bucket...most of the time and the water would freely flow over the sides.Then you just put the Eco-Complete in, no washing, fix up your hard-scape, fill it up, de-chlorinate, let the tank stablize over night then set the fish back in. Though I could see it being quite problematic with larger fish.

 

[mr funktastic]

when i re did my 20 gal i took all the fish out and everything. completly scrubed to get rid of old algea and calcium that had formed. put in eco and filled it up. let the filter run for a few hours then put the fish back in slowly. u basically have to re acclimate them. and make sure u dont clean the filter for about a month. this will let all the bacteria re form on the substarte. took about 2 hours for a 20 gal. probabaly be about 3-4 for a 54 gal. well worth the time and effort though.

 

[Zezmo]

The fish i currently have are:
2 baby discus
3 green koreys
1 swanfaldi barb
3 rainbows
2 rosey barbs
2 flaming oscars

All of those fish are not compatable with each other, let alone plants. If you do not get rid of the oscars, you will eventually have a tank with only one fat oscar and no other living thing plant or animal. The barbs may get nippy and will probably stress the discus and the rainbows. The discus like high temps 80-84deg. If rainbows are kept above 80deg they tend to develope fish tuberculosis and will get bent backs.

IMO, lose the Oscars, the Discus, and the swanfaldi barb. If you like the rosey barbs get more than 6 of them so they bug eachother not the other fish. If you really want a discus tank, then get rid of everything except the discus and the cory cats. Discus take a lot of specific care (large weekly water changes), otherwise they are very susceptible to disease.

For plants, start with Java Ferns and Anubias plants, they look great and you can plant them right away. And they do not require special substrate.

 

[bballsosh]

Ok i have made my choice and i am going to turn it into a discus only tank but will keep the koreys also. Do you all have any recommendations i should do with current fish? thanks

 

[rich311k]

Take the fish back to your LFS. They should take them back. Many places might give you a credit for them.

 

[bballsosh]

What plants can i grow with my current lighting and will i need pressurized c02?

 

[Purrbox]

Does your Coralife Fixture have two daylight bulbs, or are there some 50/50 or actinic bulbs being used? This will affect how much of the light is actually usable and what plants you can grow in the tank.

As long as you've got at least 50% of the light usuable then you could grow low and medium low light plants. If you've got 75% of the light usuable then you could grow some medium light plants too. With 100% of the light usuable you would be getting into the medium high light range which is the grey area where you may or may not need CO2 to keep things in check.

 

[bballsosh]

Its actually 100% daylight bulb but my only concern is that when i put it over the tank it only sits in the middle so i am not sure if plants in the other part of the tank will get enough light. Also do you think any form of co2 would be neccesary? It would save me a ton if i didnt need c02.

 

[Purrbox]

With that amount of light you may or may not need CO2. You can try it without and see how it goes.

Since the light doesn't give good coverage to all parts of the tank, you'll want to stick to less light demanding plants in the areas with less light.