Ideas for a 55G tank

[AdamHorton]

My next tank will probably be a 55G freshwater tank. I don't think I'll do any plants. I have sort of a general idea but I have some specifics that could go many ways and I thought I'd open it up and see what ideas people on here have.

1. Decorations

I want to do something natural-looking, maybe some kind of rock and/or wood for the decorations.

Also the substrate: I don't want to do a coarse gravel; maybe a very fine gravel, something that looks like dirt, or maybe sand or something.

I think I want to do something cool with the lighting, but I'm not sure what. Most of the reason I don't want to do plants here is so I can have fun with the lighting and make it part of the decor -- I could have a day scene and a night scene...

Any suggestions for something that would look cool?

2. Fish

I love tetras. I want this mainly to be a tetra tank. I might have like 50 neon tetras in the tank, or maybe two or three smaller schools of different types of small tetras.

However, what I want is a "showpiece fish." Something larger (maybe 3-5 inches) and a little more aggressive to keep the tetras in their schools, but not so aggressive that it would really harm any of the tetras or try to eat any of them. I'd prefer if it wasn't a shark.

Personality is more important than looks (I want a fish that likes long walks on the beach, dancing to the car radio...), maybe something that's interesting to feed.

Two of the same would be OK, but probably not any more than that. Once that's in place, I'd probably fill up the rest of the bio-load on small tetras.

3. Inverts

I was thinking about lots of larger snails (by larger I'm thinking the size of a marble or hopefully bigger). I don't know much about snails other than those pests I have in my planted tank.



This tank is still very much in the brainstorming stage. Consider this an opportunity to see your ideas come to life in the next 6-12 months. I promise lots of pictures and videos if you all have good ideas.

 

[mudraker]

I love your idea of a large school of tetras, that can be quite spectacular.

You have a lot of choices for a showpiece. If you truly plan to keep a large school and the showpiece to one or two, large marble angel fish would be okay. They are very nippy, but not usually flat out killers.

 

[BigJim]

It's hard to go wrong with sand and driftwood.

There's no reason you can't have plants and cool lighting. It sounds like you're going with a natural theme. There are DIY LED setups that people have programmed to simulate the rising and setting sun as well as the moon and its phases.

Maybe a gourami?

Look for mystery or nerite snails. Mysteries can breed in fresh water. Nerites need brackish water to breed, but they have cool shells and eat more algae than mysteries.

 

[AdamHorton]

Thanks for the feedback so far. It looks like I should clarify what I said about plants and lighting, since you mentioned that.

I'm not opposed to making this tank a planted one. I have a 20G planted tank and I love it (so do the tetras in that tank). In particular, the plants I like the most have broad leaves.

More than likely, though, it won't start out being a planted tank. My planted tank is doing well but I still don't feel completely comfortable using the higher power light and dry ferts to achieve that balance needed to grow plants and not algae. The 20G tank spent almost 3 years with no plants before I decided to convert it, and that may be the path this tank takes.

I had an idea, not a well-formulated one... There's a daytime scene with rocks/wood, maybe plants. As the lights fade out, some colored LEDS provide some "sunset colors" -- red, orange which highlight some features on one side of the tank. Then, during the night, some cooler colors (you can call them "moonlight colors") -- blue, maybe green -- can highlight some features on the other side of the tank until the main lights come back on in the morning.

Maybe it doesn't quite go with the "natural" theme, but I think I like the concept of using colored lights to accent natural-looking features.

I wasn't aware that LED setups could support plants... I guess I'll have to look into that.

 

[BigJim]

You can grow LEDs under plants. You just have to use powerful LEDS of 1 Watt per diode or better.

 

[SeverumGuy]

You can grow LEDs under plants. You just have to use powerful LEDS of 1 Watt per diode or better.

Huh? haha, we know what you mean. Keep in mind that a sandy substrate is going to be a little more difficult to clean. You can't vacuum. You need to stir the sand up just a tad and let the filters catch what they can. Also sand has a tendency to clog up a filter. I have a nice natural gravel that I bought from walmart for $11 for a 25lbs. bag. I love driftwood. Thats what I'm using in my tank. I've always used fake driftwood, but they tend to fade so I'm gradually swapping the fake out for real from my LFS. Tetras are a great way to go. You can get such a vast variety to mix together and enjoy every one for what they are. Lighting is basically preference but also depends on the fish you keep. Tetras shouldn't pose a problem. I actually ordered some LED strips off of ebay for real cheap (like $3 for a 12" strip) and wired two up under my normal lighting. I like to put it on at night because it gives a real pretty moonlight effect. Let us know what you decide

 

[SeverumGuy]

It's hard to go wrong with sand and driftwood.

There's no reason you can't have plants and cool lighting. It sounds like you're going with a natural theme. There are DIY LED setups that people have programmed to simulate the rising and setting sun as well as the moon and its phases.

Maybe a gourami?

Look for mystery or nerite snails. Mysteries can breed in fresh water. Nerites need brackish water to breed, but they have cool shells and eat more algae than mysteries.

Snails can infest a tank in no time. They are cool to watch though. My sister has a 10g with 4 of them, all different colors. Gouramis are a nice fish. I have a pearl gourami in my 55g with all my rainbows. He does just fine.

 

[BigJim]

You can grow LEDs under plants. You just have to use powerful LEDS of 1 Watt per diode or better.

Wow, that means I've been at work way too long today.

 

[AdamHorton]

I would probably go with snails that don't breed too readily... if I want super-breeding snails I can just borrow some from my planted tank.

So it appears that using sand substrate in freshwater is more difficult than in saltwater, and I'm guessing that's because we don't have fish like gobies that take care of it for us... I'm not super-attached to a sand substrate, but I did want something finer than most of the gravel substrates we see.

As far as granularity goes, is there anything in between? Maybe something about the size and shape of couscous... I'm open to less orthodox substrates here -- when I was in college I had a 10G tank that where used glass beads as the substrate until I got tired of cleaning them.

 

[AdamHorton]

It looks like one decision has been made for me. I'm moving a SW tank and I wanted to have new sand so I can just clean the old stuff and use it for this FW tank. So that means I'll be using aragonite sand for the substrate.

 

[BigJim]

Aragonite sand will raise your pH. I'd spend the $5 and get a bag of sand from Home Depot.

 

[AdamHorton]

Well then, I guess no aragonite. Substrate is open again. Thanks BigJim.