Newbie needs advice!

[Angelopoulos59]

Hey guys! I'm completely new to this, I just bought my tank this morning (20 gallon extra tall), lighting (Coralife T-5 14 watt full spectrum and 14 watt 6700k), an aqua clear power filter rated at 150gph and my fluorite base.

After rinsing my fluorite for about an hour I placed the fluorite in the tank and added my water, of course it turned pretty much completely brown. Now I pretty much expected this but after about 5 hours it hasn't seemed to settle at all. Is this something I should be concerned about? I have been considering emptying the tank and adding water very slowly so as to kick up as little debris as possible. Also I have not been running the filter.

My other concern is that I got new tank excitement and went ahead and bought my plants, seeing as my tank is completely covered in muck right now I have them sitting in a bucket of water with an air pump to keep oxygen in the water. Will my plants be ok? Or should I find other accommodations for my leafy friends?

Thanks for any and all help!
Angelopoulos

 

[mwitha]

I would probably get the filter going. If you washed the substrate for an hour then there shouldnt be that much floating around! I usually find it clears quite quickly with the filter running.

Not really sure what to do about the plants.... what I can say though is that I ordered some from ebay and they were shipped in a damp bag and they are fine - so as long as the plants dont dry out they should be ok for now!

 

[Angelopoulos59]

awesome! thanks for the advice!

 

[jsoong]

Plants will be fine in a bucket (dechlorinated water of course!). If it is for more than a few days, you might give them a bit of light.

That flourite dust might clog your filter pretty quick, so be prepared to do some cleaning of the pads. If you were to drain the water & refill, I would suggest putting a large clean plate on top of the substrate & run your water slowly onto the plate so as not to kick up so much dust.

 

[Angelopoulos59]

Plants will be fine in a bucket (dechlorinated water of course!). If it is for more than a few days, you might give them a bit of light.

That flourite dust might clog your filter pretty quick, so be prepared to do some cleaning of the pads. If you were to drain the water & refill, I would suggest putting a large clean plate on top of the substrate & run your water slowly onto the plate so as not to kick up so much dust.

oh wow that'll help a ton! Thanks for reminding me about the dechlorinated water thing, I forgot haha. I really appreciate the nice replies!

 

[Angelopoulos59]

So... I emptied out the tank, refilled it using that plate technique you told me about (did wonders!) and after letting it filter for awhile I tossed in my trace elements, conditioner, etc. I have to say.... I wish I bought a bigger tank! (dang apartment complex makes us max at 20g )
Thanks to everyone who gave me great advice!
I have 5 plants in there, here's my planted tank day 1! (still a bit foggy but its been getting better!)

 

[mwitha]

wow that is quite cloudy lol. But don't worry, I set up a tank a few weeks ago and it looked just like that for a little while, now its beautiful! So don't love faith!

If you wanted to speed things up you might want to buy 'Accu-Clear' which makes small particals join together so that the filter picks them up easier - but im sure it would be fine without it. (and it makes it look worse for a little while! lol).

Anyway, im sure it will look great!

 

[jsoong]

That tank will clear up in time, & since you have no fish, you don't have to worry about dust clogging up gills, etc.

That tank is looking good - even a few plants will do wonders!

Not to be pouring cold water on your head (I know it is exciting to set up a new tank!), but I noticed that very tall tank. A tall tank needs more powerful lights to penetrate the depth. With 28W T5 total light, that is a fairly low light setup. Some of your plants (like that red one in the back) might not do well. You might as well try the plants you have to see how they do. However, in the future, you might want to choose plants with lower light requirements. <Perhaps a Java fern or Anubias that you can attach to the driftwood so it is closer to the surface.>

 

[Angelopoulos59]

Well its day 2 and BOY has it cleared up A LOT! (im so excited haha!) The guy at the store told me that it would be enough lighting, i wanted the tall tank because its not something I see often and I like the tall reaching plants. Do you think one more light of the same specifications would be enough? Thanks for all the help guys!

 

[Angelopoulos59]

Well I ended up returning my old lighting fixture and bought a current usa nova extreme fixture, sitting at 48 watts now, is that good enough would you say? Also I found a 20 gallon long on craigslist for 20 bucks that im prob gonna pick up and transfer my stuff to, you dont think my lighting is too strong now do you? (if thats even possible haha)
Thanks again!

 

[jsoong]

Whether you have enough light depends on what plants you want. Even taking into account the higher efficiency of the T5's, you have no more than 2 WPG (of NO equivalent). This is low light for a tall tank.

This doesn't mean you can't grow a lot of plants with those lights, you just have to choose appropriately. A good place to learn about plants is plantgeek.net. There you'll find a list of 40 or 50 low light plants.

If you want those pretty red plants, you generally need 3-4 WPG, addition of fertilizers & CO2 injection. This high tech approach is not for beginners. I think it is better to start low light, get comfortable with the easy low light plants, and increase your light level if you want to try higher light plants.

There is a ton of info at the " FW planted" forum, plus plant experts that can far more knowledgeable than me. you might want to start by reading this on lights:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/a-beginners-guide-to-lighting-53375.html

 

[jsoong]

Oops, I was typing when you posted about your change in lights ....

The Nova extreme, that is a T5-HO unit, right? With that you would be getting into medium light on the tall tank, & might be edging toward high light in a 20 L.

Problem with getting into high light setup is that without CO2 injection (and good healthy plants), you run into algae problems. It is all a balancing act that requires a bit of trial & error. i think you should post in the plant forum to get some insights from the plant experts if you are going to head into a high tech setup.

 

[Angelopoulos59]

Awesome advice I'll definitely do the lower lighting plant thing first (plantgeek is awesome btw thanks!)

I cant thank you enough for all the help!