Small tank

[midol]

Hey, i am running a 4ft marine setup and my sister added 4 freshies to her tank today and one kept fighting, she was took it out and put it in a small jar to let it die!!!!!!!! 8O

I couldn't let that happen so right now i've got him in my 20L acclimitation tank, if i keep this tank i figure i can keep him and maybe one other fish (Depending on what he is, i got to ask my sister to ID it for me), anyway, for a planted freshie tank do i need to run any C02 in it? It is only 20L so it isn't large, also, are rocks alright for the ground, roughly 2-3mm in diameter each rock.

I don't want to go and purchase a larger tank as i only have $100 and i need to spend that on my marine tank but my mum will purchase the basics for me, heater, powerhead and such.

So, what equipment would i need? I figure a 50w heater, i thought a 400LPH powerhead, but that gives me a turnover of 20, i thought freshies only needed around 5x turnover?

Help!

 

[greenmaji]

a 20L is about 5US gallon right? what kind of fish is it? There is a good chance that the fish will be too big for your tiny tank eventually unless for some reason you get lucky.
as far as needing CO2 is concerned its unlikely, you need CO2 when you have 2+ watts per gallon or .53+ watts per L.. If for some reason you happen to have 40+watts of light over that little tank then you would need CO2 otherwise no..
how many watts of lighting do you have? I would recommend at least 10 watts of NO for plants in the low lighting needed range.. The U-tube CF bulbs work best if you have incandescent light fixtures in your hood(if you wish to keep with the same lighting hardware).
http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_cat.php?category=1
a 25W heater would be sufficient.. a sponge filter would be the easiest thing to get into that size tank.. so a small airpump would be worthwhile
something like these
http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22201;category_id=1725;pcid1=2885;pcid2=
http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22223;category_id=1725;pcid1=2885;pcid2=
most freshwater fish tanks need only 5cycles per hour turnover, that is definitely true if your looking to plant the tank.. If you are going fish only just get an oversized sponge filter like the first link.. HTH

 

[midol]

I am not sure what the fish is, neither is my sister but aparantly it is already fully grown, it is only like 3-4cm long.

I under estimated how much water i added, not by much though.

It is roughy 35L. (9.4 Gal)

Right now it only has the standard fluro's in the hood, i was looking to modding it to compact fluros once i figured out if i cold use it as an extra small fresh water tank (Like a nano reef?)

I'll get this up and running and i know i'll end up moving onto a 2 or 3 footer once i have the money, but it might be a while so i want to make sure i do this small one right.

I'll run up to the LFS and get some items tomorrow after school.

Thanks.