Hello all, I'm new to the site but have been reading all the excellent articles & threads for a while now. Very helpful! Sorry for the long post but wanted to provide background for those who are interested. For those who aren't, please skip to the bottom where I'll actually ask for advice!
Probably like many others here, my kids pushed me into getting our first tank several years ago. A small 10Gal kit that has had its ups and downs for sure. The kids are older and less interested in the aquarium now unfortunately. But the good news is that I recently inherited a 50Gal tank with canister filter, stand & light from a friend. I have to say I was a little hesitant to get into it with the bigger tank based upon my past experience with the 10G but dove in anyway.
The 50Gal wasn't looking great when it came to me... especially the caulking which was really moldy to the point where all I could do was re-seal the entire thing. So I found some YouTube videos on how to do that and while it wasn't nearly as easy as described, I was able to get it done and I'm pretty happy that I did because the tank looks a lot better. The filter that came with it is an Eheim 2215 and looks to be in good working shape so I've stuck with it but have replaced the light with a new hybrid T5 from Solarmax because I wanted to have some live plants, which is a first for me.
The look I was going for was a natural looking riverbed with lots of little hiding places but not too overcrowded with plants. The attached pictures show where I'm at today but I'd like to find a few nice pieces of driftwood to complete the tank... but I'm still looking for those and can't find anything decent locally.
As far as the help needed, I have questions about stocking and plants. For stocking, I have moved a few cory's and an oto from my 10G and have added 2 new boesemani (I think) rainbows, and would have added more of those if the LFS had more. I like them so much that I'd like to add a few more and make them the main feature of the tank but from what I've read, I need to be careful not to add too many since they'll be 4" or so fully grown and I've also read that it's best to have even numbers of males & females? I'm not sure exactly how to do that, and I'm not sure exactly what I have now?
Right now I have in the tank:
1 Oto
3 Cory
1 Rubbernose Pleco
2 Boesemani? Rainbows
Ideas for additional tank mates?
Also, I have a really nice Blue Gourami in my 10Gal but I hesitate to move him to the 50Gal because of his past history of aggressiveness. Do you think that the larger tank size will help with this or would it just be best to leave him out of the 50Gal?
Also, I've only been using standard tropical flakes in the past and would like to improve the food situation in the new tank considering the size and variety so any tips would be appreciated.
Regarding the plants, it's been a few weeks now and I'm already starting to see some brown spots on the sword plants and I'm kind of waiting to see what's going to happen to them before I think about adding any more plants. I'm not planning on using Co2 and so far I haven't done anything specifically for the plants beyond the lighting and the substrate (CaribSea Eco Complete). Thinking I need to supplement with chemicals but not sure exactly what to do yet.
Sorry for the long post
Cheers,
Scott
Probably like many others here, my kids pushed me into getting our first tank several years ago. A small 10Gal kit that has had its ups and downs for sure. The kids are older and less interested in the aquarium now unfortunately. But the good news is that I recently inherited a 50Gal tank with canister filter, stand & light from a friend. I have to say I was a little hesitant to get into it with the bigger tank based upon my past experience with the 10G but dove in anyway.
The 50Gal wasn't looking great when it came to me... especially the caulking which was really moldy to the point where all I could do was re-seal the entire thing. So I found some YouTube videos on how to do that and while it wasn't nearly as easy as described, I was able to get it done and I'm pretty happy that I did because the tank looks a lot better. The filter that came with it is an Eheim 2215 and looks to be in good working shape so I've stuck with it but have replaced the light with a new hybrid T5 from Solarmax because I wanted to have some live plants, which is a first for me.
The look I was going for was a natural looking riverbed with lots of little hiding places but not too overcrowded with plants. The attached pictures show where I'm at today but I'd like to find a few nice pieces of driftwood to complete the tank... but I'm still looking for those and can't find anything decent locally.
As far as the help needed, I have questions about stocking and plants. For stocking, I have moved a few cory's and an oto from my 10G and have added 2 new boesemani (I think) rainbows, and would have added more of those if the LFS had more. I like them so much that I'd like to add a few more and make them the main feature of the tank but from what I've read, I need to be careful not to add too many since they'll be 4" or so fully grown and I've also read that it's best to have even numbers of males & females? I'm not sure exactly how to do that, and I'm not sure exactly what I have now?
Right now I have in the tank:
1 Oto
3 Cory
1 Rubbernose Pleco
2 Boesemani? Rainbows
Ideas for additional tank mates?
Also, I have a really nice Blue Gourami in my 10Gal but I hesitate to move him to the 50Gal because of his past history of aggressiveness. Do you think that the larger tank size will help with this or would it just be best to leave him out of the 50Gal?
Also, I've only been using standard tropical flakes in the past and would like to improve the food situation in the new tank considering the size and variety so any tips would be appreciated.
Regarding the plants, it's been a few weeks now and I'm already starting to see some brown spots on the sword plants and I'm kind of waiting to see what's going to happen to them before I think about adding any more plants. I'm not planning on using Co2 and so far I haven't done anything specifically for the plants beyond the lighting and the substrate (CaribSea Eco Complete). Thinking I need to supplement with chemicals but not sure exactly what to do yet.
Sorry for the long post
Cheers,
Scott
