Newbie needs some help

[TJs]

Hi all and thanks in advance for any ideas and advice. I will start by saying that I have been in the fish hobby for a few years now so I have plenty of knowledge about keeping fish but always trying to learn more. My newest venture will be planted with fish. I have a 150 gallon I will be cycling in the next few weeks and I want to make a beautiful, planted show tank. The problem is, and the reason I'm reaching out to you all is, I have no experience with plants. I am basically going into this with the aquarium and filtration(Fx5 and the Ehiem 2260, is the filtration I will use on this tank). I will need to get the lighting still, which I'm not sure of exactly what I need. I know I want at least medium light plants (again something that will be beautiful maybe even with color) so I want some lighting that will handle anything.

 

[TJs]

I accidentally hit send. Anyways to sum it up... I need help with substrait, lighting and really everything. I plan on CO2 but again I don't know much about this so please help with anything you can. Thanks!!!

 

[Rivercats]

I run a 220g 100% planted tank and you can view it in it's various stages at the link in my signature in the bottom of this post.

You'll have to see if the FX5 puts out too much flow for the plants but you can deal with that later. I run 3 Fluval 406's but used to run 4 of them.

How deep is your tank? IMO if you want good lighting I would look into something like this...AquaticLife 72" T5 HO 12 Lamp Fixture with Lunar Lights Aquatic Life T5 Freshwater. They also have a note about you can change out for different bulbs which I would change out the 650mn bulbs as they won't do much for plants). This is a good fixture and would give you at least a good medium light. I use the AquaticLife fixture with Metal Halides and T5HO's for very high light in my 220g.

You also have some choices on substrate. You can go sand due to the size of the tank and the price of commercial plant substrates or you can get any of the commercial plant substrates. I actually have my 220g dirted with a cap of Eco Complete.

For CO2 I use this regulator...New Premium Aquatek CO2 Regulator with Integrated Cool Touch Solenoid | eBay. Due to having a larger tank I have a two way splitter and run my CO2 into the tank via 2 Maxi Jet Pro 1200.... Aquarium Water Pumps & Water Movement: Marineland Maxi-Jet PRO. I have one PH at each end of the tank blowing the CO2 towards the middle.

You'll also want to use dry ferts so you get a good dosing regime of macro and micro nutrients.

 

[TJs]

My tank is about 30' which I believe is standard for the 150. I do have 150 lbs of pool filter sand I was originally gonna use before I decided to go planted. Would that still work do you think? I'm really just in the dark with everything. I looked at the lighting and it seems alittle expensive for a one time purchase so I thought about maybe doing 3, 24' fixtures so I could get them one at a time so it's easier on the wallet. But again, not sure what I should or could go with.

 

[Rivercats]

Your tank is the same depth as mine and it is very hard to get light to penetrate into a deep tank. That is why I ended up going with metal halides and T5HO's. Lighting is expensive for a big tank if you want to go planted. Using little 2' lights, 3 total, won't give you much light at all. You'd be in the very low light range and could do Anubia's, Java Fern's, and Bolbitus on DW and Crypts planted in the substrate.

 

[TJs]

Yeah it's seeming like lighting is really expensive. So those marineland LED's wouldn't be a good choice? I saw decent prices on their 24'. I guess I basically just need someone close that has done this before to walk me thru it. Step by step. It's a lot for someone who has never delved in planted but I want it to be really good and I want it to work..

 

[aqua_chem]

How deep is your tank? IMO if you want good lighting I would look into something like this...AquaticLife 72" T5 HO 12 Lamp Fixture with Lunar Lights Aquatic Life T5 Freshwater. .

Holy sun gods. 12 bulbs? That seems a little excessive. I would think that LEDs with small angle optics or MH would be more reasonable at that price point.

 

[20cc]

if cash is tight and you have a canopy you can get a pair of these...Amazon.com : Hagen Glo Retrofit High Output T5 Electronic Fluorescent Lighting System, 2X54W : Aquarium Lights : Patio, Lawn & Garden .. with their reflectors you will be golden .

 

[TJs]

Not tight per say, I mean I want the best I can get, but tight as far as dropping 700-1000 dollars in one setting. That's why I was looking at the Marineland LED's. Do like 3-24's. but again... I'm not sure exactly what I need. I want to be able to support high light but be able to put in whatever I like.

 

[TJs]

So the ones you suggested from Amazon, 20cc, are those like the fixture already or would I need to get a fixture as well? And what's the length?

 

[Rivercats]

Holy sun gods. 12 bulbs? That seems a little excessive. I would think that LEDs with small angle optics or MH would be more reasonable at that price point.

His tank is deep like mine and honestly I have 4 T5HO's along with the Halides and when only the T5HO's are on it's a very dim low light which is why I can run them 10 hours daily.

Metal Halides work great but they really cost a lot to run! I'm used to the electric bill since I ran them for years on reef tanks.

LED would have to be made or several of what I use would be needed using a 30% beam angle to get light to reach that depth.

So while 12 bulbs seems like a lot on a 30" deep tank it's not. The OP stated he wanted a good solid medium light show tank for plants and wanted to use CO2 also. I love my "sun god" lights but they have their own set of drawbacks. These big deep tanks are quite difficult to light. They also make 8 bulb fixtures in T5HO but they won't give a lot of light even for growing medium light plants in a deep tank.

 

[aqua_chem]

55g are 21" tall, 150g are 28". A single 2x T5HO of decent quality is enough for medium-ish light at least on a 55. Those extra 7" don't warrant 6x the bulbs. A 4 or 6x fixture should be more than enough for medium light. We have PAR data for two 4x T5HO of medium quality (Aquaticlife and Catalina) and one of high quality with three bulbs (ATI) that are all 50+ PAR at 30". An 80" fixture will produce even higher PAR value due to more horizontal contribution.

As far as electricity on HQI goes, three 175w fixtures will consume about the same amount of electricity as 6 80w T5HOs.

 

[Rivercats]

I've got a 2 bulb T5HO Aquatic Life with Geisemann bulb on my 55g and it is a good medium light. Before I added the Geisemann bulbs I had Aquatic Life bulbs and they were a lot dimmer and did not grow plants near as well as they do with the Geisemann bulbs.

I'm going by what my actual T5HO light does without using the halides on the 220. I had to run only the T5HO's for almost 2 weeks awhile back which left me running 4x 39w T5HO bulbs. Most of my non green plants lost a lot of color. More than I thought they would. I seriously doubt had I been able to run 8x 39w bulbs, double what was on there, that many of the plants would have done any better. I am also running Geisemann bulbs on the 220. I know what the par data says but I also know what they do from a plant standpoint since I have used them for quite some time, which is what I'm going by.

 

[20cc]

So the ones you suggested from Amazon, 20cc, are those like the fixture already or would I need to get a fixture as well? And what's the length?

no they are a retrofit..in other words its just the light and ballast and then you install them in your aquarium canopy out of sight . i have 2 sets of them which is 4 bulb t5ho . i use 2 bulbs and the other 2 i use as a noon burst . i had them in my first setup when i started out and didnt want to get too deep without first seeing if i was gonna like the hobby. when i got my next tank i kept them cause they are pretty dam good for the money. i added some tek2 reflectors and was set . but if you dont have a canopy it will look kinda wack.

that being said if you got 300 or so to spend on lights you might as well go L.E.D as that is the future . next summer im gonna get a L.E.D setup but most probably i will just get a kit from a good company and do it myself cause im a hands on kinda guy

 

[Rivercats]

Led's are good but you have to watch as most are not designed to be used in planted tanks.

 

[TJs]

You have both given me great ideas that I will continue to look into and weigh the pluses and minuses of what I will want in the end. Now as for substrait, I'm still not sure what to do there. I have 150 lbs of pool filter sand I was originally gonna use before I decided to go planted. I don't know if I could use it or not for what I want, and to be honest, at this point I wanna do a black substrait to help the plants and fish pop. Plus, at only a total of about $15 I spent on the sand I have, I wouldn't be out much if anything at all if I just scratch using it all together at this point.

 

[TJs]

72 inch Coralife Aqualight Pro - $225 Email: w6pmf-4046891525@sale.craigslist.org Location: Lebanon Date: 2013-09-04, 9:29PM EDT Bought new in 2005 by myself for $960.00 (I still have the original receipt of purchase). Fits 125 gallon aquarium. Come with 3 ballasts. Does need all new bulbs because they were old when I last took it down, and most bulbs now don't work. Very nice light strip for the reefer. Takes HQI metal halide bulbs(3), square pin. Also takes 96 watt blue actinic bulbs(4). The led moon lights all work.


Just found this on CL. Would this be something I should try to get to use as light??

 

[aqua_chem]

I wouldn't, simply because that kind of lighting (power compact fluorescent) is a dying breed. Bulbs are expensive and should be replaced every 6 months, they can get hot, and you get less light than you would think from it.

 

[20cc]

72 inch Coralife Aqualight Pro - $225 Email: w6pmf-4046891525@sale.craigslist.org Location: Lebanon Date: 2013-09-04, 9:29PM EDT Bought new in 2005 by myself for $960.00 (I still have the original receipt of purchase). Fits 125 gallon aquarium. Come with 3 ballasts. Does need all new bulbs because they were old when I last took it down, and most bulbs now don't work. Very nice light strip for the reefer. Takes HQI metal halide bulbs(3), square pin. Also takes 96 watt blue actinic bulbs(4). The led moon lights all work.


Just found this on CL. Would this be something I should try to get to use as light??

thats $225 for an 8 year old fixture plus and extra $100 to replace the bulbs = $325.

you can get 2 of these bad boys for the same price and never have to replace bulbs again...Amazon.com: Finnex Ray2 Aquarium LED Daylight, 48-Inch: Pet Supplies

this is just a suggestion..you should research yourself and decide whats best for you

 

[TJs]

Ok cool. Thanks for your help. I'll be asking as I run across them on Craigslist. It just confuses me when it comes to all the abbreviations, and what a ballast does and is, and what wattage I'd need and so on. So it's just as easy to ask all of you.