A Couple Questions Regarding Lighting and Filter Media.

[outofstep]

Hi. I just got my aquarium up and running and I have a couple of noob questions. What do you guys reccommend for blubs? I have a dual 24" flourescent fixture. I don't have any plants and don't plan on putting any there.

Also, I have the Emperor 280 filter. I don't have anything in the filter basket and I'm sure it could be put to good use. Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[OceanMist]

If you don't plan on adding plants then lighting is only to view your tank and to replicate the natural daylight hours for your fish, basically choose bulbs that you think give a nice light over your tank, I personally use 2 standard flourescent tubes over my 85 gallon, I use a power-glo which gives a nice white light with perhaps a tint of purple, along with a moonlight flourescent, using these i can switch off the powerglo in the evening and leave the moonlight on before switching this off around midnight, this gives a nice daytime/nightime cycle.

 

[TomK2]

For the room in your filter, any porous high surface area material would be great for developing a colony of nitrifying bacteria, especially if you have a sponge or some floss before it to keep out the particulate matter. Ceramic noodles as sold by fluval and eheim are good, as well as porous rock sold by seachem (cheaper than the other two). A plain old sponge would do the job also, but would not have as much surface area as the porous rocks do.