Questions on a tank upgrade

[TexRex]

I’d like some advice on a few topics. After having a 75-gallon freshwater reef-ready for 13.5 years, I’m planning to upgrade to a 150-gal, freshwater reef tank. I don’t consider myself an aquarium expert at all. I have a company that comes out and cleans it. I have them rearrange the decorations every time so the look changes.

· I’ve always kept community fish, and I’m pretty sure I want to stick with that.
· I’ve never used live plants or coral, and I plan to stick with that as well.
· I’ve wanted a tropical ocean look to it, not a lake or river look, and I plan to stick with that general concept as well.

I’m not much of a photographer, but for reference, below is a pic of what I’ve had.

Tank
The new tank will be 48”x24”x30”; wet-dry filtration system.

To keep the tropical look, I considered sand, but am going with a white, fine rock (much finer than what I have now).

The place I bought originally painted the back blue. The company I’m using this time recommended that the back be painted black. They say that will help the fish bring out more vivid colors. I do like the look of black backgrounds in the store.

Tank Questions:

I’m inclined to have them paint the back black, but any other thoughts on that?

Any other general advice about the tank from what I’ve described?

Decorations
Last time I bought too many decorations. I’m going to buy only 4-5 (depending on size). I’ll have a larger sunken ship, and 2 or 3 pieces of coral at the most. The pic above doesn’t show near all the decorations – just the ones that have been my favorites.

I’ve kept several plastic plants and plan to do that again. I’ll mix the sizes and have a lot of color. With a deeper tank, I’ll have more room for plants, but will keep a proportion similar to the old tank.

Decoration questions:
Is there any type of acrylic or epoxy I could paint the decorations with that would help them last longer? When the tank is cleaned, they typically bleach the decorations to clean them.

Fish
While I want to stick with community fish, I’m considering trying to breed swordtails, plaities, tetras, and possibly clown loaches. I’ve never tried that, but it seems like the first 3 breeding is commonly done.

I expect to have 75-100 inches of fish. I know I could do more, but have never had as many as we could. It seems to keep the tank cleaner.

Fish questions:
Any recommendations on community fish we might breed?
Should we have floating flowers in the top for the little ones to hide in?
We’ve had bad luck keeping any type of Cory cats alive. Recommendations for other catfish that will work well with community fish?
How many catfish should we have in a 150 gal tank?
We have trouble keeping clown loaches alive. Any idea on that?
Is a pleco really necessary?

Lighting
Up to now I’ve had florescent lighting. We will be getting LEDs. They guy at the aquarium place recommended two different types of lights. One is blue and white and the other is blue lights I think. We typically don’t have lights on a high percentage of the time. Our aquarium gets some good natural light, but not direct sunlight.

Lighting questions
Any lighting suggestions?

General questions
Are there good automatic feeders out there that we can us for 10-14 days of vacation?
With our system, will we need to have someone check our water level? In the past I’ve overfilled before we left and it’s been fine. I’m not sure if that will work the same with a 150-gal instead of a 75-gal.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Autumnsky]

Welcome to the community.

Are you having any interest in using live plants?

A large group of Congo Tetras is nice or a large group of Cardinals or Neons always looks amazing.

Do you know the pH of your tap water? GH/KH?

 

[toolman]

If breeding livebearers I would recommend live plants. Low light/low tech plants can be kept rather easily, are good for maintaining water quality, and provide a place for livebearer fry to hide. Live plants also provide microalgae (can't remember the name) for fry to eat before they're big enough for finely powdered flake.

I breed platys and swordtails in my 75 community tank, never removing the parents at or fry from the tank. Plants provide cover a d help maintain water quality.

 

[TexRex]

Autumnsky and Toolman, thank you for the info!

I have known the pH of our tap water, but don’t remember. I don’t refill from the tap; I use RO water. We use a service for cleaning and water changes generally, and they do use the tap with some type of treatment for it. With this new tank, I may have to use water from the aquarium place, depending on how big the evaporation problem is. For my 75 gal, RO was manageable. I’m not sure what GH/KH is. I’m going to take a sample of our tap water to the aquarium place so they can test all of that for us.

I have thought of live plants, but am not sure how easy they are to keep. Please provide additional info on possible live plants! I’m going to ask about the aquarium place about them. I’ve never done live plants, but if we could easily keep them, yes, I’m definitely interested, even more so if they help maintain water quality. Live plants raise some additional questions.

Can I get a variety of colors in live plants?

Is there a reason I couldn’t mix live and fake plants if the color variety isn’t available?

Would you recommend some live plants on the floor of the tank and some floating at the top?

I don’t want my entire floor taken up with live plants. Are there types that won’t take over? Is it possible to do something like a planter box for live plants?

Fish
First, I’ve already given up on the idea of breeding to sell to fish stores, but I would love to have fish that don’t have to be replenished. Breeding makes sense, but I’m not going to do a breeder tank too. This will be my one aquarium. Toolman, I’m glad to hear that works for you.

Autumnsky, I’m not new to keeping FW fish, but I do appreciate the article. I think I had already read the referenced article, and it has clown loaches in the “think twice” category. I was thinking of 5-7 of them. We like them because they are fun to watch and colorful. From what aquarium people tell me not all of them will grow big. Are they just saying that?

We’ve had good success with tetras, except for neons. Our old tank (this isn’t in the pic) had too large of a flow through opening for neons and the ones we bought all wound up dead in the filter in less than a day. I don’t believe that will be a problem with the new tank. I think we’ve had Congos in the past; I know we’ve had Cardinals.

Would neons be too small to be in with the other fish I mentioned? I also want swordtails, platys, tetras, and possibly clown loaches.

We had a 10 gal aquarium when I was a kid. We had guppies, and never ran out. I’ve thought of guppies too. Anything thoughts on that?

 

[Coursair]

Hi,
If you want Cories, your substrate needs to be smooth. Clown Loaches do grow big. If they can't they stunt and die young. They'd prefer smooth substrate as well.

Blue lights are for Reef tanks.
Freshwater ? We normally use white and then a mix of red and blue. Blue lights make a FW tank look Cold at least to me.

Auto feeders are not always reliable. I'd have someone come in twice a week while you are gone.

Easy FW plants are green and some are brownish. Red needs high light and CO2 typically.

I use Driftwood and Rocks and live plants to decorate.

I use smooth sand or a plant substrate in my tanks now.

10g





My 55g

 

[Coursair]

55g




My current stock is
4 Denison's Barbs
21 Neons
9 Rummynose
4 Cory sterbai ( plan on adding 4 more)
5 Otos ( adding more)
1 Farlowella vittata
1 male Pearl Gourami
3 Nerites, Ramshorns, and Pond Snails.

 

[Coursair]

Livebearers often do better with harder water than Tetras.

When you say Coral? You mean fake Coral correct ? Not dead Coral skeletons. Coral raises Ph in FW tanks. Not recommended except for some African species.

Easy beginner plants ?
Java Fern
Java Moss
Anubias
Amazon Sword ( will need a root cap 1x a month).

 

[Coursair]

Oh and in high tech, high light tanks you can get a ton of color from live plants.

This is not my tank. This is one of Tom Barr's. He knows how to grow plants [emoji1360]

 

[TexRex]

Coursair, thanks! I may have to skip the clown loaches. Maybe that’s why we’ve not been able to keep them. We’ve not used smooth substrate. I’m not sure about the new stuff, but am still considering sand too.

We do have a reef tank. I thought the blue at night would be pretty. I’ll have to check into the red/blue mix.

Good info on auto-feeders. Up to now, we’ve typically use 10-14 day feeder of some type (big wafers). But I expect we will have more fish this time.

Tom Barr’s tank is pretty! So were the others, but I really liked that look. The two pics with the Neons and the white substrate looks similar to the substrate I’m getting.

I’ll have to ask about the red plants, light, and CO2. If we need to leave the lights on more, we could. We’ve not used lights a lot to prevent algae, but would plants help with preventing algae? Red would be great as a plant color!

Good point on the coral! I did mean fake coral, as in decorations that look like coral. I got some real coral once and won’t repeat that.

 

[Coursair]

Plants can outcompete Algae if your tank is properly balanced.

I run lights 6-8hours daily. On timers.

I would try a few easy low light plants first. I'm just now trying High Light/ High Tech. I bought my first CO2 system and turned it on today.

 

[toolman]

When we say more light we generally mean more intense/stronger light not more hours of light. Higher light requires more nutrients, increases your chances of producing algae and at really high levels (which red plants usually require) pressurized co2 like Coursair just got (I'm jealous by the way).

 

[Autumnsky]

On the Clown loaches, they would get ~12" and if you put your 2 hands together with the thumb and forefinger making a triangle the Clowns would fit inside of that at adulthood and females are the larger/wider, males more narrow body. (somewhere between a average sized ladies and man's hand) So they CAN get huge!

Ludwigia Arcuata x Ludwigia Repens cross plants have a nice bit of color to them and are still easy to grow in a low to lower medium light tank with added ferts.