darkangel

You should be fine for growing low light plants with the lighting you have. My wife has a 55gal tank in the store/office that only has 2 x 15 watt bulbs=0.54 watts per gal and I have put crypts, anubias, bacopa, staurogyne sp. and echinodorus quadricostatus in the tank about 3 months ago and everything is doing fine and growing. The tank also gets a couple hours of direct sunlight each day. If you want to grow med to high light plants, you will have to upgrade your lighting to at least 3 watts per gal or more and possibly add Co2. Before I got my Co2 I grew pretty much anything in a 72 gal with 3 watts per gal of light and good old fish crap. Now I still have 3 watts per gal of light, pressurised Co2, dry ferts and a pretty healthy fish load. I'm trimming stem plants every 3 to 5 days and the others get a trimming every 4 to 6 weeks. Good luck with your adventure, and keep us posted on the progress.

I like it. IMO 18,000K is a little blue, but it will definitely keep the internodal zones on your stem plants quite short. What are you going to be running for filtration? You won't need much for actual filtration, but you'll probably want some decent flow - and FX5 or two won't be too much. Conversly a decent canister along with a couple Hydor 2s would be nice.

You know... with that much lighting, you may want to think about adding some salt, live rock and corals - could make a really nice planted tank!

That's why I want the 18,000k bulbs.

I have an FX5, but still working on installing a Y conector with a couple ball valves to even out the flow for 2 spraybars. Or I may use 2 marineland C-530 canisters.

As far as the salt, live rock & corals, as soon as it is empty and I add a couple more light fixtures to the canopy and pick up a few more pieces of equipment my 72 will be my on-ramp to the salty side. I was thinking about setting up a brackish tank again after 25+ years, but for as close as it will be I may as well go for the gold.

The time has come to start planning my planted tank upgrade. The tank is 140gal 6ft long tank, the lighting that I have is one 5ft fixture that had 8 x 34 watt T-5s. I have upgraded the ballasts so the fixture now holds 8 x 54 watt 48 inch T-5s, I am also adding 2 - 48 inch fixtures that contain 2 x 54 watt T-5s and 2 - 18 inch 2 x 18 watt T-5 fixtures. The total lights will be 12 x 54 watt and 4 x 18 watt giving me a total of 720 watts = 5.143 watts per gal. I will be setting the lights to come on at different times, eg. the 2 18 watt fixtures to come on first, one hour later 1- 2 x 54 watt, one hour later the other 2 x 54 watt, and one hour after that the 8 x 54 watt. The bulbs will be a combination of 18,000k and 6700k. I was thinking of letting all the lights burn for about 6 to 7 hours and then start shutting off in the reverse order they came on. I will be running pressurized Co2 as well as dry ferts. Any comments and/or opinions are welcome.

I used to use salt in my tanks until I figured out that unless you were treating for a disease it was not nessesary.

I kept guppies, mollies, and swords in my planted tank for over 3 years without the addition of salt, and they bred constantly. I had more live food than the fish could eat. I have since switched out the tank and have wild rams, cardinals, and cories in it now.

When I was feeding my flowerhorns live food, I had a 15gal tank that I kept feeder minnows in.(yes I did quarantine the minnows before feeding). Some people may think I was retarded, but I made sure they were well fed, healthy and the fish had to work to catch them.

Like Jason said, lots of aggression issues. The egg crate works wonders. When I had flowerhorns, I used 4xs the filtration required for the tank, egg crate divider with a piece of slate under it, and a small submersable fountain pump on the males side of the tank aimed toward the other side. Lots of live food, freeze dried and frozen krill, nls pellets, 3 to 4 times a day, 50% water change 3 times a week at 3 to 4 degrees colder than the water in the tank. I would get 1000+ eggs every 4 to 6 weeks with a 50% hatch rate. Because of the lack of interest in flowerhorns I would not remove the fry and grow them out. I hope that this will not discourage you from breeding them, they are an awsome nasty fish.

That was interesting. Gives a whole new meaning to eating your kids while there bones are still soft.

Anyone know what channel is the National Geograpic channel on

If you have sattelite, (star choice is ch. 553).

I watched the one on the white sturgeon.

Tank is looking good so far. Just one small suggestion, get rid of the duckweed floating on the top. That's a light stealing son of a B that you don't want in there. Step#2. Need a bigger tank. Other than that, keep up the good work.

Home depot carries them, they just don't sock a large variety. House of tools would be your best bet.

I just got it also. This person must not have anything better to do.

You can buy cement coloring, i've used in doing concrete work, it comes as a powder and you mix in into the cement, it will also work for the background. My only concern for you is that it may not be easy to buy in small amounts. Inquire to specialty cement/concrete stores.

Regards

Devon

Go with the quickcrete coloring. Concrete color pigment is very pricy. Most concrete companies now buy it in bulk liquid or powder form and sell it by wieght when you order concrete. Unless you know someone the works for a concrete outfit, you're better off buying the quickcrete stuff.

Last 3 tests I had no readdings at all.

I have heard Fe disappears quickly.

How did it go? :well:

Disolved a 1/4 gram and added twice, once on sunday and once today. No readings yet, but will test again each day and continue adding until I get a reading. If I have no readings in the next week I'll go back to the system I was using before.

If you have an iron test kit, I usually aimed for around .1ppm iron.

I do have a Iron test kit and do tests once a week. Last 3 tests I had no readdings at all.

A 10% Fe product needs 0.001 grams per litre to acheive 0.1 ppm

Would be nearly 1/4 gram per 75 gallons

It's a 72 gal and 1/4 gram is about what I was going to try later today after the water change.

Would be impossible to advise unless concentration is known.

It's the Iron chelate 10% in powder form. My bad, should have mentioned that.

My but says get off it and go see Henry.

I have run out of Iron for my tank, but I do have lots in dry form. Unfortunately I have lost the mix ratio instructions. Need some help Jason, Werner, hint hint. Or should I just get off my but and go buy some liquid.

I have one built into one of my canister filters on my planted tank, I can put that sucker in direct sunlight and not have to worry about algae growth. Since I have moved my tank it gets about 4 hrs of direct sunlight, and all I get is a bit of dust algae on the glass every couple weeks. I like mine and would'nt set up another planted tank without one.

Princess auto sometimes has them, but if you want a good one you will have to go to house of tools. Just make sure your wallet is heavy as they are pricey.

I would use a sponge filter, fine foam over the intake isn't foolproof. I have an AC-30 on my 10 gal with fine foam over the intake and the flow slowed rite down, while cleaning the filter today I found 9 shrimp and 2 galaxy rasboras in there.

Aquagiant fixtures suck. All my ballasts fail within a couple months of purchasing. I like the Nova T5H0 extreme.

I have aquagiant fixtures for over 6 years now and no problems.

You should check out "soliver" posting, she has a pretty nice 230 setup for her cichlids!

I would like to check that but i am new here, not sure how to find this person....help...lol

Click onto members on the top right hand side of the page and print in the name. It should take you rite to that member.

When I had my african tank up all I used for hiding spots was large field rocks that I piled up along the back of the tank. I put the rocks in first and then the sand, that way when they started digging nothing fell over.

As far as reaching into the tank to do work on it I can suggest a swim suit and diving board or you can use a small step ladder to stand on and bend over into the tank. LFS also have all kinds of gadgets for grabbing, planting, and placing things in the tank.

the four side panels of glass are in perfect shape. the bottom pane does have a couple light scratches but that would be covered up anyway by substrate. the silicone needs completely redone from the looks of it. the metal frame is in near perfect shape, with just a couple lil dings here and there, not even noticeable.

i'll post pics when i get around to hauling it outta the storage room, lol, but come on all, i need some more feedback on what a good price would be!

and oh, no metal light fixture. no lid at all either.

For the age of the tank, I would say that it's in very good shape.

Sorry to hear about your loss. My expirience with rams is that they are a sensitive fish just like neons & cardinals.

I have 4 wild, a pair from the auction, and 4 from the last meeting in my tank with cardinals, neons, and one lone discus that needs friends. So far the only problem I have is the wild ones scrap it out for the best spots in the tank.

Don't be discouraged on keeping rams. If you fail once try and try again, eventually they will live for you.

There are a few of us with brackish. So far, there hasn't been many questions or comments about keeping brackish conditions since I joined.

Thats cause really theres no place to ask them.

I myself am thinking of starting up another brackish tank after 25 years. Any questions you may have on brackish tanks, If you can't get your questions answered here GOOGLE is great for anything you may have to ask.