Starting Fresh Water Tropical Red Sea 130

[Heeezil]

Bit of a novice, not had fish for a few years now and currently setting up my first tank on my own. (Will add pics when its cycling)

I'll be starting my fishless cycle with plants in this weekend and now starting to think about what fish to get after..

I want some shrimp for definite and would like guppies/endlers.
I want something to snuffle along the sand like corys or pleco/catfish.
I want some guys to school like tetra or rasboras.
I want some snails to go through the sand.

I have quite hard water and want to make sure every fishie is happy in a freshwater, planted, sandy bottom 130L/34G tank

Obviously I'll be adding fish gradually, any suggestions on who to get first when the cycling is done?

Had a few dramas setting up as I'm a marine tank n00b, sorted here:
http://reefsanctuary.com/forum/inde...-tropical-red-sea-max-130.94677/#post-1295835

 

[Squatch XXL]

If you have hard water, certainly stick with critters that enjoy it. If you stock with soft water fish, they may suffer and they may perish or adapt. There are certainly treatment options to reduce the hardness, but when you say hard, what is your PH? Because if its high, it may be a serious limiting factor. Granted, off the top of my head I don't know any of the fish you outlined are hard/neutral/soft water fish.

 

[Dracko]

I would recommend lowering the PH to between 6 and 8, but it really is not as important for common freshwater fish as it is for saltwater fish. It can be more important for plants, thus my recommendation. Then I would get some snails and bottom feeders. After a few weeks you can begin adding more, but keep an eye on your ammonia and feeding habits. If plants start showing yellow or brown edges You may need to feed them also, but lightly. Remember though that with a new tank, there will not be a lot of soil nutrient value, and light will be essential to them. You did not say what type of substrate you are using, but that will also be a factor. Most freshwater fish are pretty forgiving of PH, as long as it does not become extreme, or change rapidly. If after getting fish in the tank it should become a problem, try to correct the problem naturally, but never try to change it quickly, as that can cause more harm than good. I love my freshwater system, and I think you will too. Good luck.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I have a small 10g planted with flourite substrate. Its been set up for 2 months...One for cycle etc, and the second I started stocking. I ended up with 3 platy and 1 BN pleco. I have 4 plants, 3 are a "fern" thing and the other is a grass looking thing. I really don't know the names of the plants, but they survived a cycle without fish and everyone of them is expanding quite quickly. In the next 3 weeks I may have to research and do pruning. I have no algae whatsoever, and am scared for the BN pleco. I have some sinking wafers for it, and hope that helps.

 

[Heeezil]

I've got some plants and started the cycle! I'm not sure if my thermometer is working though sooo we'll see tomorrow I guess..

Neither of the lightbulbs are working so I need to replace them but I think I will only use one at a time because someone once mentioned that the 55W are quite strong and will boost plants like crazy? Unless someone can recommend something that will fit the same and be less strong. Currently its 2x 55W Compact 5T 10 000K.

Only one of the circulator pumps is working too, I think just one is keeping enough movement though.

Joys of a second hand tank!

I did a test strip and my results are:
Cl2 0
PH 7.5
KH 8.2
GH 16
NO2 0
NO3 50

I haven't added any ammonia or dechlorinate yet as they haven't been delivered yet

 

[Squatch XXL]

Bulbs should be a "warmer" spectrum than 10k. 6500k bulbs will do better for a planted FW tank. This is as close to natural sun as needed. We use 10k bulbs/actinic in reefs to simulate light colors/intensity in deeper water.

With the FW tank, you want to use a bulb that stimulates plant growth....However, it will also encourage algae. If you are planted well/overplanted there will be no way that algae can go nuts because all the plants are competing for the same nutes. I just introduced the BN Pleco, and have to feed him sinking wafers every other day. There is nothing at all for him to eat even after 2+ months.


Chlorine will evaporate from a 5 gallon bucket in a matter of hours. If you fill a bucket, and use it the next day, it will have no chlorine. I keep a small heater and a junk 10 gallon tank filter (suction cup back) that I use in the bucket to circulate water. By the next day it is perfect.

 

[DaveK]

...I did a test strip and my results are:
Cl2 0
PH 7.5
KH 8.2
GH 16
NO2 0
NO3 50
...

Your pH GK and KH reading are not at all bad for a FW planted tank. Unless you plan on some very difficult and demanding plants, you should be fine.

Your lighting is a but in the blue side for a planted tank, but it's far from bad. Go with it for the time being. FW planted tanks typically use far less light that reef systems, What is considered high light in FW tanks would be considered very low light in a reef.

As much as I like RS, this place is really not the best place for answers to planted tank questions. Consider The Planted Tank. See them here (offsite) - http://www.plantedtank.net/

 

[DaveK]

...Chlorine will evaporate from a 5 gallon bucket in a matter of hours. If you fill a bucket, and use it the next day, it will have no chlorine. ...

This is only true if your water company is still using only chlorine. Most today have switched to chloramine. This is much more persistent than chlorine. You usually need to use one of the various water prep additives, such as Seachem Prime. As a note, an RO/DI system will also remove chloramine.

Here is a Reefkeeping article by Randy Holmes-Farley on the subject (offsite) - http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/
Like a lot of his articles, there is about 10 times the amount of information anyone needs to know for aquarium purposes. so feel free to skip the extra information.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I was not aware of this because I am certain that our township only uses chlorine, however what you say makes me want to use an activated carbon bag in every 5 gallon of my change water.

This is certainly great info.

 

[DaveK]

I was not aware of this because I am certain that our township only uses chlorine, however what you say makes me want to use an activated carbon bag in every 5 gallon of my change water.

This is certainly great info.

I don't generally recommend the use of activated carbon to remove chloramine. It's just a bit too iffy. If your not using RO/DI water, then use something like Seachem Prime.

It will take care of any chlorine, chloramine and ammonia. It's inexpensive and you only need 5ml to treat 50 gal of water. I use it myself when I need a lot of water in a hurry and don't have time to wait for my RO/DI unit to make it all. It's great to have on hand for emergencies.

 

[Squatch XXL]

I've always been skeptical of using ro/di for freshwater because of how it strips all minerals from the water, and can leave the water in a somewhat unstable state. With saltwater we mix our minerals into the water, but with fresh it can cause issues unless you buffer & treat it after the RO/DI process.

I would rather treat fw from the tap with a chemical additive to remove only the issues that are worst....I.e. chlorimine and any sort of PH buffers. It would most likely be cheaper than using up your RO/DI filters and then having to add all sorts of intert minerals to get the water stabilized. Straight RO/DI water will destroy just about every material known to man (except titanium & some other metal I forgot the name), and I doubt it would be good for FW fish. It is ill advised to drink RO/DI water as well.

For FW you should be able to simply RO water. RO is good for FW, DI is not.


I can see using RO/DI in FW only for daily top-offs to keep the TDS of the tank stable.....but would not use it for weekly water changes.....Even then it seems excessive unless you have an incredibly large tank with huge amounts of evaporation.

 

[DaveK]

I've always been skeptical of using ro/di for freshwater because of how it strips all minerals from the water, and can leave the water in a somewhat unstable state. With saltwater we mix our minerals into the water, but with fresh it can cause issues unless you buffer & treat it after the RO/DI process.

I would rather treat fw from the tap with a chemical additive to remove only the issues that are worst....I.e. chlorimine and any sort of PH buffers. It would most likely be cheaper than using up your RO/DI filters and then having to add all sorts of intert minerals to get the water stabilized. Straight RO/DI water will destroy just about every material known to man (except titanium & some other metal I forgot the name), and I doubt it would be good for FW fish. It is ill advised to drink RO/DI water as well.

For FW you should be able to simply RO water. RO is good for FW, DI is not.


I can see using RO/DI in FW only for daily top-offs to keep the TDS of the tank stable.....but would not use it for weekly water changes.....Even then it seems excessive unless you have an incredibly large tank with huge amounts of evaporation.

There is no reason you can't use RO or RO/DI water in a FW system however, you do need to build up the GH and KH to the level required by the livestock, fish and plants, you are trying to keep. You can even make them yourself from bulk chemicals.

To boost GH use a mixture of 3 parts Potassium Sulfate, 3 parts Calcium Sulfate, 1 part Magnesium Sulfate by weight or you can buy it already mixed for you. To boost KH you can use baking soda.

Why bother doing this at all? Fore many people, it's not necessary. However, if your have really bad tap water or very demanding livestock, you will often get far better results using RO/DI water and putting the minerals back in. This way you know they are in the exact proportion you want. Personally I found my plants did a lot better when I used RO/DI water and built the minerals back up.

Another trick is to use half RO water and half tap water, or some other raito to get GH and KH to where you want it.

These sort of methods are often done for planted tanks. The FW discus keepers also tend to use RO water a lot. Many of the tetras and killie fish are also at their best in water that is fairly low in GH and KH. As usual, it all comes down to what your trying to do with the system.

 

[Heeezil]

So what's with this moonlight? I only discovered last night when I decided to set up the light timer (which I'm still a little confuse about)!

Should I have the moonlight on all night?
A few hours of moonlight after the 10ish hours bright daylights, then some pitch blackness?
Not bother at all, just have the 10ish hours bright lights and then no lights?

Finding it difficult to find much information about it.
Got a planted sandy tank, don't know if it needs complete darkness or whether the blue light is dim enough for sleep and plants!

 

[DaveK]

You can do just about anything you want with the moonlights. They really don't do much for the tank besides looking cool. They are mostly decorative.

If your going to look at the tank with the main lights out, they are good. They also sometimes work when the main lighting is just a little too yellow. In that case you can leave them on all the time. They draw almost no power.

This is one area where you really can't go wrong. Use them any way that suits you.

 

[Heeezil]

Ah fair enough, I wasn't sure if they'd be too disruptive at night!