New FW Tank!!

[rthompson14]

Hey guys!!!

Ok, so for the past 6 or 8 months my 2 South American Chiclids and my 1 African Chiclid have been stuck in a 10gal, and my African Chiclid has grown so much in the past months. They have been due for a serious upgrade. Poor guys. The African is agressive and many people dont mix them with South American Chiclids. I found they pretty much left each other alone, but when the African Chiclid was out of his house "cove" they all ran and hid. Typical.

Anyway I picked up a 44 gallon corner Pentagon Glass tank off craigslist for $100 with a bad light fixture. Came with heater and large external filter....which I dont know much about. I'll post pics tomarrow of the filter.....though I got it running I dont wanna take it apart for internal pics. I was hoping someone could tell me about the filter and how often to clean "everything" in it. It's a canister filter, divided into 2 major sections. On the left is a cartridge that holds 4 sponges...that one I understand. On the right is a stack of 3 sections....top section has what looks like gravel, middle section has ceramic "pellets with holes in the middle", bottom section has gravel. I'm guessing that every 2 weeks or so I should throughouly rinse every part of the inside of this filter? Wasn't sure if one of the sections might be for bacterial growth and should be left alone.

So I hit the LFS and picked up a new light fixture ($-40) and a T8 high lumen bulb ($-18) as I am doing live plants (first time dabbling in live plants) that require high light (cause the selection was bigger than that of the low light plants). Got a random cattail? (honestly not sure what kinda plant it is) and some special gravel that has all kinds of good stuff in it for live plants, and was told I could mix it with regular gravel. So I picked up 30 lbs of the plant gravel and 15lbs of the normal gravel. Got about a 3" bed in the bottom of the tank.

I've never used a gravel filter nor do I know anything about it. When setting up my tank I put this large white gravel filter in the bottom and covered it with gravel, in the rear it has a large tube that goes about 3/4 of the way to the top of the tank.....so assuming bad stuff settles down through the gravel and goes up through the tube....I have the top of this tube very close to my inlet for my external filter......and I'm guessing this is set up right? The tank came with a HUGE box of extra tubes and hang on back filters and resivoirs and all kinds of fake plants and such. So I may not have the gravel filter set up right, hoping you guys would know a little about that?

So all my chiclids are getting along great now, they have plenty of room so they don't really seem to bother each other...I think they are in a much happier place now ....It's late so I don't have it in me to take pics and upload tonight, but will follow this post tomarrow after work with pics of the tank.

Suggestions on the setup of the gravel filter guys?

 

[whippetguy]

I'd ditch the gravel filter and stick with the canister filter. I typically clean my canister once a month and rinse all components with the old tank water from a water change so as not to kill off any beneficial bacteria. I use carbon in one of the trays to keep the water clear. I'm thinking of changing out my plain carbon for chemipure with my next water change.

 

[tomr33]

Don't wash the ceramic rings those are for the beneficial bacteria...unless they are all gunked up to where u can't tell what they are...then rinse with tank water...never tap water

 

[DaveK]

Can you post a picture of your canister filter and tell us the manufacturer and model of it? It's really tough to tell exactly what you should be doing with it from only a short written description.

On filter media for canister filters. This applies to using them in FW tanks. There are two types of ring that you usually see.

Here is an example of the first type (offsite) - http://www.marinedepot.com/EHFIMECH...ia-Eheim-EH2507051-FIFMMECR-EH2507051-vi.html
This product is solid ceramic rings and is strictly a mechanical media. You can simply rinse this out under tap water to clean it.

Here is an example of the 2nd type (offsite) - http://www.marinedepot.com/Hagen_Fl...l_Filter_Media-Hagen-HG11456-FIFMMECR-vi.html
This product is porous rings and is a biological media. It should be cleaned in tank water you remove during water changes, so as not to disturb the bacteria in it.

In either case, the media need not be rings. There are plenty of other shapes and sizes you can use.

One of the nice things about canister filters on planted tanks is that you don't need to clean them very often. As long as the water flow is good, they can go months between cleanings. Does this mean that it will become a "nitrate factory"? To some extent, yes, but that is actually a good think in a planted tank, since you want that for plant growth.

Planted tanks and chiclids can be done, but it's really tough. This is because chichlids really like to dig. With out too much trouble they can ruin your entire aquascape, leaving nothing but rocks. If your going to do this, consider the plants you are going to use. For rooted plants, consider something that has a big tough root structure, like anubias species. Also consider plants like java fern and java moss which can be grown on driftwood.

High light requirement plants need a lot of special handling. Be careful on your selection here. Many of them require extensive fertilization and/or CO2 injection to do well. Think of these as the "sps corals" of the planted aquarium world. As usual do you research before you buy.

I would recommend starting with low to medium light plants. It's a lot easier setup and maintenance. You'll find the selection extensive.

Lighting for planted tanks is very different from reef systems. Typical medium light would be a 1 to 2 bulb T5 fixture. High light would be about a 4 bulb T5 fixture, and would just about require CO2 injection to keep the system from becoming an algae farm. The T8 fixture you have would qualify for low to medium light.

Bulb selection is quite a bit different also. As usual, lighting is very subjective. You typically use bulbs with a color temp of about 6500K. This is about what you get off a conventional incandescent bulb. Over my 90 gal tank I use two 54w Midday bulbs and two 54w Aquaflora bulbs. The midday bulbs are more or less full spectrum and the aquaflora are sort of pink looking.

Substrate for planted tanks is another area where you have a lot of choices. What your using will get you started, but at some point you might want to look into some of the other ones. Since you didn't tell us exactly what the "plant gravel" is, I can't offer specific advice.

In my opinion, undergravel filters have no place at all in modern planted tanks. Don't use them. They draw a lot of dirt into the substrata. They are also going to a lot of plant roots growing into them, which makes plants hard to remove with out a lot of damage. Lastly they do not filter evenly often creating dead spots. Leave them out.

Live plants require fertilization. You can start with the products from your LFS, but long term, look into using dry products and making your own solutions. It's a lot less expensive. It requires a lot of mental gear shift changes for a planted tank. In a reef we want nitrates and phosphates to be as close to 0 as possible. In a planted tank you want them and you want them in a balance of about 10 to 1, nitrate to phosphate. You'll also see that algae control is different too. Usually in a planted tank, you set it up so the plants out compete the algae.

 

[rthompson14]

Amazingly Helpful. All kinds of good information in there Dave. What sucks is that gravel filter is already buried in my tank. Sounds like I'm going to have to take some stuff out and try to remove that gravel filter. I'm going to the LFS again today and going to see what they have for long root plants. Definately dont want those Chiclids digging them up.

When I get home I'll get the name off the bag of substrate and I'll look at the box the bulb was in to see how many K it was...I think it was alot higher than 6500k but not positive. I know they were trying to find me a 15000k bulb but not sure what I ended up with.

Can I use the same test kit for nitrates that I use for my SW tank?

 

[DaveK]

You may end up having to order your plants online. Most LFSs in this day and age have a very limited selection of live plants. When planting, you want to plant it with the idea of it being almost a jungle in there once they grow out.

You may have to change out your bulb. 15000K is great for a reef, but much too blue for a planted tank.

Check your test kits, but most tests for nitrate and phosphate can be used in FW or SW.

 

[rthompson14]

I will be putting in more plants, just experimenting with different plants the couple LFS's had.

 

[DaveK]

The canister filter you have is a Fluval, so it should do you well and last a long time.

With the plantings, stem plants, those are the ones that come in a bunch with a rubber band, you should remove the rubber band and trim just above where the rubber band was, and plant each strand individually. You can plant a lot of strands close together. As they grow, you an cut the top off, and then plant that. You can either then remove the bottom part, if it looks bad, or just let it regrow from there.

 

[rthompson14]

My plants are dying! They are turning brown, 3 of them! I'm gonna call the LFS in the morning. I did everything they said, I bought the lights they told me, the substrate they told me, the bottle of nutrition that I keep in il the fridge. fish are happy.

Why does this seem harder than maintaining my saltwater tank?