# Just getting started...



## Poom (Jul 15, 2009)

Hello,

I live in Plano, and would love to start a planted aquarium... I have most of the equipment needed to get started, I think. 20 Gallon Aqurium, 65 watt lighting and a canister filter. I want to get a CO2 system, though I'm not sure which one would be most appropriate for my tank. 
I'm mostly having trouble finding the rocks and the plants that I would like. Which local stores sell rocks and plants around here? I have been to about 15 Pet Stores, they sell the same generic plants Moneywort, Duckweed and Anubis. I was looking for rotala rotundifolia, didiplis diandra and hemianthus callitrichoides "Cuba". As for rocks, I was looking for Red Lava stone at a pretty good size. 

Thank you for any responses, I appreciate it.


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## JAXON777 (Jan 4, 2007)

The plant club will help you out more so than any LFS around town. I dont have any of the plants you are looking for but as a club we have over 100 different species among our members. As for rock you might be better looking at landscaping company's. I dont know of any but again someone should chime in. Good thing about our club is members cannot sell plants to each other meaning if you are a member and someone has some they can only trade you or give them to you. Hope this helps and glad to hear you are getting into planted tanks.

JAX


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## Vivarium Concepts (Sep 6, 2006)

*Welcome!
Best place to find lava rock at a reasonable price is to hit the rock yards. There is AAA Sand and Stone on HWY 5 (Ave K) at Legacy. I shop there frequently!

Like Jaxon said, the best place to get plants is from the club members.

Good luck with the tank, keep us posted on it's progress.
*


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## MacFan (Jul 30, 2006)

All the stone I've bought in the last couple years has been from Custom Stone Supply (customstone.com). They have several locations.

I go to the location here:
2627 Joe Field Rd 
Dallas, TX‎
(972) 243-1144

Last time I asked, they said they didn't have large lava rock, but their Keller location did. You might want to call to confirm before driving over there. 
2725 Prestige Rd
Keller, TX 76248-9535
(817) 337-4408

The best local store for plants is Fish Gallery on Greenville Rd between Walnut Hill and Park Ln (not Ave).

But as others have already said, you can get a far greater selection for free from local club members.

For a tank that size, you could get away with a yeast-based CO2 reactor, but they're kind of a pain, and if you go to a larger tank they won't be big enough. If you think you're going to stay in the hobby/get a larger or more tanks/just want an easier source, get a real CO2 system. You can get the regulator on Ebay fairly cheaply. You can also turn to Ebay for the tank. That one looks new, but you can get a used one. Doesn't matter what it looks like as long as it's a CO2 tank with the green diamond sticker on it. You will most likely exchange the tank for a full one, so don't bother getting a pretty one. If you get a 10lb or 20lb tank you can take it to any of the Home Depots in Plano or Irving and exchange it for less than $20. You can buy a tank there too, but it's like $238 or something outrageous. Elsewhere you can go to a welding supply place and exchange it, though inside Dallas there are extra fees that make it more expensive. Home Depots in Dallas don't carry welding gases at all.

You can get a pH monitor if you want, but don't bother with a controller. It makes sense in theory, but after years of using them, I find it's not worth it. Turn the CO2 on 1hr before your lights come on, and off 1hr before they go off and run at a constant rate. It's how many of the pros in the community do it and it works fine for me as well. You can use a chemical CO2 "drop checker" to determine whether you're adding enough CO2.

For a tank that size, you can use pretty much any substrate you want. If you want to grow difficult plants like HC, and aren't going to have fish that like to dig, you can consider Aqua Soil Amazonia I. If you prefer another specialty substrate, Flourite is pretty popular and is now available in black. Or if you want really cheap, you can look up Clemtex and they will sell you 100lb bags of #3 or #4 size Black Beauty sandblasting substrate for $14/bag. I've converted almost all my tanks to it, and I love it. They have a super fine #6 but I wouldn't recommend it. I prefer #3 myself.

Get everything together and when you're ready, plant the tank very heavily. Literally, overplant it if you can. You can always remove/trim plants. But your tank will be far more stable if you pack it full of plants from the start. Don't plan on adding fish for 2-4 weeks. Light for 4-6 hrs per day at first, use CO2 and fertilize at half-dose until you see new plant growth. Do 50% water changes weekly and fertilize consistently, whichever method you choose.

Michael


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## northtexasfossilguy (Mar 6, 2009)

Dallas north aquarium has a great selection of rocks right now, I just went up there last night. They have a pile out back thats about 4 feet tall of huge blocks of "lace rock" (whitish lava rock) and a bunch of other stuff. The reason I recommend that is the texture is so variable it will add lots of eye grabbing elements to that 20 gallon. Its like $1.99 / lb as most places are. They also have some black "lava rock" that I thought looked awesome.

For wood, go to Fish Gallery, but its usually expensive.

I would just get a powerhead and build a DIY CO2 reactor out of an empty 2 liter bottle. All you need is to put sugar water in there and get a packet of yeast and put that in there. You use airline tubing siliconed into the lid of the bottle, then attach that either to a powerhead or better yet to your filter intake, run the hose down inside the line running to your canister, and your canister filter will swirl it around, but put a valve on the line at the top of the bottle so that you can close it at night. You shake it up every once in a while, and once when you first start it up to "activate" the yeast. 

If you want the expensive method, I'm pretty satisfied with my Milwaukee SMS122 pH controller, bubble counter and regulator package I got. Look around for a CO2 bottle on Craigslist.com and you'll get the best deal. Usually people have the big soda machine ones, but anyway this is not necessary for that small a tank from what I've seen.


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## alta678 (Mar 24, 2009)

So much nice info on running CO2. Thanks!


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## Poom (Jul 15, 2009)

Hey guys!

Thank you for all the help! I got my Lava stones at Dallas North Aquarium. I ended up getting a few plants there too. Someone from the Forum was there, though I'm not sure who it was... 
I got my tank all set up now, I will be taking pictures this afternoon!


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## northtexasfossilguy (Mar 6, 2009)

Lol, I think it was me.


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## MacFan (Jul 30, 2006)

For cheap bubble counters, USA Aquarium up in Plano has them for $4.99 which is half the price of anywhere else. They're out of them, but they had ceramic diffusers. They'll get more some day... but they wait until they can fill a shipping container in china and bring it over. They've been out for months. This store also has a good price on frozen bloodworms... $2-3/pack I think when bought as a case of 10. 

Odyssey Pets in Plano has nice driftwood at a much more reasonable price. At least they have in the past. After buying several big pieces for $100/pc at fish gallery, I got my centerpiece at Odyssey Pets for like $25! (Disclosure: I know the people who own Odyssey Pets.)

Dallas North Aquarium is insanely expensive for everything and I have personally found their livestock to be of poor quality. 

Fish Gallery has the best overall fish selection and the best overall plant selection locally, though unfortunately they buy from vendors that grow plants emmersed so what you see in the store is frequently not what you will get once it grows underwater. You have to go by the names to get what you want and wait for the plants to drop the emmersed leaves and grow immersed leaves. (Vendors grow like this because plants grow faster like that and you don't get algae. But that means we're stuck with those leaves dying off once we get them home.) Since they had a fire a year or two ago and renovated the store, the store is much nicer, but their prices have gone up. They're a good place and the people are knowledgeable. But usually only buy livestock there. 

Rift 2 Reef in Lewisville (weird hours, check before you go) has a great selection of Apistos and some other specialty fish. Their prices on those are approximately 1/3 of what Fish Gallery charges for the same thing. But it's kind of a hike up there from Dallas. 

Petsmart is good for your standard dither fish. Don't buy common pleco or so-called "chinese algae eaters" there. The former will outgrow your tank, the latter can be abusive to other fish and it doesn't eat algae. Instead, seek out bristlenose plecos elsewhere, they eat algae and don't grow very large. 

I've never thought Petco or Walmart were worth buying livestock from.

Petorama in Plano used to be good but has gone seriously downhill. The store smells bad, the tanks are not well maintained, and their product stock is spotty. I haven't been to the one in Bedford in a while so can't say how they're holding up. 

Boutique Pet store in Garland is really good. Good selection, decent prices. 

PetLand in Arlington is pretty decent. I got some great Congo Tetras there a year or so ago. They were nicer than some I've seen at Fish Gallery in the past. 

I've been to a couple other stores in Dallas but none really stood out. 

On the Fort Worth side of town:

True Percula was started by a guy with a bunch of money from family, and not any real business experience. The store looks pretty, but the prices are very high and the livestock is hit or miss. 

Amazon Aquarium on Camp Bowie just came under new management. Last time I was there, the place wasn't in good shape, but they were trying to get it cleaned up. 

Fish Place in Green Oaks mall is pretty good. They keep their aquariums in good shape. 

Keller Farms is a neat place in a house. It's jammed full of tanks, plus has tanks and plants out behind the house... complete with a small cow last time I was there! 

Went to Houston for their club's plant-fest a few months ago...

Fish Ranch II is an older store that is quite large and was in the middle of renovation. But if you looked, they had a lot of great livestock. We got a bunch of wild caught apistos and Odessa "Ticto" Barbs. Both at incredible prices. 

Houston Aquarium Warehouse is a cool place in an industrial warehouse. It's run by a retired airforce guy who is a hobbiest and does it because he enjoys it. He carries amazing Discus. After spending years raising discus in his garage, he now buys from breeders overseas because it takes up less time. We bought juvenile Roseline Barbs for an amazing $12 each. We got 15 and he threw in 2 for free. Every single one of them lived. This compared to the $30 adult ones we've bought in the past and lost. He said he will ship Discus up here for $34/box to Love Airport. He said there are 6 flights per day and they'd be here in an hour or so. I haven't taken him up on it, but it's definitely something I would consider. 

There is a Fish Gallery there too, in an old seafood restaurant. It's much larger and nicer than the one here even after renovation. They had lots of stuff but we didn't buy anything there. 

We also got to see Aquatic Design Group while there. They're neat to see, lots of Amano displays, but they're not a retail shop. They do professional installations in stores and homes. 

We checked out places in Austin a couple years ago too. Some things of interest but I don't remember anymore. 

Great stuff in San Francisco but that's for another day. 

Michael


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## chunkylover817 (Sep 28, 2007)

MacFan said:


> Houston Aquarium Warehouse is a cool place in an industrial warehouse. It's run by a retired airforce guy who is a hobbiest and does it because he enjoys it. He carries amazing Discus. After spending years raising discus in his garage, he now buys from breeders overseas because it takes up less time. We bought juvenile Roseline Barbs for an amazing $12 each. We got 15 and he threw in 2 for free. Every single one of them lived. This compared to the $30 adult ones we've bought in the past and lost. He said he will ship Discus up here for $34/box to Love Airport. He said there are 6 flights per day and they'd be here in an hour or so. I haven't taken him up on it, but it's definitely something I would consider.
> 
> Michael


whoa i didnt know if you shipped via airport it would only take an hour, hmmm.... i do remember talking to him over the phone he always uses delta to delta, and is very professional, good place to get altums from...



MacFan said:


> True Percula was started by a guy with a bunch of money from family, and not any real business experience. The store looks pretty, but the prices are very high and the livestock is hit or miss.


AGREED...


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