# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Comments on my new 90 setup, please.



## TortoiseBoy (Dec 30, 2004)

Hello,
This is my first post, though I have been lurking here and on other forums for a few weeks.

First, I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who posts here. The expert knowledge here is truly impressive, but the "non-experts" also deserve a lot of credit for asking such good questions.

Ok, I am in the process of setting up a new 90 gallon tank. I am now helping a friend of mine do the woodworking for the stand. It is a bit of a sticky process because I wanted my tortoise, Margie, to be able to live in the basement of the 90 stand









In terms of specs, I have ordered a 4x55w setup from AHS which from other threads I have read, should be adequate for my tank size. I am going with 2 x 6700K bulbs and 2 x GE 9325k bulbs (Light Bulbs Etc.) I bought an Eheim 2028 (Buergey2 on AquaBid.com) for filtration. I also bought a Milwaukee regulator and pH controller with an inline reactor from Glass Gardens. I am in the process of looking for a CO2 tank. The substrate will be Eco-Complete from AquariumPlants.com. That substrate calculator (Hawkeye's?) was absolutely fantastic. Thanks for putting that together. I am also planning on ordering PMDD and CSM+B Plantex from GregWatson.com. (I will be needing lots of advice on dosing this stuff when I get my tank cycled









Now for a couple of questions:
1) My stand will include a canopy plus a cabinet directly next to the tank that will house the CO2 and filter. I am a bit worried about heat from the light and filter. Will I be able to just cut some vent holes or slits in the tops of the canopy and cabinet to dissipate that heat, or will I need to put little fans in? I keep my house at about 78 in the summer.

2) Where should I buy my plants and how many should I get? I see lots of plant assortments online and they all look great. I am worried about the algae taking over if I don't have enough plants, but my budget is wearing thin after all of the above purchases. I also don't want to get so many plants that they don't have room to grow out to "adult size".

3) How many and what kind of fish do you recommend to cycle the tank? I am new to plants but not to fish, so I understand that the fish that I eventually want to get are not the ones that I want to cycle with (cardinals are tough enough in an established tank...). I plan on putting some SAE's and Ottos in there but should I do that at the very beginning? I have also had my eye on some checkerboard barbs. Are they going to eventually torment slow-moving or small fish like some of their other barb cousins would?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. Again, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with those of us who are just getting started. This forum seems to be a very special place.

Happy Holidays!

TB


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## TortoiseBoy (Dec 30, 2004)

Hello,
This is my first post, though I have been lurking here and on other forums for a few weeks.

First, I would like to say thank you so much to everyone who posts here. The expert knowledge here is truly impressive, but the "non-experts" also deserve a lot of credit for asking such good questions.

Ok, I am in the process of setting up a new 90 gallon tank. I am now helping a friend of mine do the woodworking for the stand. It is a bit of a sticky process because I wanted my tortoise, Margie, to be able to live in the basement of the 90 stand









In terms of specs, I have ordered a 4x55w setup from AHS which from other threads I have read, should be adequate for my tank size. I am going with 2 x 6700K bulbs and 2 x GE 9325k bulbs (Light Bulbs Etc.) I bought an Eheim 2028 (Buergey2 on AquaBid.com) for filtration. I also bought a Milwaukee regulator and pH controller with an inline reactor from Glass Gardens. I am in the process of looking for a CO2 tank. The substrate will be Eco-Complete from AquariumPlants.com. That substrate calculator (Hawkeye's?) was absolutely fantastic. Thanks for putting that together. I am also planning on ordering PMDD and CSM+B Plantex from GregWatson.com. (I will be needing lots of advice on dosing this stuff when I get my tank cycled









Now for a couple of questions:
1) My stand will include a canopy plus a cabinet directly next to the tank that will house the CO2 and filter. I am a bit worried about heat from the light and filter. Will I be able to just cut some vent holes or slits in the tops of the canopy and cabinet to dissipate that heat, or will I need to put little fans in? I keep my house at about 78 in the summer.

2) Where should I buy my plants and how many should I get? I see lots of plant assortments online and they all look great. I am worried about the algae taking over if I don't have enough plants, but my budget is wearing thin after all of the above purchases. I also don't want to get so many plants that they don't have room to grow out to "adult size".

3) How many and what kind of fish do you recommend to cycle the tank? I am new to plants but not to fish, so I understand that the fish that I eventually want to get are not the ones that I want to cycle with (cardinals are tough enough in an established tank...). I plan on putting some SAE's and Ottos in there but should I do that at the very beginning? I have also had my eye on some checkerboard barbs. Are they going to eventually torment slow-moving or small fish like some of their other barb cousins would?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. Again, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with those of us who are just getting started. This forum seems to be a very special place.

Happy Holidays!

TB


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

Uhmmm, I think you'd better order your ferts from someone else, like gregWATSON.com. Although gregfoster.com may be able to offer you tips on how to reach over the top of your tank without fouling it







.

Seriously though, with the ambient temp of your house at 78° you will need to get some fans installed in your canopy or else your tank will be in the mid 80°s when the lights are on. I you can work it into the design a couple of fans on the top blowing air out and a couple either on the back or sides blowing air in should keep things cool in your tank.

Look no further than the AquaBotanic store for your plants. What most of us do is order some 'keeper' plants, but also a bunch of cheap, fast growing stem plants (AquaBotanic has an algae buster package just for this purpose) that are only there to get the tank stable. Once that's accomplished these fast growers are either reduced in number (if you like the plants) or removed altogether and replaced with more desireable specimens.

With a heavily planted tank there is no traditional cycle as the plants will suck up the ammonia in the system before it gets a chance to be converted to nitrite then nitrate. That said, you should still probably wait a week before adding any fish just to let the plants settle in. I would add a few clean up crew memebers first (otos and corys), wait a few days while checking water params, then continue to slowly add more fish. I would not recomment you add more than a medium sized school of any one fish at a time at this stage in the tank's development.

I added 10 Cardinals two weeks after I started my heavily planted 40g tank. Then I added 8 Rummynoses a few days after. I still have all of them today. With so called 'delicate' fish, your success will have a lot to do with who you're buying the fish from. In both cases for me, the LFS had these particular fish for over a week so what I bought were the strongest of the group he got in.

Good luck to you!


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## TortoiseBoy (Dec 30, 2004)

Thanks for the input, Bill. I wasn't aware that the plants could virtually eliminate the spikes associated with cycling. Good advice on the fans and the fish. Thanks for the post!

TB
P.S. I have no idea how good GregFoster.com's fertilizers are, so I went back and edited my post


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## imported_BSS (Apr 14, 2004)

Just a word of advice on "removing" unwanted fish from a heavily planted tank. It *ain't* easy...unless you want to tear up a bunch of plants. I have a very large, lazy SAE I'd love to trade in to the lfs, but it's not worth chasing him from plant to plant with no guarantee of success.

Good luck on the new venture! Getting the ferts just right is something I'm still working on.

Brian.


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

Brian,
Fish trap or two nets.


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> 1) My stand will include a canopy plus a cabinet directly next to the tank that will house the CO2 and filter. I am a bit worried about heat from the light and filter. Will I be able to just cut some vent holes or slits in the tops of the canopy and cabinet to dissipate that heat, or will I need to put little fans in? I keep my house at about 78 in the summer.
> 
> ...


Hope this helped. Good luck and look forward to seeing your tank


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## Hawkeye (Aug 20, 2004)

Using Eco-Complete is going to make your set up allot easier. Eco-Complete comes with all things need to get your cycling started in the water its packed in. Make sure you add it to your tank when you set up. I have set up four tanks now with it, the biggest a 75gal. Just set up every thing from day one including your CO2. Get some fast growing stem plants to start off with. They will start growing from day one. As far as the first fish to get, I all ways start off with 5-6 Black or Dalmatian Mollies. You will find these to be the best algae eater as long as you don't feed them much. The younger the harder they work. As they get older they get lazy.

Now to talk about heat. If you use a glass top under your canopy you might get by with just vents but if not you really should have some fans. If you water is on the upper end of 70s and low 80s, barbs will not be happy fish. They seem to like the cooler water. Tetra's can handle warmer water. 

Hawk


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by BSS:
> It *ain't* easy...unless you want to tear up a bunch of plants.


It's extremely easy with the right tool 
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9048&N=2004+113169


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## TortoiseBoy (Dec 30, 2004)

More good points, guys. Paul, I will give my LFS a try, but my experience is that they are more expensive and their plants are just dismal compared to what I can get online. Still worth a look, though. Hawkeye, I intend to use the glass tops for my tank because Kim at AHS made the good point that it is a lot easier to clean the glass lids than to clean bulbs and reflector. He said that I would get more drop off in light from dirty reflectors than from going through glass. Also, in your 75 gallon tank, how many bags of Eco-complete did you use? The calculator said just over 7 for 3 inches of gravel so I ordered 7. Thanks again and keep the advice coming!

TB


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## imported_BSS (Apr 14, 2004)

I've tried the two nets trick with minimal success. I'll have to look into one of those traps. Thanks!

TB - sorry for a bit of thread hi-jacking







!


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by TortoiseBoy:
> Also, in your 75 gallon tank, how many bags of Eco-complete did you use? The calculator said just over 7 for 3 inches of gravel so I ordered 7.


I hope you get an answer to this. I don't believe that 7 will be enough though. I have 3 bags that I bought for a 29 gallon and it doesn't look like it's going to be enough for that small tank. 30"x12" It's going to be close.

btw, where did you find a calculator for this?


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by BSS:
> I've tried the two nets trick with minimal success. I'll have to look into one of those traps. Thanks!
> ...


The trick to the two new method is to have one realy big net that you can just prop up in the corner of the tank. The second net should be small so you can maneuver it through the plants without doing damage. The goal is to coax the fish into the corner that the big net is sitting. As long as you don't move the big net the fish won't see it as a threat and basically net itself in it.
</threadjack>

Well, sorry to perpetuate the threadjack...


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## bharada (Apr 17, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by Margolis:
> 
> ...


My 125G tank used about 170# of mixed media, ~125# of coarse quartz river sand, 24# of Shultz APS, and 1 bag of Flourite. This gave me a minimum of 2.5" at the tanks edges, and a gradual slope to the back center of about 4". Of course since river sand is $9 per 100# bag I just bought three bags to be safe. Buying 300# of Flourite or Eco-Complete would have just made me cry.


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## TortoiseBoy (Dec 30, 2004)

The calculator I saw was at:

http://www.plantedtank.net/substratecalculator.html

I don'y know how accurate it is, but it actually allowed me to select Eco-Complete as the substrate, so there is no excuse if it is off









TB


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## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

A general rule that is good to use is to have about 2-inch gravels in the front and 4-inch toward the back. Once you get the hang of this it will become second nature to arrange and add things. Some people also use 2lb per gallon rule; I did the same with my 10-gal which used 1 bag of Eco~roughly 20lb.


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