# 250 gallon planted tank



## Spood420 (Aug 12, 2012)

Hello- 

I would like to thank everyone in advance for any ideas, websites,etc and your help. Thanks for reading this and I hope to make this a great tread.

Little about the tank, ...yesterday it was a reef tank, and today it is a fresh water planted tank in the making. Everything I did not need for the fresh water tank was removed today and just got finished filling it with water to start the cycle.

Its a in wall 250 gallon tank (96"x24"x25") with an active 150 gallon sump underneath. 

I have 2 ATI lights over it (6x54w) so a total of 648w, giving me a total of 2.5w per gallon. I dont know if that matters much any more. 

I have a calcium reactor that i was going to use to add co2 to the water colomn and a controller made by apex that i was going to control everything with. 

So I think i have everything needed to have a planted tank... right? 

Now on to the questions.

1. that amount of light is okay to grow most aquatic plants? they can be positioned 3" off the water or 2 feet off the water easily moved.

2. what shall i set my co2 bubble counter at as a bench mark?

3. how much flow is required for most plants?

4. what type of plants will do well with my set up? 

5. I plan on keeping peacocks, haps, and a few victorian cichlids, in there. What plants work well with the, from what i know they are some times destructive toward plants.

6. what are some good web sites to visit for plants and ideas?



Thanks so much for your help. i want ot make sure i do everything right the first time. I learned my lesson with the reef tank!

Chris


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## Fishguy10 (Aug 6, 2011)

Hello and welcome to APC. I'm still fairly new, but I'll try to help you out. 

1. 2.5wpg should be fine for most plants. Your tank is fairly deep so you will lose some light intensity through the water, but you should still be fine. Personally, I would rather have a little too much light than not enough, so I would keep the lights fairly close to the water. 

2. Getting a CO2 drop checker would probably be a good idea. Bubble counts vary so much based on size of aquarium, water flow, and how much of the CO2 bubbles dissolve in the water. Maybe start at 1 or 2 bubbles per second and see how that goes. Do you have any fish? 

3. The plants themselves don't really need flow, but flow is required to circulate nutrients like CO2. If you can see plants gently swaying throughout the tank, your flow should be fine. 

4. Anubias, Crypts, Valls would probably work. You could try looking through the PlantFinder here to learn more about certain plants. 

5. Chiclids can be destructive towards plants. You will have to choose plants that can take being uprooted and maybe eaten. It may be a good idea to pick plants that either attach to objects or develop extensive root systems. What pH and other water conditions will you have for the chiclids?

6. Try the PlantFinder here. You could also use tropica or aquariumplants. Try looking for some plants and then you can ask about them here. 

Do you plan on dosing any fertilizer? 

Hope this helps, and good luck. 


Out of curiosity, what went wrong with your reef tank?


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

For water flow and circulation there are two or three threads that get into flow types in the Filtration sub-forum you might want to check out.


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## Spood420 (Aug 12, 2012)

Fishguy10 said:


> Hello and welcome to APC. I'm still fairly new, but I'll try to help you out.
> 
> 1. 2.5wpg should be fine for most plants. Your tank is fairly deep so you will lose some light intensity through the water, but you should still be fine. Personally, I would rather have a little too much light than not enough, so I would keep the lights fairly close to the water.
> 
> ...


chris


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

If you are coming from a reef tank backround it will be very important for you to understand what is different about a planted tank:

1. You do not have a protein skimmer any more.
You are about to see how profound is the effect of organics that you cannot see. Your biological filter is now the tool #1 to remove organics. Do not try to remove them by using micron filter pads, frequent water changes, resins etc. You want the system to work for it's own health, not for you to do all the work to maintain it clean. A reef tank is like a dying man hooked up to a life support system. It can not support itself without the little hoses, fluids, and equipment. A planted tank is far from that IF it is setup right.

For your big tank with a sump you should look at the way the big Takashi Amano tank filtration is setup. Basically a huge sump with bioballs AND a lot of flow. There is also a best way to arrange the water flow inside the tank. Just stirring everything up with a huge flow rate like in a reef tank is not the best in a planted tank.

2. Despite most of the information that you will find about fertilization the best choice is to NOT have readable Nitrate and Phosphate in your water. You can run a planted tank with readable N and P but you are constantly walking a fine line. If anything goes wrong your big tank will turn into an algae ridden cesspool within 2-3 days.

3. The plants must have N and P. This is not a reef tank in which you strip everyting from the water and dose carefully whatever you think the living things need. In a planted tank you are constantly maintaining a dirty system because you have no choice - the plants need to eat something, right. The common misconception is that having some balance of N and P in the water is the right way. But the Japanese do something different - the substrate provides all the nutrients and there is minimal dosing of fertilizers in the water (only as much as the plants can eat in a few hours and always maintain zero nutrients in the water).

4. In a big tank like that the CO2 needs to be gushing as there is no tomorrow. Especially with a sump whose plumbing causes turbulent water flow in and out of hoses and makes the CO2 fly out of the water. The CO2 doesn't need to be sky high at all times (needs to be off at night). By maintaining a high (30 ppm) CO2 all the time you are severely supressing the biofilter at all times (see Item 1 again).

Be aware that most planted tank folk will gladly give you advice but don't really know what they are talking about. Most people's advice comes from their own experience with a few tanks that amount to "this is what worked for me". I am no different and the "big names" in this online community are no different. Above all - use common sense. The above 4 are a good start.


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## Spood420 (Aug 12, 2012)

niko said:


> If you are coming from a reef tank backround it will be very important for you to understand what is different about a planted tank:
> 
> 1. You do not have a protein skimmer any more.
> You are about to see how profound is the effect of organics that you cannot see. Your biological filter is now the tool #1 to remove organics. Do not try to remove them by using micron filter pads, frequent water changes, resins etc. You want the system to work for it's own health, not for you to do all the work to maintain it clean. A reef tank is like a dying man hooked up to a life support system. It can not support itself without the little hoses, fluids, and equipment. A planted tank is far from that IF it is setup right.
> ...


chris


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## Fishguy10 (Aug 6, 2011)

Increased water flow doesn't mean that you will go through CO2 faster, just that the CO2 you put in the tank is more evenly distributed and gets to all of the plants. Same with ferts, the water flow helps to distribute them to the plants (if you dose in the water column). 

I do not know of any CO2 tester/meter that we could use underwater. If you are able to find one it would be interesting to see. For the most part, I think people use drop checkers. Drop checkers rely on equilibrium between the CO2 dissolved in the water and a small chamber of air in the drop checker so they don't necesarily react to increases in CO2 very fast. They may not give perfect readings, but they do provide a ball-park answer. You'll have time to tune in your CO2 before you get fish. 

Water flow is actually a very important part of any tank. There is a lot of great information over on the filtration sub-forum (thank you niko and mudboots and others who have contributed). You should definetly read through those threads.


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## K Randall (Nov 23, 2004)

Fishguy10 said:


> For the most part, I think people use drop checkers. Drop checkers rely on equilibrium between the CO2 dissolved in the water and a small chamber of air in the drop checker so they don't necesarily react to increases in CO2 very fast. They may not give perfect readings, but they do provide a ball-park answer. You'll have time to tune in your CO2 before you get fish.


If you know the KH in your tank, all you need is to check the pH to have a good idea what your CO2 level is. The chart to figure this out is available in many books and on the web. Here is one of the many:

\http://www.gpodio.com/co2_chart.asp

Basically, this is what a drop checker does too... measure the pH at a known KH level.


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## Spood420 (Aug 12, 2012)

Fishguy10 said:


> Increased water flow doesn't mean that you will go through CO2 faster, just that the CO2 you put in the tank is more evenly distributed and gets to all of the plants. Same with ferts, the water flow helps to distribute them to the plants (if you dose in the water column).
> 
> >>> ok, i would have thought the more surface disruption the more the CO2 would have escaped...
> 
> ...


Thanks, Chris


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## Spood420 (Aug 12, 2012)

K Randall said:


> If you know the KH in your tank, all you need is to check the pH to have a good idea what your CO2 level is. The chart to figure this out is available in many books and on the web. Here is one of the many:
> 
> \http://www.gpodio.com/co2_chart.asp
> 
> Basically, this is what a drop checker does too... measure the pH at a known KH level.


I knew that adding CO2 will lower the pH, but I need my pH to stay round 8.2-8.6 for the African Cichlids... IS there another linkie for pH above 8.2?


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## Fishguy10 (Aug 6, 2011)

Surface agitation reduces CO2 levels, but some surface agitation is fine. You can position your sump output and any pumps to avoid surface agitation and increase flow around and towards the plants. 

The pH/KH/CO2 relationship is what drop checkers rely on. The problem with using tank water for this relationship is that your water is being affected by so many different variables that it may not be accurate. If your water has buffers or other things that alter KH/pH it may throw the balance off. The nice thing about a drop checker is the water inside it can not be contaminated, so whatever KH you make the water, that is the value you know is stable. 

It might be difficult to keep high levels of CO2 in your tank. Having high pH, high KH, and high CO2 levels goes against the pH/KH/CO2 relationship. I've always had very soft, slightly acidic water, so I may be wrong, but I think you will have to rely on buffers to keep your KH and pH up. 

The other option you have is to choose plants that don't need CO2 (and maybe raise your light fixture or reduce your light intensity another way in order to avoid algae).


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