Craigslist caused me to go high tech!! Any help/advice appreciated

[drewsuf82]

OK so WOW what a day! I've been hemming and hawing the last year or so on going over to better lighting and CO2 and the whole nine yards, and then an ad came up on craigslist so good I just had to throw the rest down on the card today and make a leap

So I am planning on doing a journal here at some point of the transition however here is what I have now...

I got the following for $175 today:
20 LB (nearly full) co2 tank
Aquarium plants.com co2 electronic regulator with built in electronic bubble counter
Canister filter in line CO2 Diffuser
Milwaukee PH controller (which is broke atm but is under the warranty that I will be sending out)
A box full of random things to go with the co2 setup, hoses, pac, co2 monitor for the tank etc etc etc

So I figured why not, I made the jump and went with the following to go along with it:
Marineland Magnum 350 pro canister filter (yes I know theres others but I got it for an awesome deal) brand new in box
Versa-Top Lids
48" T5HO 2x54 watt bulbs

So while I'm getting ready to take pics of putting it together (well hopefully) I wanted to know what you guys think.

Did I get a good deal, what things do I need to look out for now ? I do have ferts and stuff which are for higher tech tanks so that part is covered but any advice which you could give me would be UBER appreciated...it's funny when I was thinking about doing this, I wasn't really overwhelmed, now that I am looking at all of this I'm kinda

[tetra73]

That 20lb alone is about $140+. Nice deal. I would probably check for leaks on the regulator. Do a search on the message board and you should be able to figure out how to check for leaks. Ph controller? Bubble counter? Frankly, you may be injecting so much CO2 that you couldn't even count the bubbles. Get a CO2 drop checker. Ph controller? I never worry about my Ph. My soleniod would should off one hour before the end of the light cycle. Precisely at this time, I have the highest CO2 level with the CO2 drop checker's color in deep yellow. I see no need for a Ph controller. I also keep my KH around 4 degree. My PH would not go lower than 6.3.

108w is a lot of light. What size tank you are going to use it on? That would put you in the medium to high light on a tank less than 55g. You may need 2 filters though. The Mangum should be used for biological filtration (with the bio wheel and maybe using 2???). And another canister filter to attach to the CO2 diffuser.

[drewsuf82]

I've updated my signature for all of the pertinent info on this tank in my Journal