[Ladd210]

I am in the process of setting up a 180 tank. Will be using a sump and canister filter with UV. Plan to have a regular aqua sky and a fluval 3.0. Will be building up my hills with lava rock under bagged ultum control soil with finishing sand on top. Keeping South Americans, including geos.

I have them in a 75 now and for the most part they leave my plants in there alone. I know South Americans are notorious for eating plants but mine do not bother my crypts swords anubias and Java fern.

Going to do a 2 island set up that is planted fairly heavily. In the 75 my plants tend to be a bit melted and I get a pretty decent algae growth if I don’t scrub and water change once a week.

considering a co2 system for the 180g. Looking for recommendations on quantity scheduling and equipment. I have watched several videos but there’s very little out there about LARGE planted tanks.

thanks everyone

 

[Le duke]

What exactly do you want to know about scheduling? There are several dosing calculators out there.

Commonly used one:

https://rotalabutterfly.com

Re: CO2 equipment. Most people with larger tanks use a reactor of some sort. Connected to their filtration (canister, sump) system. You an buy them or make your own. They help get nearly complete dissolution of CO2, resulting in more effective use of your CO2 and also eliminating distracting bubbles.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[CoveBeach]

Is there a particular reason you want to use a cannister in addition to a sump? I’m running a 245 display with sump only. I’m also running co2 on the tank with a diffuser placed directly in front of my return pump inlet. It seems to work fairly well for me. My equipment came from CO2 Art which has been trouble free for over a year now. If you like take a look at my build thread under 245 Starfire FishTV.

 

[puopg]

Is there a particular reason you want to use a cannister in addition to a sump?

I'd gather the canister is just to drive the UV assuming its inline.

 

[rzn7z7]

I have a 225 so 6" inches taller than your 180 (assuming your is 72" x 24" x 24")....everything pretty much just scaled up accordingly from the 75 gallon I had previously (i.e., triple the filtration, CO2, ferts, etc.)...I stuck with canister filters but see you've chosen a mix of canister and sump....at 180 gallons a lot of people would opt for just the sump

Probably the biggest challenge is lighting...it takes powerful lights to light up tanks this big...you may want to get your hands on a par meter OR experiment with the par meter app (whose name escapes me) to ensure yours is adequate

 

[Ladd210]

What exactly do you want to know about scheduling? There are several dosing calculators out there.

Commonly used one:

https://rotalabutterfly.com

Re: CO2 equipment. Most people with larger tanks use a reactor of some sort. Connected to their filtration (canister, sump) system. You an buy them or make your own. They help get nearly complete dissolution of CO2, resulting in more effective use of your CO2 and also eliminating distracting bubbles.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

for scheduling I have seen various times of 1-3 hours before lights turn on. Was wondering how much this mattered and what was best?

A reactorwould take the place of a diffuser sitting in the tank and would occur in the filtration system?

Is there a particular reason you want to use a cannister in addition to a sump? I’m running a 245 display with sump only. I’m also running co2 on the tank with a diffuser placed directly in front of my return pump inlet. It seems to work fairly well for me. My equipment came from CO2 Art which has been trouble free for over a year now. If you like take a look at my build thread under 245 Starfire FishTV.

Got a fairly nice canister for free and want to use it for the UV and also redundancy. I always run two types of everything in all my tanks just in case.

I will check out the thread today. Thanks.

I have a 225 so 6" inches taller than your 180 (assuming your is 72" x 24" x 24")....everything pretty much just scaled up accordingly from the 75 gallon I had previously (i.e., triple the filtration, CO2, ferts, etc.)...I stuck with canister filters but see you've chosen a mix of canister and sump....at 180 gallons a lot of people would opt for just the sump

Probably the biggest challenge is lighting...it takes powerful lights to light up tanks this big...you may want to get your hands on a par meter OR experiment with the par meter app (whose name escapes me) to ensure yours is adequate

I will be using a 48” 59w fluval aquasky and a 48” 59w fluval plant 3.0. Both hung approx 12” above the tank. Was thinking this would be sufficient, bordering on too much, do you disagree? Again thanks to all. I’m not new to tanks by any means but this will be my last tank and I’m shooting for perfection.

 

[minorhero]

for scheduling I have seen various times of 1-3 hours before lights turn on. Was wondering how much this mattered and what was best?

A reactorwould take the place of a diffuser sitting in the tank and would occur in the filtration system?

Regarding when the co2 turns on, it just depends on how ocd you are Some people really want their co2 at the absolute max their fish can survive for absolutely as long as the lights are on. Other people don't care as much as any amount of co2 is beneficial and how hard you drive your co2 and plant growth really depends on how bright your lights are and access to nutrients and speed of plant growth etc. I personally just turn my co2 on when my lights come on and leave it on until the lights turn off at the end of the day. I also don't drive my co2 very hard preferring a bit slower growth to everything.

A reactor does replace a diffuser. It's part of the plumbing under the tank. You typically run it off of a return from your sump or the return from the canister filter if you prefer. I like to run mine on a bypass. The reactor is on the left hand side after the filter in this picture:

 

[CoveBeach]

If i remember correctly my co2 comes on about 1.5 hrs before lights start to ramp on. I went with a diffuser directly in front of the return pump inlet. I’m running about 18’ of head on my return already so i did not want to add any more by plumbing anything else onto my return pump. Given the length of my return plumbing at nearly 25’it acts as a giant reactor. My UV is run by a separate dc variable speed pump that pulls from the intake side of my sump and returns it back to same.