[coral.trout]

Hey guys,

My names Justin from Perth Western Australia.

First post but I've been following your threads for a while now and I'm looking at starting my first decent size planted tank!

So first of all little bit of history, I've been keeping a reef tank for over a year now and I simply cannot keep up with the ongoing costs of it, it's been somewhat successful but I feel I'm constantly chasing my tail with it.

And I just cannot bring myself around to just shutting it down and putting the tank and all my gear in a shed to gather dust or even worse.. Sell it all. (there's nothing better than coming home and staring at the tank for hours and watching all the critters and fish etc..


So I'd just like some of you to give me a basic guide to starting a fresh water set up from my reef setup if possible? As Ive been convinced it's a hell of a lot more cost effective and prone to much less crashes than the reef chemistry.

Firstly, I think I have all the gear I need for now to get her up and running.

270 litre L1.2m x W500mm x H550mm
(75g 4x2x2.5ft roughly in imperial) display tank.

95 litre sump with baffles..

3 x cannister filters (1200l + /hour)
3 x powerheads (8000l per hour each)
Protein skimmer (not needed for fresh water setup I believe?)
A heap of new bio media, carbon, phosphate reducers, nitrate reducers etc.
AI Hydra 52 LED reef light (will this work??) I can pretty much tune it to any colour dimming I want?

Livestock I want! :

Fish- colour colour and more colour.. To break up the natural green environment a planted tank generally provides?

Plants: I have no idea? Well I'll post up a general idea on what I would like my tank to look like and you can all have a laugh as I know these are professional but I'd rather dream big and try aim for a higher results rather than a low one.

What additives will I need to start? I have access to ro/di water literally just around the corner for top ups water changes etc.

Is there a cycling time like a reef tank?

Sorry for the huge start to my first thread but I've learnt the key to success at the beginning is listening to someone else's!

Cheers,

Justin.








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[Axelrodi202]

Welcome to the forum! It's always good to see reefers doing planted tanks; I really admire the gear and automation that side of the hobby has come up with.

Out of your current equipment, the protein skimmers and phosphate/nitrate reducers will not be necessary. Protein skimmers are used in saltwater setups because saltwater's higher density means organic solids are suspended in the water for longer, making the skimmer effective. Plants actually require some phosphate and nitrate to grow, so outright removing these would be counterproductive (in fact depending on your setup and stocking levels you may need to actually dose these nutrients).

The tanks you've shown all have pretty basic plants that aren't overly difficult to grow. The aesthetic relies both on plants and effective placement of hardscape items in accordance with aquascaping principles. I would check out threads discussing these principles on this site and others like it. Takashi Amano's Nature Aquarium World books are another great source of inspiration.

The right two tanks you posted are in the style of Amano's nature aquarium, which does have a bit of a different methodology to it than the standard approach to planted tanks. The focus is on supporting a healthy bacterial population for tank stability, while using moderate light and CO2 and lean water column dosing (most of the nutrients are in the substrate, Aquasoil). A great primer to this method can be found here. It's a long read but every bit is worth it.

I don't mean to self-promote, but over the next couple of days I'll be outlining a lot of the process and philosophy in setting up a new tank in this style in my journal. I've learned a lot from my experience over the years, and have found that a lot of the 'conventional wisdom' out there hasn't worked well for me. I'm gearing my writings towards those starting out with a new tank, so hopefully you'll be able to gain something from them.

 

[coral.trout]

Thanks for the quick informative response. I'll be following your journal closely and hopefully in the next few months have a build thread of my own.

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