Hello to everyone. I’m new to the forum and to planted tanks in general. I’ve been around tropical and saltwater fish for some years and I’ve kept a couple of reef tanks, the longest of which has been set up for nearly 6 years now. One of those reef tanks had begun showing its age due to a malfunction of two heaters, (Both were intentionally undersized, but I didn’t anticipate both sticking). Rather than replenishing the stock in that tank, I took the better pieces of rock and coral and combined them and placed the rest in dry storage. That leads to me to the subject of this post. What’s reusable and what’s not for a planted tank.
The tank itself is a 125 gallon, long variety at 72”, with a 55 gallon sump. It has two 72” VHO fluorescents (10K, 160 watts each) and two Metal Halide 250W lamps at 10K. The protein skimmer will have no value, of course in fresh water. The return pump can be throttled back to zero and up to 900 gallons per hour. Sump feeds off two corner Durso stand pipes to keep the volume down. Two typical tube heaters are available but may not be re-used depending on what’s best for planted arrangements. No existing substrate or decorations are reusable. Currently the tank is just circulating fresh water in order to dissolve any remain deposits of calcium and salt. The tank is equipped with an auto top-off system. Now to the plan, limited though it is at the moment.
1. I plan to use Eco-Complete Plant Substrate for about 2 – 2.5 inches depth. On top, I plan 1” or so of normal fresh water smaller particle gravel due to appearance preferences. I presume no obvious problems here, but if any are seen, please comment.
2. There are several choices for lighting. VHO only, Metal halide only or both. The question is two-fold. How much is too much lighting? Does anyone have experience with 10K color temp and plants as bulbs in the 6500 range in those sizes can be difficult to locate.
3. Is under-gravel heating really necessary? I’d prefer to use sump positioned titanium tube heaters.
4. I’ve never set up a fresh water tank without an under-gravel filter in over 30 years except for reverse flow the last 20 years or so. Having been out of the fresh water end of the hobby for some time, it seems that under-gravel has fallen out of favor based on my reading. Consequently, I do not plan one here. No particular questions regarding this point unless this is seen as an obvious mistake.
5. The sump comprises the biggest question. I plan to use it to house equipment, attach points for canister filters, etc. The sump is contained within cabinet. The questions here are flow rate; I’m figuring 100 – 300 gallons per hour as reef type flows should be unnecessary. Does that sound reasonable? Second, are there any sump benefits that I’m overlooking? I’ve considered a refugium to balance pH with time, though this seems troublesome. Also, I didn’t know whether any deep substrate nitrate sinks had shown any promise as they have in marine tanks. I could install one with roughly 9” depth without interfering with sump return. Any thoughts in the area of sump usage which would contribute to tank management would be greatly appreciated.
6. Lastly, with the amount of light and flow to the sump, I think I can’t avoid use of an active (tank driven) CO2 system, though I’d love to avoid this. My question relates to CO2 tanks and use of paintball cylinders as a resource. I’m curious about costs, both start-up and ongoing. Of course, I’ll have to evaluate local availability of either. It seems that the paintball cylinders have recently come into use, so have folks been getting good service from those? Any thoughts here would be helpful.
7. Livestock is something I’ve not addressed to this point. I won’t start my planning for livestock (plants and/or animals) until I’m pretty firm on my hardware setup. That said, any comments along the lines of “Don’t try xyz with that setup” particularly as it regards plants would be helpful. I am plant challenged and have much reading yet to do before picking species and specimens.
That’s enough for now. I know some of these questions are individually addressed elsewhere in the forum. However, I hadn’t seen them raised in concert so I thought the collective discussion might prove interesting to others and most certainly helpful to myself. Thanks for your reading time and any thoughts you might offer. For my part, back to more reading and planning.
The tank itself is a 125 gallon, long variety at 72”, with a 55 gallon sump. It has two 72” VHO fluorescents (10K, 160 watts each) and two Metal Halide 250W lamps at 10K. The protein skimmer will have no value, of course in fresh water. The return pump can be throttled back to zero and up to 900 gallons per hour. Sump feeds off two corner Durso stand pipes to keep the volume down. Two typical tube heaters are available but may not be re-used depending on what’s best for planted arrangements. No existing substrate or decorations are reusable. Currently the tank is just circulating fresh water in order to dissolve any remain deposits of calcium and salt. The tank is equipped with an auto top-off system. Now to the plan, limited though it is at the moment.
1. I plan to use Eco-Complete Plant Substrate for about 2 – 2.5 inches depth. On top, I plan 1” or so of normal fresh water smaller particle gravel due to appearance preferences. I presume no obvious problems here, but if any are seen, please comment.
2. There are several choices for lighting. VHO only, Metal halide only or both. The question is two-fold. How much is too much lighting? Does anyone have experience with 10K color temp and plants as bulbs in the 6500 range in those sizes can be difficult to locate.
3. Is under-gravel heating really necessary? I’d prefer to use sump positioned titanium tube heaters.
4. I’ve never set up a fresh water tank without an under-gravel filter in over 30 years except for reverse flow the last 20 years or so. Having been out of the fresh water end of the hobby for some time, it seems that under-gravel has fallen out of favor based on my reading. Consequently, I do not plan one here. No particular questions regarding this point unless this is seen as an obvious mistake.
5. The sump comprises the biggest question. I plan to use it to house equipment, attach points for canister filters, etc. The sump is contained within cabinet. The questions here are flow rate; I’m figuring 100 – 300 gallons per hour as reef type flows should be unnecessary. Does that sound reasonable? Second, are there any sump benefits that I’m overlooking? I’ve considered a refugium to balance pH with time, though this seems troublesome. Also, I didn’t know whether any deep substrate nitrate sinks had shown any promise as they have in marine tanks. I could install one with roughly 9” depth without interfering with sump return. Any thoughts in the area of sump usage which would contribute to tank management would be greatly appreciated.
6. Lastly, with the amount of light and flow to the sump, I think I can’t avoid use of an active (tank driven) CO2 system, though I’d love to avoid this. My question relates to CO2 tanks and use of paintball cylinders as a resource. I’m curious about costs, both start-up and ongoing. Of course, I’ll have to evaluate local availability of either. It seems that the paintball cylinders have recently come into use, so have folks been getting good service from those? Any thoughts here would be helpful.
7. Livestock is something I’ve not addressed to this point. I won’t start my planning for livestock (plants and/or animals) until I’m pretty firm on my hardware setup. That said, any comments along the lines of “Don’t try xyz with that setup” particularly as it regards plants would be helpful. I am plant challenged and have much reading yet to do before picking species and specimens.
That’s enough for now. I know some of these questions are individually addressed elsewhere in the forum. However, I hadn’t seen them raised in concert so I thought the collective discussion might prove interesting to others and most certainly helpful to myself. Thanks for your reading time and any thoughts you might offer. For my part, back to more reading and planning.
