Lighting & plant recomendations for a beginner (190 L tank)

[Kyle D]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new here and was hoping that you fine people could help me out. My girlfriend and I are in the process of setting up a 190L (50 US gallon) tank and would like to plant it. I am a complete beginner when it comes to aquariums in general, but she is only a beginner when it comes to planted aquariums. We would like to set up a nicely planted but easy to take care of tank and the main fish to be going in the tank will be South American Puffer's (and some other fish yet to be determined), so we would like to give them plenty of places to explore and hide.

This is what we have so far:
- 190 L tank (if I remember correctly the tank is around 45cm deep)
- Rena Filstar XP3 canister filter (does 1350L/h)
- Jagr 150W Heater
- 2x Tetra Whisper 40 air pump
- Seachem Flourite Black Sand
- Aquarium Pharmaceuticals First Layer Pure Laterite
- glass lid
- Flourish Excel

The tank is used so it has this nasty blue background adhered to the back of the tank, we tried pulling it off but it just separated from the paper. With that in mind we'd like to do a moss wall on the back of the tank to hide that and also hid the heater, air line tubing and tubes for the filter.

My girlfriend was also thinking of mixing in some pool filter sand with the Fluorite Black to be a little more economical.

So, with the above in mind we think we have pretty much everything we need accept for the lighting and of course the plants.

For the lighting I've been trying to do research on the internet about it and have been getting very confusing and mixed signals. Some people say that a certain amount of light is enough or too much etc. I am having a hard time determining if we should stick with T8 bulbs or go with T5 HO bulbs. Also I am unsure as to which size to get. The tank is 36" wide so should I be getting a 36" light fixture or a 30" light fixture? I think I would like to do a dual bulb setup and our local fish store has the choice of either a T8 setup for the same price as a T5 HO setup (on sale). These are the lights I'm looking at:

- AquaticLife 36" - T5 HO - 2x39W (http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl ... ixturefw36)
- AquaticLife 30" - T5 HO - 2x24W (http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl ... ixturefw30)
- All-Glass Fluorescent Twin Tube Strip Light- 36" (http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl ... ght36black)
- All-Glass Fluorescent Twin Tube Strip Light- 30" (http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl ... ght30black)

The other option is I buy a ballast kit and reflectors and make my own canopy/light bar.

So, which of the above lights would you recommend for a beginner wanting to set up a low-light (maybe medium light if it isn't that difficult) tank? If need be we could possibly add a fermentation based CO2 system.

Also, what plants would you recommend that we start out with?

Sorry for the long post and thank you for all the help.

 

[daniel19831123]

I'd say skip the air pump and increase the flow with koralia or another external filter. Where about do you lived? If you are in the UK, are you trying to get lighting unit from America?

Substrate wise, I'm assuming you'll be using 2 bag of fluorite and 1 1.5kg of API laterite for your tank. to get a depth of 2 inches. You could get a better results both aesthetically and for the plant growth by spending a fraction more on ADA aquasoil or Oliver knott substrate as there is no need for laterite layer.

Lighting wise, aim for 70-100W in total and you should be fine as long as you keep up with fertilisation and CO2. I'm assuming that you won't be tempting with difficult high light plant for a beginner here. T5 is recommended over T8 due to the depth that T5 can penetrate. It's less bulky too. 36" light is suitable if it's an overtank luminaire. The seller should provide the dimension of the unit. If not, you just send the seller an email.

You mentioned about Excel but you haven't mentioned about fertilisation regime for your tank. For a tank your size, you'll find that Excel will cost you a lot more than a CO2 injection setup in the long run (maybe in 6 months or so). You'll also need to have some fertilisation regime to keep the plant growing and keep the algae at bay.

Considering that you will be keeping puffer fish, your substrate will be disturbed a lot during their snail hunt. You could start with various cryptocoryne with plants on bog wood such as anubias and java and moss.

 

[Kyle D]

Thanks for responding.

I am located in Ontario, Canada so my local fish store, just happens to be a Big Al's. So getting the lighting there isn't a problem.

As for the air pump, it will be used mainly to create bubbles for the puffers to play in.

As for the substrate we were going to be mixing a single bag of the fluorite black and mixing it with pool filter sand. This would be going on top of the latrite. We are doing this on a strict budget (we are both University students) so adding another $30 bag of substrate isn't feasible.

We picked up a 4L bottle of Flourish Excel for $55 CAD and a 2L bottle of just normal Flourish for $35 CAD. We were told the flourish would work great for a beginner aquarium with hardy plants such as anubias, crypts, java fern, java moss, and maybe amazon sword.

We did finally end up getting a light. We purchased the Current USA Nova Extreme T5HO Freshwater 36" light that comes with 2x39W bulbs, one a 10 000 K daylight bulb and the other a "Freshwater" bulb. It was highly recommended by the manager of our local fish store and by numerous other people.