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New 230g tank help

angelfishguy

angelfishguy

Member
Joined
12 Jan 2010
Messages
61
Hi all,
hope you'll be able to help me set this up, its a second hand 96x24x28(1057ltr or 230g) which we will be picking up on sunday and i have a few questions and for any new questions about this tank i'll ask here :)

the tank was used for marine and comes with a sump,should i just scrap the sump or can it benifit me in anyway?

the tank doesnt come with lights but has bars to fit lights onto(see pic). can anyone suggest some good reasonable priced lights or what should i be looking for, t5,mh or both?

regarding c02, how should i go about this? i have a setup at the moment and am using a UP inline diffuser.

ferts, i have some dry ferts and i will post what they are soon and hope that some body will be able to come up with a good fert mixture/regime.

substrate, also looking for suggestions

flow wise, the tank is going to be set around a group of Altum angelfish, which dont like flow/currents so i was thinking i could focus the planting on this tank mainly on a big carpet and have all the flow just running at the bottom of the tank which would leave the higher areas that the angels like more calm. hope that makes sence and do yous think it will work?

any other advise yous may have, im all ears.it feels abit daunting due to the size so any help at all will be extremely appreciated.

Jay
ddb49349.jpg
 
oh forgot to add the sump is 5ft, i dont know the other dimensions yet but will add the as soon as i know.
 
That's one hell of a big tank. You can use either T5 or MH or both I guessed. It realy depends on what type of plants you want to keep in there but 8xT5 should be sufficient for most plants even the slightly difficult one.
 
Very nice...!
Sumps are a fantastic asset but you dont want to be running huge amounts of water over the overflows as this will really use up your Co2.
You should look into Needle wheel pumps to return the water from the sump to the tank as this type of pump will supply the Co2 very efficiently without any pipe restrictions. The co2 is injected straight into the pump.
Use a spray bar across the back of the tank as this will disperse the flow well & not cause to much stress for your angles.
 
thanks guys,
ive never had a sump before so i dont know how they work to be honest but it doesnt come with a return pump so could a needle wheel pump be used? what gph should i be aiming at for the return..

i was just on google looking at lighting and for a 6ft luminare arcadia wanted over £1000 which i certainly aint paying but i came across these http://www.iquaticsonline.co.uk/aqu...-6-t5-aqualumi-aquarium-lighting-pendant.html i could get 2 of them and hang them from the ceiling and that would give me 2.8wpg and the 12bulbs run off 4 plugs so i could reduce the wpg very easily.. how does that sound?
 
You could possibly go for a 6ft halide and t5 combo, there's a couple going on eBay and aquarist classified. The spread frOm the halides would be more than enough and you already gave handing frames. The ripple effect from the water is awesome too.
Mahoosive tank. Not envious one bit ha ha.
 
im in ireland so i dont have as much of a choice for second hand lighting so it would most likely have to be new and a 6ft mh/t5 unit from arcadia is over £1000 and i simply cant justify that........and also i dont have £1000 lol
 
You wouldn't necessarily have to get a 6ft. Aqua one do some 5 footers for less than 6. But if iquatics come in cheap enough for two of theirs then go for those. I'm not sure they sell tropical tubes though. I emailed them not long ago and they did say their units only come with marine tubes. You could just order the tubes from lampspecs or something.
 
You could always try shop/security metal halide spotlights. They'd look a bit fugly and you might get slightly patchy coverage, but you can often get them for peanuts on ebay. Or 2 x 3 foot luminaires? Got to be a few options for much less than a grand if you're happy with a little DIY.
 
they have a live chat on their website and i was talking to a guy called tom and he said that the tropical tubes are out of stock but when they come back in they will appear on the drop down menu where you chose what bulbs you want. so for £320 i get 2 4ft Pendants with 12 bulbs free.. i like the look of MH's but not enough to spend an extra £700 on them.. i could always add them at a later date though :)
 
Yes you can use a needle wheel pump as as sump return pump but you could just use a NW pump fitted to a spray bar as an internal fitment too.
Something like two of these http://www.swelluk.com/aquarium/pumps-a ... 54456.html fitted to the back wall of the tank & connected together by a 7' length of spray bar could be used.
This way you only need to keep them on while the C02 is required & at other times the water can be quiet - just using the sump pump.
Of course you will see the pumps!
Otherwise you would need a pretty big single sump pump as that is a big tank.
If you choose not to use the sump then you are going to need some megger big (& expensive) power filters, I think the sump is by far the best option.
 
thanks for that foxfish, its certainly something i will look into but we are in a rented house so im not sure how the landlord would be if i was to install them..

do you think i would need MH's to penetrate to the substrate or will the t5's work?
 
There are plenty of cheap options on Ebay, I saw some MH lights that clip to the tank from HK for about £130 delivered.
You can use T5s if you dont want to grow especially light demanding plants or maybe that should read if you dont mind your plants growing slowly.
You could read up on low light tanks with C02, never really looked myself but I bet there are some nice examples around?
 
thanks again :)

yeah that seems like a good way to dispearse the co2, well uncle google is telling me it is. as i said i dont have a clue how a sump works and i dont know how this one is layed out but if its of benifit to me i shall keep it if i can learn how it works. at the moment i have 3 spare 1200ltrs powerheads.
going buy the x10 turnover rule i need over 10000lph

so
2 Aqua Medic Ocean Runner PH2000 4000lph
3 powerheads 3600lph

so thats 7600lph so im looking for a return pump for the sump of around 2500lph to give me x10 turnover. does that sound alright?


on the MH thing, i want i nice low carpet so does that mean i need the MH's to achieve this?

thanks for all your help

Jay
 
Well I think you could use some of the larger ground cover plants for your tank so you should be OK with something like http://www.thegreenmachineonline.com/pr ... on-helferi that grows well in lower lighting?
Sumps are very simple in operation, basically you have a tank of water (sump) under another tank above (display tank).
Water is pumped from the lower tank into the upper tank & then overflows back to the lower tank.
The upper tank has an overflow box (or two in your case) where the water flows, at the bottom of the box is a pipe that allows the water back into the sump.

The benefits are many but a huge area for bio media is an obvious one, also the top tank will always have exactly the same water level as it is always being topped up however, the sump water level will fall to compensate
 
Also for a cheap substrate do what a few of us On here have and get the tesco cat litter. You'll save a packet in a tank that big. At just over 2 n half pound for ten litres it's well worth it. I couldn't recommend it enough.
Growing a carpet plant at the level of light you'll have with the t5s is possible as long as co2 nutrients and low are spot on. That's what some of the more experienced guys on here say but I never had much look until I used halides.
Like fox fish says you can buy single ones that clip onto the frame so you could have 3 or 4 150w units for instance.
Or look round for one or two smaller halide units. You also get the benefit of additional t5s if the light isn't quite enough or you want morning and evening softer lighting . If you could get hold of a cheap 4 foot halide unit you could have my spare 4 foot one for cheap too.
 
i have used cat litter before and i really just dont like the look of it at all, its also very light so planting in it can be a pain :mad:

@foxfish,
would 2.8 wpg t5ho be considerd low light on this tank because of its height? if i had the money now i would order those last two arcadia units but they are 150w should i be aiming to get 4 x150w mh's?

sorry if these questions seem stupid :silent:
 
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