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You can safely add 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of aquarium salt to any tank. I keep salt in every tank I have ever had.. Community, Cichlids, even Gold Fish. Not only helps with disease, but it helps bring out color.Just make sure at TheFanatic says, use "Aquarium Salt". NOT TABLE SALT. Table salt contains Iodine which is lethal. You can buy a big carton of freahwater aquarium salt at Petsmart for about $5.
I will have to get a pic of my tank up, but I pretty much just run a HO 65K bulb in my tank. I can give you the model that I use for a 29g but I have plants galore and they don't get much in the way of ferts or CO2, just light and they are doing extremely well.
They could go get some biospira...instant cycle pretty much. It would at least help with the problems until they get a stable colony built up.
You could use the bigger version of what I have. I have a 29G high so it's as tall as a 75G just not as wide. I have a variety of swords, leatherleaf, ludwigia and some other ones that I don't remember the names of. And my tank is what I would consider moderately planted. We just moved so I am waiting a couple of weeks and then adding more fish as I have a Powder blue gourami that has killed a bunch of his tank mates (2 other powder blues and 2 flame gouramis)
have you ever seen that stuff work? Everyone i've talked to seems to think its a waste of money. (especially if its not refridgerated.)Anyone have a good suggestion for a lighting system for my 75 gallon? I'd want to be able to plant pretty much anything, but a ton of it. I'd love to do some big swords, some really bushy mid tank type stuff and some carpetting plants (maybe hairgrass or a riccia carpet) Thanks.links would be helpful.
I have used it successfully in a smaller tank, but it worked nonetheless. The key is to have media for the spira to start building on. Let me see if I can find what lighting I have now. BTW those forums I gave you is where I found all of my info and are GREAT with plants.
75 gallon isn't a big deal in terms of depth. I have a 110 which is technically a show tank. 24 inches tall. You're only 18 inches tall. I have the light strip that came with it and a dual bulb 4 footer from thatpetplace.com that I put behind the regular strip. That's it. And order all your bulbs online. Those $30 bulbs online are $12-15 online...
Here's the deal. Don't trust the test kits. Trust your eyes. Are the fish doing well? Then things are going well. Don't spend all of your time looking at a test kit. I couldn't even tell you where mine is. Haven't seen it in maybe 10 years and last night I just moved a fish that is now 20 years old into a new tank. If you do the maintenance (regular water changes), don't over stock or over feed then you won't have to worry about any of that. Hell, I don't even condition my water other than removing the chlorine.
Don't fret the cory's. Sometimes they just sit there. Sometimes they are rocketing to the surface to get a gulp of air. All the fish have been pretty stressed for a while. Let it calm down a bit. Take your time. Let everything settle down for at least a couple of weeks. And when you do add more fish only add 1 or 1 kind if you are buying schooling fish. Say you want to buy more neon tetras. Buy 5 more and put them in but don't buy 5 more tetras, a red tailed shark and a silver dollar and put them all in there. The trick is consistency and not to make drastic changes. So have a little patience...
WOW, lighting has gotten expensive. All you need is a dual bulb fixture. While I used to be a compact florescent guy I saw a side by side with these lights at a petstore and they killed the compacts.
Great post. The eyeball test (presuming some degree of sophistication on the part of the observer) will tell you if your tank is healthy.
Do you have a background on the tank? That will color up the Rams. Go with solid black. Don't mess with anything else. Otherwise I would buy a few more. The true color comes out when they are competing for mates. Also, just because a fish is colorful in a book doesn't mean it will be in your tank. You might have a washed out strain that doesn't have the same color as the wild caught ones. 1 inch of fish per gallon of water is a load of crap. Does a 12 inch oscar put the same waste into the water as twelve 1 inch danios? Nope. You have all very small, very light waste producers. You could double every single total of fish you have listed and be just fine. The problem is that you have all very small fish. So you need to increase the numbers of those fish. I would add 4 more Rams, a red tailed shark since you like that so much (Bait fish in Thailand by the way!!), and up the numbers of whatever of the schools of tetras or danios you like the best. Pearl Gourami (Trichogaster Leeri). Or maybe some of the new dwarf honey gourami's with the neon blue dorsal fin. I just got 3 of those myself. The thing is you can't add much that is big because it will eat what is small. A couple of angels would be great, but eventually those neons would be lunch...I would definitely plant the tank. The more plants the fish have to hide behind, the more they come out because they know they can dart back in at a moments notice. GL and keep us posted...
Right. Here are some guidelines. Are the fish eating? Are they at the appropriate level in the tank? Cories at the top or Angels at the bottom are bad. Are they swimming normally or in a jerky fashion? Are they breathing heavy? Are they scratching themselves on rocks? Are their fins crimped in? Are their colors faded? Like I said, they will let you know when things aren't going well...
I guess that means you don't have experience with a good marine lighting setup. I own an Outer Orbit setup and bought the thing for about 650. Outer Orbit is respectable, but far from the best light setup there is.
The 2 cory i was worried about had alot of top time yesterday, but seem to have settled today. The danios are at the bottom a little more often, but nobody is just sitting there.
Oh, I've seen the crazy numbers for the salt tanks, but not so much for fresh water. I mean Halide lights are ridiculous.
With planting, don't get nutty. Add an extra light, and put in some fertilizer. That's it. Don't over think it. Trust me. I spend 10 years over thinking stuff and all it got me was a lot of dead fish and plants. But for the last 15 I've had it down because I don't over think it. Then again I had to go through 10 years of trial and error. I still have some trial and error moments, just not as much now a days. Take your time....
OK, first, that's a great looking tank. But we need to switch up the background. Putting the background of the planted tank is like wearing the concert T-Shirt of the band you are going to see that night. Don't be that guy (PCI reference). Always go black.Second, there is a trick to doing plastic plants. Most plastic plants come in various sizes. Clump 3-6 of the same plastic plant in various sizes together of the same type and it will look damn near realistic, particularly when a little algae grows on the leaves. Obviously you can't do this with an amazon sword, but you can with the types of plants that tendril up to the top....
No, that's a 75. Set him up with smaller digs so I can do something cool with the 110 gallon. Still he's about 22 inches. It's a smaller tank but not nearly as decorated so he actually has more room. I had two pieces of wood the size of the one on the right in the 75 in my 110 and 2 plants the size of that one in the 110 as well. Not much room. This is smaller but less densely decorated. Those are Amazon swords I pulled from my 110 so I could get the gravel out to put in the 75. They will go back into the 110 when I redo it except for the big one that is planted on the left. He likes to "hide" behind it...
Actually, crushed coral is a better substrate than sand usually in a marine tank...
I think the best for a beginner is oolitic sand. The larger the substrate the more uneaten food gets caught in the substrate leading to a water toxicity issue. For a fish only tank, I think it is neat to setup a bare bottom tank. I've seen then in action and they look very cool.
That mix is OK for now. Couple of suggestions. Barbs are schooling fish. They get highly aggressive towards tank mates if they are not in a school. They tend to get nippy. Buy 4 more to make a small school. Also, those Plecos are fine for now but will grow. I'm guessing common pleco (Hypostomus Plecostomus). Those things can get to be more than a foot long. You would be OK with 1 and those Ottos.
Algae on the plants is not good. Stick your hand in and gently smooth the algae off the leaves with your thumb. The algae will keep the light from getting to the leaves and cripple the plant. You may want to add a Phosphate remover to your filter. It usually comes in a granular form and you have to put it into a mesh bag. I use this stuff in my canisters. Helps with Hair algae if you ever get that. Pray that you don't.
Could be. I can't be sure as to why they died. I would replace them, but not at the same time you add Barbs. Take it slow. Add some barbs. Wait a week or two and then add more swords.
Water changes and feedings as well as plant pruning. Take care of that and you will be good to go. Don't overpopulate the tank and you should get there with no problem...
They aren't bad. But they will multiply like crazy. The good news is they lay eggs at the water line. When you walk by the tank and see them up there, smash them against the glass. You could let them go, but there will be hundreds in about a month...
Good point. And they have sand now that is essentially crushed coral that is crushed down to sand size. That's what I'm putting into my new Peacock tank. The point being that you want it to be calcium carbonate so that it elevates the Ph naturally and keeps it buffered high....
PM me if you want I have a 75 and 140 saltwater tank.The salt pretty much stabilizes the pH so you shouldn't have an issue.
TheFanatic said:
AgreeMost of what I have read recommends not converting salt to fresh and vise versa. The link I posted does have some discussion from people who have done it successfully.One of the biggest problems is that all the equipment other than the tank is different and saltwater lights especially for corals are very $$$$
Don't fret about the clown loaches. They are one fish that take forever to feel comfortable in a tank. It could take months for them to finally start coming out. I had two that never grew. Had them 5 years I think they grew less than a half inch. Now they are about 11 years old and have doubled in size the the last 6 years.TLEF316 said:
