I have a 300 gallon tank, 8x2x30"H that i recently purchased. I built a custom stand and custom canopy for the tank. The tank is at my dads work shop and directly above the tank is a convienant 8ft shop light with 2 8ft bulbs. I am planning to stock my tank with at least 3-4 stingrays plus other fish. I know the bioload of the rays alone will be very high. And no matter what filtration i have I will still need to do WC.
I wanted to take the extra step on top of my sump, and setup a diy hydroponics system on top of my canopy. The reason being is that, I am not using the shop light to light my tank, i have seperate leds enclosed in the canopy. The space between the canopy and the shop light is about 1ft. The shop light is on when my dad comes to work in the morning and is turned off when he leaves (regular intervals of lighting for plants).
I was thinking of buying those underbed sliding bins that you can get from walmart. The dimensions are convienantly 40"L x 20"w x 6"H. That means I can fit two of them on top of my canopy. I wanted to add floating plants since they multiply fast have very dense rooting systems and on a smaller scale such as my nano shrimp tanks, they do a good job of eliminating ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite.
To set it up, I will drill the bins just like how you would drill a tank. Add two bulk heads in each bin, one for return and another for the drain. I would have to get a seperate powerhead that pumps water from the sump that splits its flow into two of the bins and then itll overflow back into the sump.
My canopy is built on 2x1 and is very sturdy that should support these two bins.
Ultimately my question is, with these two bins full of either dwarf water lettuce, red roof floaters, Frogbits, or salvinia minima would it do a better job in remove nitrates as a couple of those common vine plants that people use as pothos? Also a lot of people mentioning a couple months of establishment before these vine plants start working. Floating plants work and spread in a couple days. If anything I wanted to use the salvinia minima, they seem to get very dense, small leaves but larger roots.
I wanted to take the extra step on top of my sump, and setup a diy hydroponics system on top of my canopy. The reason being is that, I am not using the shop light to light my tank, i have seperate leds enclosed in the canopy. The space between the canopy and the shop light is about 1ft. The shop light is on when my dad comes to work in the morning and is turned off when he leaves (regular intervals of lighting for plants).
I was thinking of buying those underbed sliding bins that you can get from walmart. The dimensions are convienantly 40"L x 20"w x 6"H. That means I can fit two of them on top of my canopy. I wanted to add floating plants since they multiply fast have very dense rooting systems and on a smaller scale such as my nano shrimp tanks, they do a good job of eliminating ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite.
To set it up, I will drill the bins just like how you would drill a tank. Add two bulk heads in each bin, one for return and another for the drain. I would have to get a seperate powerhead that pumps water from the sump that splits its flow into two of the bins and then itll overflow back into the sump.
My canopy is built on 2x1 and is very sturdy that should support these two bins.
Ultimately my question is, with these two bins full of either dwarf water lettuce, red roof floaters, Frogbits, or salvinia minima would it do a better job in remove nitrates as a couple of those common vine plants that people use as pothos? Also a lot of people mentioning a couple months of establishment before these vine plants start working. Floating plants work and spread in a couple days. If anything I wanted to use the salvinia minima, they seem to get very dense, small leaves but larger roots.
