So I got my first 20gallon aquarium about 2 months ago. Went through an ordeal of ignorance with my first family of fish (ammonia poisoning...100% water change, untreated tapwater, they all died 
) and then started reading up on what it actually takes to run a fish tank. So this time around I've got my tank fully cycled and things have been running smoothly. I've got a 4" (or so) Senegal Bichir, a 1 or 2" rubber lipped pleco, some--started with 6, but I've only seen 4 since I got back from a weekend at the lake
--glass shrimp and 2 mystery snails.
On to the meat & potatoes...
I've acquired a 75 gallon tank from my sister-in-law. Its only 38" long, I was looking to get a 48" 55gallon, but FREE is hard to turn down. I'm not too worried about rushing to get it set up since the bichir is still small and isn't growing an inch every day. My idea is to use a sand substrate (Tahitian black moon sand?) with a canister filter, not sure about the sort of decoration I'll have for it. I'd love to do driftwood and rocks with live plants, but I haven't figured all that out yet.
My biggest question right now is which filter to go with. The tank came with an old MarineLand Emperor 400b. Its pretty dirty and I can't tell if its in working order, but I've just figured on buying a new canister and moving right along. Being able to just run the tubes down into the cabinet, have silent operation and a spray-bar across the top is just too appealing to me
. So far I've gotten most of my info from www.fishlore.com, but they don't really have much in the way of canister comparisons (outside of the forum sections, which I can't really get a clear answer from). The only filter they have featured is the Penn-Plaxx Cascade series. I haven't really read anything about them except for the lack of a quick disconnect. The fluvals I've heard are terrible, that you have to replace the o-rings/gaskets every time you switch out the media. Haven't really heard anything specific about anything else.
I'm trying to keep it around 150 or less and I'm leaning towards the cascade, but not for any particular reason. And if there's a cheaper alternative to that sand, I'd take suggestions there as well. My tank has light brown trim on a light brown stand...so I'm not 100% certain that I want to stick with black, but I think it would still look pretty sweet with black sand. The bags I saw at petsmart said they'd suit 20gallons at about 22$ a pop. So logically I'd just have to buy like 4 of those for the 75, thats almost 100$ on sand alone:\
This dragged on a lot worse than I thought it would and I haven't even addressed everything yet
Anyways hello, thanks for any input and for taking the time out to read my ramblings. I'm new to the aquarium hobby, but its quickly taking over and I'm absolutely loving it.
) and then started reading up on what it actually takes to run a fish tank. So this time around I've got my tank fully cycled and things have been running smoothly. I've got a 4" (or so) Senegal Bichir, a 1 or 2" rubber lipped pleco, some--started with 6, but I've only seen 4 since I got back from a weekend at the lake--glass shrimp and 2 mystery snails.On to the meat & potatoes...
I've acquired a 75 gallon tank from my sister-in-law. Its only 38" long, I was looking to get a 48" 55gallon, but FREE is hard to turn down. I'm not too worried about rushing to get it set up since the bichir is still small and isn't growing an inch every day. My idea is to use a sand substrate (Tahitian black moon sand?) with a canister filter, not sure about the sort of decoration I'll have for it. I'd love to do driftwood and rocks with live plants, but I haven't figured all that out yet.
My biggest question right now is which filter to go with. The tank came with an old MarineLand Emperor 400b. Its pretty dirty and I can't tell if its in working order, but I've just figured on buying a new canister and moving right along. Being able to just run the tubes down into the cabinet, have silent operation and a spray-bar across the top is just too appealing to me
. So far I've gotten most of my info from www.fishlore.com, but they don't really have much in the way of canister comparisons (outside of the forum sections, which I can't really get a clear answer from). The only filter they have featured is the Penn-Plaxx Cascade series. I haven't really read anything about them except for the lack of a quick disconnect. The fluvals I've heard are terrible, that you have to replace the o-rings/gaskets every time you switch out the media. Haven't really heard anything specific about anything else.I'm trying to keep it around 150 or less and I'm leaning towards the cascade, but not for any particular reason. And if there's a cheaper alternative to that sand, I'd take suggestions there as well. My tank has light brown trim on a light brown stand...so I'm not 100% certain that I want to stick with black, but I think it would still look pretty sweet with black sand. The bags I saw at petsmart said they'd suit 20gallons at about 22$ a pop. So logically I'd just have to buy like 4 of those for the 75, thats almost 100$ on sand alone:\
This dragged on a lot worse than I thought it would and I haven't even addressed everything yet
Anyways hello, thanks for any input and for taking the time out to read my ramblings. I'm new to the aquarium hobby, but its quickly taking over and I'm absolutely loving it.
) So telling her that her fish has to go because it'll screw with mine won't exactly be a pleasant experience:\ Hopefully if it does become an issue I'll be able to keep it in the 20gallon and it'll end up being a relatively small pleco, we'll see, thats thats an issue for the future.
. I might look into some less aggressive cichlid species, angelfish...I'm not sure. I think a school of ghost catfish would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure how well they would fare with the poly's. Maybe a knifefish of sorts...glass or african. I think the BGK would outgrow the tank before I can afford what it really needs.