Background:
I'm setting up a new freshwater 110gal (48"x18"x30"). For fish, I have a ghost knife, a columbian shark, a clown loach, a 6" gold fish, a patriot crab, & a couple other fish I can't remember the names of. (Maybe even an old-fart dwarf african clawed frog if I can get him to play nicely with the neighbors, and a couple newts if the LFS ever gets the kind I want back in stock.) Since my girlfriend & I can't seem to help ourselves whenever we visit the LFS, I expect we'll be adding all sorts of other new fish when we move over to the new 110gal tank.
I'm good with the fish, but I've never done a planted tank before. I read all the stickies & now I'd like some feedback to know if I'm on the right track.
I plan on using 4 - 48" 54w HO T5 flourescent tubes for a total of about 20,000 lumens. According to the one sticky, this is a "moderate" amount of light for my tank.
The tank will only be lightly planted. I'm thinking a few of something tall & very broad leaved for asthetics as well as to divide up the tank a bit for fish territory / habitat, and perhaps something very short for ground cover / color. I'd like to stay away from the tall stringy grasses as much as possible (cause I think they make the tank look cluttered.) I will have an artificial rock wall background with some built in structure covering about 25-30% of the water surface as habitat for livestock requiring land. The tank is 30" high, but I expect the water level to be 24". I'll probably have a decent sized piece of drift wood in there as well as some rocks for habitat & asthetics.
I haven't decided on a type of sand substrate yet. I'm thinking either a white, finely crushed coral (cause I already have a bunch) or perhaps a black-onyx based sand. Maybe a mix for a salt + pepper look. What ever it is I'm going to try to match it to the rock-wall background.
If at all possible, I don't want to have to fool with CO2. I do expect to have a moderate ammount of surface agitation.
SOooo.... How's all that sound? Bound for success? Or failure?
I'm setting up a new freshwater 110gal (48"x18"x30"). For fish, I have a ghost knife, a columbian shark, a clown loach, a 6" gold fish, a patriot crab, & a couple other fish I can't remember the names of. (Maybe even an old-fart dwarf african clawed frog if I can get him to play nicely with the neighbors, and a couple newts if the LFS ever gets the kind I want back in stock.) Since my girlfriend & I can't seem to help ourselves whenever we visit the LFS, I expect we'll be adding all sorts of other new fish when we move over to the new 110gal tank.
I'm good with the fish, but I've never done a planted tank before. I read all the stickies & now I'd like some feedback to know if I'm on the right track.
I plan on using 4 - 48" 54w HO T5 flourescent tubes for a total of about 20,000 lumens. According to the one sticky, this is a "moderate" amount of light for my tank.
The tank will only be lightly planted. I'm thinking a few of something tall & very broad leaved for asthetics as well as to divide up the tank a bit for fish territory / habitat, and perhaps something very short for ground cover / color. I'd like to stay away from the tall stringy grasses as much as possible (cause I think they make the tank look cluttered.) I will have an artificial rock wall background with some built in structure covering about 25-30% of the water surface as habitat for livestock requiring land. The tank is 30" high, but I expect the water level to be 24". I'll probably have a decent sized piece of drift wood in there as well as some rocks for habitat & asthetics.
I haven't decided on a type of sand substrate yet. I'm thinking either a white, finely crushed coral (cause I already have a bunch) or perhaps a black-onyx based sand. Maybe a mix for a salt + pepper look. What ever it is I'm going to try to match it to the rock-wall background.
If at all possible, I don't want to have to fool with CO2. I do expect to have a moderate ammount of surface agitation.
SOooo.... How's all that sound? Bound for success? Or failure?
