Tips Needed: Planted Tank with elongatus

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pwmin

pwmin

Giant Snakehead
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Nov 26, 2007
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I have a 6" elong (my first P) and I want to make a nice show tank for my living room. I had originally planned on using a 75 gallon tank for this, but am thinking that using my 40 breeder may be easier to grow plants. I am planning on keeping this fish for a very long time and hope to get it over 10 inches, which I hear is uncommon for them. Is the 75 overkill or is the 40 not enough? I despise 55 gallon tanks for some reason, so I don't want to use one of them. I guess I could get a 50 breeder, but I can't buy any more tanks, so I have to use one I already have.

I know this isn't the right forum for plant questions, so I won't get into that too much, but what plants have any of you had success with in Piranha tanks? I would like some sort of ground cover, some attached to wood and maybe some others. Any other tips for having P's in planted tanks?

thx
 
75 will be a must if you want to be able possibly get growth like that in the long run.
50b isn't going to be anthing more then an inch or two taller then the 40b so that will not help you really in terms of growing out.
The 40b will be good for quite a while but if you ask me a elong needs a 48" tank. If you have the means, you might as well knock that purchase out as soon as possible.

good luck
 
go with the biggest tank you can get. i have found most low light plants seem to have a bad taste to fish so the likes of jungle vals java fern ect
 
ok, cool. thanks. i was planning on using my 75, so I'll just go with that. i just figured the 40 would be easier to grow plants since its not as deep
 
I think the deeper the better, that way the p's will not kick the substrate all over the place, resulting ur plants to float to the top. Also, you can try using plant substrate as the base substrate and then put a layer of larger rocks/gravel on top of it. That way the plants will stay. :headbang2
 
i would go for 75 gallons as a must you need the tank to be at least 4 ft or longer too as the elongatus need to leng to swim with a strong powerhead i ahd one at 8 inches and man he move like lightning he was in a 5 footer
 
thanks again. I'll go with my 75 for now and maybe upgrade to my 125 later down the road once I replace it w/ a 300 and the P gets bigger. I'm going to go buy plants today, but I have no discernible plan, so IDK how it's going to work out, lol.

I got the 75 moved and the P in there now. I have an AC70 filter and a Penguin 350 for filtration and an AC70 Powerhead for current. I used 100 pounds of EcoComplete plant substrate. Wow, too many sentences starting with "I".
 
What kind of light are you gonna use? Personally i would reccomend a 65wx2 coralife 6700k power compact or something similiar. It provides enough light in the right spectrum w/o overkill and theyre pretty reasonable online. For plants, I use anubias, amazon swords, watersprite (my fav plant cus its super versitile, you can plant it float it o attatch it to drift wood...and it grows like crazy), and cabomba
heres a few pics

IMG_0886.jpg

IMG_0883.jpg
 
Your tank looks really nice.

I'm using a dual 48" Hagen T5 HO (2x54W) fixture @ 6700K as well as another light I had (just a 48" 32W T8, 6700K). I hope it's enough. I also open a window that lets a lot of light into the tank. I used mostly anubias, crypts and swords. I'll have to get some pix, but it's pretty bare. I may have to inject CO2 as I'm using an HOB filter right now until the canister I have seeds.

I am in the process of trying to pellet train it. After it's eating pellets and the plants grow in, I have some tetras I'm going to try cohabitating with it.
 
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