New to Fish Tanks and Guppies, please help.

[IvanSanchez]

No Problem. If your going to be keeping a ton of plants I think some will suggest a decent plant substrate(Eco-complete, ADA amazonia, flourite, FloraMax) Some use ORGANIC Soil(Note the caps) and sand. I don't know if substrate will be necessary(I'm a noob as well lol more members will comment on the substrate though)

As for your lights. Any specs on your light strip??? T8, T5HO? Screw in bulbs? For good set up on planted tanks you'd want around 1.5-3watts per gallon. so around 2 would be great for low light plants. Check out fish ranch. they've got anacharis and hornwort(i think hornwort...)
There's easy ways to make a DIY Light fixture(I'm making one for my dwarf puffer sometime this month). Cheap and easy to make!

I've got a silver molly i'll give you for free if you'd like to drive near cypress. Just to throw out there.
Good Luck on fish shopping!

[IlikeGUPPIES]

Alrighty! I'm back from the stores.

This is what I got today.Itemsbought.jpg

I made a water change and took out all the driftwood and the water clarity is a lot better.
I added 20ml of stresszymes
Going to rinse and add the extra gravel and then place the plants in next.

-Need to get a couple of light bulbs tomorrow. IVAN, the light bulb I have is a long skinny bulb (14-15in. long) Will look into 2watt bulb tomorrow if I have time. Really did not know the technicalities on lighting for plants, so Thank you!!
-Currently talking to Koi about deals on live plants he/she has. MZUNGU, I'm going to listen to you and add plants according to budget for now. So far, you've helped me be at peace with a couple things so far. (sticking with the AquaClear and low-light plants) Thanks!
-Need to add the Seasalt
-Then add a couple of driftwood instead of having 5 in there

Will update with picture once it's all in there. =D

[Airjammer]

If You like the brown/natural gravel look....I use the pea gravel that you can buy at Lowes in the garden section. Very inexpensive, and it goes a long way!

[nhung]

With brackish water, you are limited on the kind of plants you can put in the tank. My friend have Java fern, java moss, anubius, bolbitusis in his brackish tank. Anything else just melt.

I think the aqua clear 70 filter should be fine. It has a pretty big filter volume. You probably have the carbon media in the filter right now. After the tank cycle, I would take that out and fill it with as much bio media as possible.

[IlikeGUPPIES]

Hello there Airjammer and Nhung!

Airjammer, wish I knew about those pea gravel before I put the last batch of the gravel I bought in. Sure enough If I do change it up I will look to go that route. Money saving tip! THANKS!

Nhung, I hope these plants survive in this brackish water. I pray that it does! We'll see over the next few days. Thanks for the heads up!
What kind of bio media would you suggest instead of the carbon media? more sponge foam?


Alright here's a quick update on how the tank looks so far.
fish tank1.jpg

Plant wise, I'll see how these do but I think I should get a little soil for these plants. I really want them to flourish over time.
Moss would be nice in the future, I guess I can add a couple of fish and see how that goes.
I'll stop by fish ranch and fondren fish store to see if they have anything intriguing =D

Btw, this tank so far is pretty much created by you all!!!! I just did the labor! =D
Enjoy your masterpiece in the beginning stages!
And keep your ideas and creativity coming!

THANKS ALL!

[IlikeGUPPIES]

image[3].jpgimage[2].jpgimage[1].jpg
Here's a few more pics y'all
Sorry for the flash was taken at night

[nhung]

Bio media:
Fluval Biomax
Eheim Ehfisubstrat Pro
Seachem Matrix

Any of the products above should work. One liter should fill up your basket. Biomax is sold by weight not volume. I think 500g of Biomax is about 1.5 liter.

[IlikeGUPPIES]

Thanks Nhung, I'll see if I can get some today.

Also, can you help me understand this substitute? Like, what does this change do and why is it necessary?

Going to buy a bag of ADA soil and redo the tank for plants again. Someone helped me out with this and had pictures to prove it. =D
After that......going to try to get that lighting system up.

IVANSANCHEZ, you got pictures of your light setup you're making/made for the puffer?
If you were in the area I would come over and help you. =D

[nhung]

Carbon is used to suck up chemical. It only works for about a month. After that, it just take up space and needs to be change. A good quality biological media never needs to be change.

[Ca Nguyen]

yep, i am vietnamese :)

one of our member offered me one male endlers, a couple female, and a handful of fries which could be pure or mixed endlers, i'm growing them out so it's going to be a surprise.

remember, if you use instant ocean for true brackish water, you best have a species only set up. that mean only guppies, and/or endlers. other species of fishes, shrimps, and invertebrates usually can't handle brackish water. you can fully acclimated your guppies to marine environment, but there's no advantage in this, i did it with one a few years ago to help a buddy cycled his reef tank cheap. the guppies was then re-acclimated back into brackish, it's currently one of my main mama guppies.

the carpet look like this

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250795564474&ih=015&category=20757&ssPageName=mem_guide:1&rd=1

petsmart sell a variety of them. and it's currently on sale right now.

now for the drip loop. you'll need an air line tubing with a control valve

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752256&lmdn=Product+Type

this is the piece with the screw. place your newly fish in a small container on the floor or some place at least a feet lower than your aquarium. have one end of your air tube in the aquarium. measure the air tubing from that end to the middle of the container bellow, and cut the rest off. now, in the middle of the air line coming from your main tank, cut it and reconnect it with the control valve. put your new fish and the water it came in into the container, suck on the end coming out of your main tank, and point it into the container. water should be continuously running into the container, slow it down as much as you can by turning the control valve. when the volume of water in the container at least triple the amount that the fish came in, you can get a net and move the fish into the main tank. dump the water in the container away, do not put it back in your tank as it may contaminate and kill off your entire tank. (tips - it's perfectly fine to stop the drip every time the volume double for 5 minutes and let the fish acclimate to that if your drip loop is running for fast).

when your guppies have fries, i have some excellent microworm cultures and hikari first bite food that i'll share with you for free. you should look into installing a sponge around your filter intake to not suck up the fries. you can easily do it yourself.

everyone who own guppies of mixed sex and take good care of is is going to end up with an overstock. when your tank get close to being overstock, let me know, there are special cares you have to take to keep the water acceptable. 30 adult guppies and 70 juveniles and fries in a 10 gallons tank will create a massive amount of waste.

[Ca Nguyen]

what nhung was refering to is, the filter come with mechanical, chemical, and biological filtration.

the sponge is mechanical, it trap dirt, debris, and waste. some bacteria grow on it, and it is partial biological filtration.

the activated carbon, or coal, is chemical filtration, it absorb impurities in the water, keep it smelling nice, and looking clear.

the ceramic white things are biological filtration. over time, bacteria will grow on them and this break down ammonia and nitrite. if you have a good enough biological colony and a big enough planted tank (50 gallons plus). it is possible to eventually let the tank self sustain and never need a water change. but you should always do water change anyways, infact, it wouldn't hurt to do 10% water change per week religiously.

it tank a tank roughly 4 to 6 weeks to fully cycled. for your 60 gallons, you should limit your cycling team to 3 to 5 guppies. don't add bacteria booster as bacteria need oxygen and waste to live, and these bottle API sell have neither. Most of which been sitting on the shelves for months. and even if it did work, a large colony of bacteria would establish and die off due to your team's inability to produce enough waste to feed the bacteria. bottom line is avoid stress zime.

after 4 weeks, the activated carbon in your filter should be dead anyways, toss it out, you won't need it much, replace it with ceramic rings, these once install, never need to be replace. that replace every month crap is just a marketing strategy. however, twice a month, remove the entire content of your filter's media (sponge and ceramic) and wash it with used aquarium water. if you maintain your filter well, the aquaclear's filtration media almost never have to be replace.

for your tank, i would run two aquaclear 50. they're on sale at petsmart this week too. just buy 2 and install one for now. once your tank reach about 50 fishes, then install the other one. running multiple filter is call redundant filtration. the reason for this is each of these filter can cycle 200 gallons per hour. with 2, they can cycle 400 gph, making it cycle your tank at about 7 times per hour. it really should be 8 or more, but 7 will work fine. the other reason for running 2 smaller filter over one big one would be all this water movement causes aeration. once you set your heater to about 80 degree, oxygen level in water is reduced, and having 2 filter sure help with that. if you have an air pump, once your tank population overstock, you should convert that air pump into a sponge filter or a moving bed filter, these things are pretty efficient at biological filtration. the reason i'm telling you not to set up all your filters at once is because if you don't have enough fish to produce enough waste, the bacteria won't have enough food. colonies on either filter will start competing for food and they would run worse than 1 single filter unit. but if done right, this is very effective.

[Ca Nguyen]

sorry for the long posts >.< i didn't mean to make it so long

[HookTheBrotherUp]

That was me that offered the Endlers, the offer still stands. 'Sorry Ca, I have not replied to your PM because I just returned yesterday from some nice downtime in Spain... Barcelona to be exact.

So, let me get situated, and maybe I can meet you this weekend at the Petsmart in Katy and give you some Endlers.

[Ca Nguyen]

yay! welcome home. i'm excited about the endlers. setting up a 5 gallons pure endlers tanking with established filter. take your time, i'm in no rush. i'll be out of town saturday, but friday or sunday i'm all open. you can reach me at 281 902 9640.

feel free to text or call me if you ever have trouble with your guppies or endlers too ilikeguppies. i'm pretty good at diagnosing sickness. in most case, your sick guppy is salvage able. but just by having the right temperature and brackish environment, you can prevent most sickness.

[IlikeGUPPIES]

Hey there Ca!!! (or should I call you dai Ca? )

Man your long posts are very informative!! I read it like 3 times just to understand it all. Now I really understand about replacing the media with something useful after all the carbon is used up. Thanks Ca! I'm beginning to see the bigger picture in this hobby. Don't even sweat it with the long post thing. I really enjoy learning more about this hobby. =D Any knowledge and wisdom I can obtain from you all is priceless so by all means, share!!!

Quick update on the tank now.

After all that hardwork to set up the tank and everything, I emptied it all out because I got the soil today.
I understand what you mean about plants not doing to well in brackish water so I'm not going to add the salt right away.
My plan was to redo the gravel with the soil at the bottom of it, then get as much live plants as I desire and place them in, and then add a tablespoon of salt to the tank everyday or every two day with the plants in there.
I'm hoping that the plants will slowly get use to it and live. I did read on one of the live plants and planted fish tank section where plants could actually live in brackish water if you slowly introduce them to it so that's what I'm going to try out. I really want live plants in there!!!!!!

In terms of the filter system, I have 5 different systems. In addition to the AquaClear 70, I have an AquaClear 20 and 3 other filter system so should any of them should mess up I'll definitely have some back up while searching for a good deal on one of the Eheim filters.

Now on to more important business........ENDLERS!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also have a 5 gallon and 20 gallon tank for when we get different strains of them!
I should be getting one strain of them tomorrow. Not sure if it's a pure strain or a hybrid but I'll share with you some if you want. They are the cobra endlers.

But HOOKTHEBROTHERUP, gone head and hook the brothers up on the endlers you got for real!!!!
Weren't you the one that supplied Fish Gallery with endlers that I read on some other post??
Well, I would like some as well whenever you get situated. Did you pick up some endlers from Spain while you were there???
We can all exchange numbers now 832 228 8225.

Ca, your knowledge on guppies is super cool!!! Gets me pumped up.
Alright well let me go ahead and lay down the tank with the soil and gravel and start the cycling process again. I understand I need fish poop for bacteria food now hahaha

I'll update you all! Thanks again y'all!!! whooo hooo!!!!!!!!!!!! ENDLERS!!!! wait till we get different tiger strains of endlers!!!!!!!!!!!!