I work at a boarding school (But we'd never call ourselves that) and at my work, the students live on campus. They have teachers at the school, and "houseparents" when they come home. I am a houseparent. I spend my days and nights taking care of 10 unruly middle school girls, trying my best to keep them safe, while teaching them social skills and the basics of life.

I have a $1,500 budget set aside for home improvement. My partner and I are considering purchasing a large fresh water aquarium. We currently have a 30 gallon aquarium with guppies, and the students enjoy them a good bit. We are thinking a larger, more diverse and well thought out tank might be a nice addition to our home. So on with it! Why am I here talking to you?!

Issue that needs solving: I need considerable help deciding how to go about spending this budget.

Goal: Create the most interesting and beautiful aquarium possible while not wasting money.

Preferences:

I'd like a healthy environment for the fish.
I want the water and tank to be clean and clear.
I want most of the foreground to be lined with short plants, possibly glosso, or it's newer mutant cousin. (I tend to enjoy beautiful plants more than beautiful fish.)
I want to avoid costly upkeep expenses.
I want to avoid spending more than a couple hours a week cleaning the tank.

---

What I've found so far:

Classifieds in my area are not helpful. I live in central South Dakota and hardly anybody lives here. (Those that do must not like fish)
Because of this, I've been left with searching the internet and the nearest Petco/Petsmart which are a two hour drive away. While I was initially interested in a 60 gallon tank, it seemed a little bit small to me. Then I saw a 125 gallon tank at Petsmart. Now that's what I had in mind! The tank which comes with some lights and a cover cost $310 and the stand cost $260. It looks sturdy and well built. I'm not married to the 125 gallon tank idea, but that size tank is what I imagined when we first discussed the idea. So I continued to look around and theorize. Let me first say, I'm no expert, in fact, I have no clue what I'm doing. But I tried to use simple reasoning to theorize what I might need in addition to the tank. I theorized I'd need plenty of filtration. I theorized the larger filtration systems would make more noise, which would drive me crazy. I theorized that going overboard on the filtration might keep the tank clean. So I added to my list, three 60 gallon filters. I moved on to heaters, and added two 90 gallon heaters. (It sometimes gets a little cold in our home) Next I considered lighting, I figured the lights the tank came with would not be sufficient for a tank full of live plants. I really liked the LED lights, but can LED lights be UV? I'm not sure, either way, I added about $150 of lights to my idea. So here is a quick MS paint sketch of what I had imagined:



As far as aquarium decoration goes, I'll have to work on that later, but in short, I want no fake plants in my tank, plenty of hiding spots, but not a lot of clutter.

Before I began theorizing for a larger tank, I came up with this list for my fish:

20 Zebra Danios
10 Tiger Barbs
6 Redfin Tinfoil Barbs
3 Red Tail Sharks

But now, if I go with the larger tank, the options are nearly limitless, so I need help here too.

Preferences on fish:
I really like schoolers.
I like having fish combinations which force most areas of the tank to be occupied at any given time, rather than everything being all clustered together.
In general (some exceptions may apply) I want to avoid having large or expensive fish.
I love fish chases, but not fish abuse or death.

So questions:

What do you think about the 125 gallon tank from petsmart? (Remember, buying used is hard in my area)

What do you think about my filtration, heating and lighting?

What are some plant ideas?

What are some fish combination ideas?

Will all of this cost a fortune of time and money after everything is set up?

Am I foolish for considering this task?




Thanks everyone!

I would recommend one or two Rena XP4 canister filters. You need to double up on heaters to avoid big temperature swings when changing 25% of the water if your source water is cold, and in south Dakota I imagine it is for this time of year. I live about two thousand miles south of you and I have to deal with that problem right now. Even a small water change in a large tank means a lot of water, and big temperature dips can stress or shock fish, affecting their ability to stay healthy.

If you buy led lighting, purchase something online; the LED lighting art PetSmart is inadequate for planted tanks. You want to be looking at something like the TMC AquaRay GroBeam strips. I purchase mine at Americanaquariumproducts.com fwiw. I don't know about others, but I buy my plants and glossostigma e. at aquariumplants.com

If you want to grow glosso, get good plant substrate!

One last thing-- it's my experience that you spend more time on bigger tanks, especially on water changes and plant upkeep. Expect to spend more than two hours a week probably.

Please excuse any typos or errors, this message was dictated from my mobile device.

FWIW

You might take a look at:

my (beaslbob build) methods

Additionally AquariumPlants.com are located in Tea, SD out side of souix falls.

these methods worked very well when I spend 5 years at ellsworth AFb.

my .02

__________________
fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Here is more help How to set up an Asian aquarium on a budget | Features | Practical Fishkeeping

For once in my life, I might have to agree that a Beaslbob setup would be a good idea - you'll only need heaters and shop lights, basically. 1" peat moss (soaked), 1" Quickrete play sand (washed thoroughly), 1" Safe-T-Sorb or other clay-like material like PC Select (also washed). All the substrate items can be had at Home Depot, Lowes, etc.

The idea is to use plants in place of a filter(s). Anything carbon-based, which would normally be strained out by activated charcoal in the filter, is also fair game for plants (hence why planted tank owners don't use charcoal in their filters). Plus the substrate is dirt cheap and very effective.

pH7's ideas are great as well, but it will be hard to exact such a beautiful and elaborate system with such a huge tank and not take a serious hit to the wallet.

Just my thoughts...

__________________
Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

that is very appriate. After all it is just a different form of dirt.

my .02

__________________
fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

I have a couple of 125s that have huge filters on them and a big filter does not mean loud. I would not use HOB filters as your picture has, but would go with some form of canister that fits your budget. The lights that the tank will come with will not suffice to grow plants unless they are of the low light variety, which would exclude any carpet or short covering plants since the light doesn't penetrate. Just speaking from experience it is easier to buy 2-36" fixtures vs trying to find anything that is 72" long. And if you really wanted to save money on substrate, 2-40lb bags of safe-t-sorb (sold at tractor supply company) will cost less than $11 and will be enough to give you about 2.5-3".