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Hello everyone! I am new to using substrates and planting live plants, so I am here to ask for general species advice.
I recently acquired through some extreme luck a 55 gallon aquarium that I intend to use to feature live plants and various species of Gourami(and possibly breeding some sub-species on the side) and want to go totally natural on the plant life.
Gourami themselves being semi aggressive under some circumstances I want diverse plant cover to protect my algae eaters and invertebrates.I intend to run 6-10 ghost shrimp to supplement a pair of pleclostami as well as a few chinese algae eaters and probably 5 or 6 cory cats as my cleanup crew.
(this of course after giving the plants a couple weeks to establish an eco- system)
that being said, I want my workhorse fish to have adequate cover from their larger tankmates on all levels of the tank, or at least up to the midlevel, as some of the sunshine and dwarf gourami do not have the same tendency of their larger cousins to hang around the top of the tank.
so yeah... on to the questions!
1. What kind of substrate is recommended? I saw some bags at petco that ran about 20 bucks that claimed to remove the need to cycle water from the initial tank setup.
2. What plant species would work well for my vision? The largest fish in my tank will be about 6 inches long. I do not know the first thing about plant species that work well together, but I did see some that caught my eye while I was at the pet store.
3. How many plants are too many, and is CO2 supplementing a good idea? I have heard mixed things about this practice. I would like a good amount of plant cover in my aquarium and geez.... When I went to pick the tank up, I was just blown away to see simply how large this tank was compared to my previous largest(20 gal).
4. With the proper substrate, is fertilization necessary at the beginning of the tank's life cycle? I have a timer for my natural light producing fluorescent to ensure that my plants get about 5 hours of artificial sunlight per day, is that enough?
ANY good advice from a learned member of this community would do me a lot of good, I really want to make this hobby work well for me and would like my first attempt to not end in tragedy!
Thanks guys!
I recently acquired through some extreme luck a 55 gallon aquarium that I intend to use to feature live plants and various species of Gourami(and possibly breeding some sub-species on the side) and want to go totally natural on the plant life.
Gourami themselves being semi aggressive under some circumstances I want diverse plant cover to protect my algae eaters and invertebrates.I intend to run 6-10 ghost shrimp to supplement a pair of pleclostami as well as a few chinese algae eaters and probably 5 or 6 cory cats as my cleanup crew.
(this of course after giving the plants a couple weeks to establish an eco- system)
that being said, I want my workhorse fish to have adequate cover from their larger tankmates on all levels of the tank, or at least up to the midlevel, as some of the sunshine and dwarf gourami do not have the same tendency of their larger cousins to hang around the top of the tank.
so yeah... on to the questions!
1. What kind of substrate is recommended? I saw some bags at petco that ran about 20 bucks that claimed to remove the need to cycle water from the initial tank setup.
2. What plant species would work well for my vision? The largest fish in my tank will be about 6 inches long. I do not know the first thing about plant species that work well together, but I did see some that caught my eye while I was at the pet store.
3. How many plants are too many, and is CO2 supplementing a good idea? I have heard mixed things about this practice. I would like a good amount of plant cover in my aquarium and geez.... When I went to pick the tank up, I was just blown away to see simply how large this tank was compared to my previous largest(20 gal).
4. With the proper substrate, is fertilization necessary at the beginning of the tank's life cycle? I have a timer for my natural light producing fluorescent to ensure that my plants get about 5 hours of artificial sunlight per day, is that enough?
ANY good advice from a learned member of this community would do me a lot of good, I really want to make this hobby work well for me and would like my first attempt to not end in tragedy!
Thanks guys!