My 45 Gallon gateway back into fish keeping

[redcapeman]

Hey everyone! I just bought a 45 gallon aquarium from a garage sale for $20. I think that was a steal. I use to be all over this site about 5 years ago with two 10 gallon tanks.

Now here's the new setup:
- 45 Long
- Aqua Tech Power Filter #3 30-60
- Sand from some local sand dunes
- Water

Status: a bit cloudy, still settling.

5-in-1 test strip:
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
GH: 150-300 ppm
KH: ~200 ppm
pH: >7.8 (about 8) (the tapwater here is really hard ??what do i do??)

As soon as the cloudiness settles and gets filtered out ( I have sponge wrapped around the filter intake and sponge in the filter ) I will be cycling, but I would like to do the fastest & most efficient way to cycle. I just dont have the patience for a fishless month-long cycle (I'm just way too excited hah).

So what do you think:

2-3 guppies, and some plants + CO2 then slowly add more guppies? or do i need more? I'm new at the large tank thing.

I would eventually like to stock the tank with something of the following:

15 - 20 neon tetras
6 fancy gupps
4 ottos
amano (sp?) shrimp / glass shrimp
1-2 Siamese algae eaters

and plants:
wisteria
anacharis
micro-sword( or grass of some sort)
cabomba / myrio
some miniature anubius or sword plant

Any suggestions? Advice? Criticism? Comments? I welcome them.

I will try to get some pictures of the setup process soon

[MrParker]

HEYY! I am actually redcapeman(the one that posted this thread), i just found my old username, so I'm on here. Still need advice for this 45 gallonator though...

[unwritten law]

have you used sand from sand dunes before? Doesn't sound like the safest thing to do.

[Newman]

Yea that sounds quite dangerous, you never know what kind of garbage (pesticides, toxic waste, harmful minerals) is in that sand UNTIL you test the water thats been in contact with it for a LONG time. dont be in a big hurry to add fish (especially the real fish) especially because youre using that sand.

I mean i can tell your hella more experienced than me, but just warning you. idk if boiling the sand first will help (lol might be bad idea since its hard to separate sand from the "after boil" thats left.)

a test strip is great and fast but specific liquid tests will tell you loads more about whats in your water/sand mixture.

a ph of around 7.8 is OK since i have about that (7.6-7.8) in my 40 gal with the fish in my sig, and theire doing fine) If your tap tends to be quite alkaline (like 8.0 and above) then concider setting up the tank for African Chichlids. It makes sense to work with fish that tolerate the ph your tap water gives, instead of working your *** off to get (and maintain) acidic water to keep amazon fish. Its all up to you.

to do a faster cycle try buying the (sometimes expensive) live bacteria-base cycling additives. Bio Sphira (or w/e it called) is a really famous one. i use Nutrafin Cycle (and have API Stress Zyme for back up once the nutrafin runs out) and yea adding guppies or fish you really dont care about would help the process, but they(some) will die inevitably.

The pH you have is ok for most plants that youre planning on getting(im also getting some of the same plants [buying cabomba today, and alread got anacharis]) some, like the swords, might need lightly lower pH but try it and see if they adapt.

pics would be great. sorry but thats about everything that i can contribute as i am a newb myself (i wont deny it :P)

[MrParker]

Heres some pics, cloudiness almost settled. I'm going to petsmart to grab some anacharis and wisteria hopefully they have them. I am still hunting for some good black rocks for aquascaping. Kind of like the ones in my old 10 gallon


I will not be adding any important fish for a while, and i'll invest in some liquid water tests in a week or two or so. Petsmart is 30-40 min away sooo...kind of a pain...

Front


Side

[Newman]

Looks very nice for a start. liquid water tests can be very expesive, but i think theyre 100% worth it.

[jingles]

The plants will speed up the cycle. For a 45 gallon tank I'd image that you'd need more than 2-3 guppies. Maybe 5-10 but I have no idea. In my experience it has been quicker to do fishless. If you by those products that claim they have bacteria in them(like API, I doubt they do but who knows) they'll speed up the cycle also. Its better to do fish cycles with feeder goldfish because they produce more ammonia. Also for the sand, seems like your setting your self up for something bad. Who knows it might all work out ok. I know nothing about sand except patriot fish crap it(when they eat coral). I'd boil it with the water from the tank and then just dump all the water back in. Although that would kill all the bacteria that might have started to grow in your tank.
Good Luck

oh be careful with the algae eater they don't really eat algae and they can get mean.

[MrParker]

So I bought some Myrio green, and Moneywort, as well as some hornwort.

The hornwort seems really dark, and has some fuzzies on it that look like some black hair algea (something i dont want to deal with).

But what am i supposed to do with the hornwort? anchor it? let it float? it is rootless...thats weird, i didnt know that.

[Newman]

Really what ever you want. anchor it with a weight, or a rock, or tie it with fishing line to a corner in the tank, or just let it float around and get bounce around by the filter(s) If there is light, it will grow. Nitrates also help. its up to you what you want your tank to look like. I dont think it ever produces roots. grows fast, so youll probably end up stimming it often.
VERY sensitive to copper, so i suggest you test for that.

cut any part of the hornwort that has the algae off and toss them. you only want to leave the dark green to light green hornword in your tank. brown, and its outta there.

[thejava1]

I'd flush out some of that water with the crap in it- since its still floating around in the water it's probly not sand lol. It could be really salty or even bird poop... yuck theres a lot of stuff that goes down in land sand.