Help me with my set-up.

[stephcps]

So I'm getting ready to set-up my 150 show tank. I bought it off craigslist for 300 bucks. It came with a nice wet/dry setup that I plan to use, though I have no experience with them. I am going to start off with a 160 watt TEK retrofit lighting fixture with the geismen (sp?) bulbs in my canopy. I am going to use the reef keeper lite controller for everything. I will have two heaters...one in sump, one in tank. There will be sand substrate for most of the tank with some planted areas of ecocomplete. I have a sweet piece of manzanita coming. The back is going to be painted (Krylon watermelon stolen from Mattinhouston!) No fancy water change stuff right now or CO2. Strictly low tech.

The stock will be 6 subadult discus (bought from Hedut a few months ago), All 4-4.5 inches, 20 diamond tetras currently out of quarantine and ready to go. Several juvie BN plecos (acouple albino longfin, couple brown white tip longfin, and a couple regular fin chocolate). I am also going to have a school of harlequin rasboros, and a school of Botia kubotai...numbers still to be determined. Evaentually a few more discus, but not for awhile.
The plants will be combo of stuf I already have...pennywort, java fern, crypts, broadleaf sag.
I plan on weekly 50% water change.


So, a few questions:
The guy at my LFS told me not to use the bioballs.

So, what media are people using in their wet/dry filters?
I have noticed a lot of people use a canister and a wet/dry. Will the wet/dry alone be sufficient?


Are there any pointers from all you out there? Anything I haven't thought about or suggestions you may have?
Thanks to everyone for such a great forum..I have learned so much from all of you!!

Steph

[tcyiu]

Sounds like a good set up. Unless your wet dry is very small (you didn't say what capacity it has) I would not heed the LFS guy's advice regarding bioballs. The hoopla over bioballs has to do with their surface area not being as large as other media. Not really a concern for freshwater aquariums. This debate is best left to marine reef guys. Just make sure that you can turn over 4-5 times the volume of the tank in an hour.

One area that you may not have spent much time thinking about is the intake. When I set up my wet-dry, my intake grill had gaps. The water flow was sufficiently large that I kept losing smaller tetras. Make sure that the smaller fish won't get sucked up. Also, you should think about a way to filter the water at the intake. You don't want the detritus to flow all over the bioballs because you will need to clean them out on a regular basis or you will get massive nitrate spikes.

So where I'm going with this is that both can be solved with a pre-filter. The major downside is that this will be in your tank, and will not be as "clean" looking. The alternative would be to have a grill in the tank to keep the smaller fish out, and a micro mesh to trap the finer particulates. Either way, you will have to regularly clean out the crud. Just try to set something up that is not too much of a burden to clean.

Good luck.

Tim

[stephcps]

Thanks Tim,

That is what I thought...a prefilter. But got nervous when he was dead set against them.

Thanks for the advice!!

Steph

[Eddie]

Hey there Steph, just wanted to check, have you sterilized the tank and wet/dry?

Eddie

[stephcps]

I'm in process. Tank is done bioballs are done, I just need to clean the wet/dry.http://forum.simplydiscus.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Eddie]

I'm in process. Tank is done bioballs are done, I just need to clean the wet/dry.http://forum.simplydiscus.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Sounds good, can't wait to see the finished product!

All the best,

Eddie

[icemanx23]

isn't botia agressive fish?

[stephcps]

There are different kinds of botia. The polka dot loaches from what I have read are gentle. I am only going on other's experiences however.