New 100 Gallon- Advice?

[Bree7]

Hey, guys!!

So today I picked up a 100 gallon long acrylic tank. I got it all cleaned up and I love it! I'll be stocking it with my discus from Kenny. I'm basically looking for ideas on plants and aquascaping. I'm very new to planted tanks, so try to keep it simple for me :) I'd like to use white sand, and I would LOVE part of the tank to have some grassy plant or green ground cover moss. I've ordered some Manzanita wood for the tank, and I have slate that I'd like to use to build some kind of wall where the plants would be raised up a level (if that makes any sense) but I'm looking for ideas on plants and where to get them. It would be a very low tech setup, just some easy plants that will look great! Hopefully some color and I'd rather not have to set up Co2, but we'll see.

I need to know:
what kind of bulbs to get, what wattage, and where
what plants to get, where to get them and how to arrange them
any ideas or suggestions you have for the aquascaping it
what kind of substrate I need
what maintenance I'll need to keep up on
mainly, the basics, and any tips you want to throw in!


I'm on a pretty tight budget, but I'd love to get some ideas here :)


Any pictures you want to throw in of setups you think I'd benefit from seeing or gaining ideas from would be much appreciated!

[calihawker]

If you are new to both discus and plants, the one best piece of advice I can give you is to get the planted thing down first. Give the planted tank a year to develop. There's a lot of very knowledgable folks here and I'm sure they will chime in with some suggestions but I would encourage you to vist some of the planted tank sites like plantedtank.net and barrreport.com

Great choice getting fish from Kenny!;) If you have another tank, you can grow them out bare bottom while you're getting the planted tank going at the same time. That'd be the best way.:)

Good luck!

[Bree7]

If you have another tank, you can grow them out bare bottom while you're getting the planted tank going at the same time. That'd be the best way.:)



That's the plan! :)

[theblondskeleton]

Check out the planted tank forums:

The Planted Tank
Aquascaping World
Aquatic Plant Central

There are tons of stickies and articles and journals that will give you all the info you could possibly need to get a planted tank going. They each have sub-forums dedicated to each of the areas you are asking about. My advice - if you want a planted tank, the most important thing is lighting. Everything follows that. Get that figured out, and then you will know what plants you can grow, whether or not you will need CO2, additional fertilization, nutrient-rich substrate, etc. Also, it tends to be the most expensive element when you put together a large planted tank.

Most important considerations for light:

* Do you want lushly planted with bright-colored stem plants, low-tech slow-growing, or a biotope-type setup with swords, sand and driftwood?
* What kind of maintenance schedule are you looking for?
* How tall is your tank? (deeper tanks require more powerful light, i.e. T5HO vs CFL, T8, or T12)
* How much do you have to spend? The more you invest early on, the better it is long-term. I've had cheap lighting before - it always needs to be replaced, and ends up costing just as much in the long-run. Do some research, ask around, find a good deal :)

Good Luck!

[zamboniMan]

Hey, guys!!

So today I picked up a 100 gallon long acrylic tank. I got it all cleaned up and I love it! I'll be stocking it with my discus from Kenny. I'm basically looking for ideas on plants and aquascaping. I'm very new to planted tanks, so try to keep it simple for me :) I'd like to use white sand, and I would LOVE part of the tank to have some grassy plant or green ground cover moss. I've ordered some Manzanita wood for the tank, and I have slate that I'd like to use to build some kind of wall where the plants would be raised up a level (if that makes any sense) but I'm looking for ideas on plants and where to get them. It would be a very low tech setup, just some easy plants that will look great! Hopefully some color and I'd rather not have to set up Co2, but we'll see.

I need to know:
what kind of bulbs to get, what wattage, and where
what plants to get, where to get them and how to arrange them
any ideas or suggestions you have for the aquascaping it
what kind of substrate I need
what maintenance I'll need to keep up on
mainly, the basics, and any tips you want to throw in!


I'm on a pretty tight budget, but I'd love to get some ideas here :)


Any pictures you want to throw in of setups you think I'd benefit from seeing or gaining ideas from would be much appreciated!


I'd go with T5 HO lighting. Just don't make it so bright that its hard to look at a lot of guys do that and I think it ruins the effect.

As for the substrate I'd go with soil master select potting soil. It may be hard to hunt down and its a real pain in the *** to setup but in the end it looks nice, its safe, its inexpensive and its provides a great deal of nutrients for your plants.

As for the plants just experiment until you start finding what you like. There was a good thread here a couple weeks ago about where to buy plants I'd start there.

Good luck!

Josh