# 70x70x30cm shallow square tank guidance (44 gallons approx)



## Khuulio (12 May 2014)

Hello friends,
My parents recently allowed me to set up my first large scale (for me) aquarium tank, under the conditions that it fits around the budget of $500 AUD.

Being inspired by the shallow tanks such as the Bucket Of Mud and A Chocolate Puddle, I wanted to try something on a smaller scale.

I called up a local guy and he quoted me 150 for a 70x70x30 cm shallow cube tank (with 30cm being the height), which I think is reasonable, and am planning to go through with it If I can find suitable equipment.

Please bear in mind that it will be a heavily planted tank with a dirt/soil base, with emergent plants (basically a riparium, planning for peace lillies, and similar popular plants). Stock will be probably a shoal of fish and a pair of Dwarf Gourami. Plants, any low-moderate light plants such as Hygrophilia, Water Wisteria, Crypts, Amazon Swords, maybe Dwarf Sag.

Here is where I need advice from the experienced.

*Filtration: *Many websites all have different advice on the filtration, some say a turnover of four times per hour, while other say ten. I personally feel that a filter is not extremely necessary for my tank (heavily planted), and I'm getting one for the sake of a fallback on filtration and as a device for surface agitation.  I'm planning on getting an *Aqueal 1000* because it seems sufficient (1000l/ph) and fits my budget. I want to get a canister, but unless I can find a cheap one of eBay, I'll stick to this filter. I might just get a used Koralia if I can pick one up.
*Lighting:* I am extremely stumped here because of how tricky this topic is. Some people state that the WPG is outdated, and you should rely on PAR, while others say WPG is viable. Since I want to keep crypts and swords, I want moderate light. To meet my needs, I'm planning on getting a *2 feet T5HO ballast (2 tubes)*. I'm just hoping the emergent plants can live off the indirect sunlight from the windows. Or else, I need to get a light that I can hang from above, any recommendations that I can look out for? I saw the Kessil spotlight but that is way out of my budget, I have seen a few Metal Halide lights, but I don't know what strength I should be looking for...
*Heating:* This seems straightforward. I plan on getting a heater later, but when I do, I feel that a *150W* heater is sufficient because where I live (Sydney), the temperature range is around 30 degrees to 10 degrees Celsius. If I can afford a canister filter, I think I'll look for inline filters which can fit.
While my goals are clear, reaching them has many confusions which I hope you guys can help me with. Do you guys think my choice in equipment will fit the needs of my tank, and if not, do you guys have any recommendations? I hope to set this up soon and start a journal thread 

Any advice is helpful.


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## BigTom (12 May 2014)

I would definitely go for suspended light if possible for this sort of setup. In the UK there are very often cheap second hand halides on ebay that are used for shop lighting. A 70w halide suspended 1.5-2 feet above the tank would be plenty of light. The are also cheap LED flood lights that other people have used with success. That said, both sorts of units are large and ugly and will require a frame to hang, so there are downsides.

The Kessil units are aesthetically brilliant, but expensive unless you can find one second hand, and the fans are quite noisy.

Can you get TMC LED tiles in Aus? 

I was running about 4x turnover in the last iteration of the Bucket, for reference.


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## James O (12 May 2014)

From the puddlemiester himself


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## Lee Sweeting (12 May 2014)

As Tom was saying the tmc tiles are good. I'm using two tmc mini 400's over a 117 litre tank, set at 35%. There also quite cheap if you can get hold of them?!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Khuulio (12 May 2014)

BigTom said:


> Can you get TMC LED tiles in Aus?



I haven't seen them in stores, but buying them online is viable. 

I looked into Metal Halides and there are two options, both HQI, 14k and 20k kelvin rating, both very cheap ($32 AUD with shipping) but they don't come with a housing/fixture.


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## BigTom (12 May 2014)

This is the sort of thing I was using for the first couple of years - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JCC-TRACK...UK_BOI_Lights_Lighting_ET&hash=item3a902b0ea4

Dirt cheap but very ugly. Take standard rx7s bulbs which are available in lots of different colour temperatures.


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## Khuulio (12 May 2014)

If i was going to go the MH way, this one caught my eye. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MARINE-C...pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item5d4c0af35a&_uhb=1



http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Metal-Ha...tdoor_Lighting&var&hash=item233768bf05&_uhb=1
Found an RX7S Housing, while the light is R7S

They are the same right?


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## BigTom (12 May 2014)

A 20k bulb is going to be very blue. Unless you particularly want that look then something in the 5-7.5k range will look more like daylight.


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## Khuulio (12 May 2014)

BigTom said:


> A 20k bulb is going to be very blue. Unless you particularly want that look then something in the 5-7.5k range will look more like daylight.



In terms of spectrum, which one would plants grow in better, or does it not really matter. Photosynthesis best occurs in the blue and red spectrums right?


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## Humbert (12 May 2014)

hi
please note that for a filter not only the flow is important, in fact I would say that flow is the least important thing for a filter, although flow is generally important in the aquarium.
what's important for a filter is the space it has for biological filter material and actually lower flow filters perform better bio filtration than high flow filters for the same amount of biological load, simply because there exists an optimum time for the water to be in contact with the beneficial bacteria in order for nitrification to properly take place (so called optimum "hidraulic retention time")
and the Aquael 1000 seems to have very little space for bio material, although it has good flow.
of course, depending on the biological load you will have in the aquarium (i.e. number and size of fish, as well as amount of food you will feed), you might be fine with this filter, if you have very few fish.
but a wise choice would be to get a filter with as big a space for bio material as fits the budget, and that normally means canister.
biological filtration is perhaps the most important filtration for an aquarium. in the absence of it, you could have ammonia spikes, which bring along a lot of problems from sick fish to unwanted algae.


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## Alastair (12 May 2014)

Humbert said:


> hi
> please note that for a filter not only the flow is important, in fact I would say that flow is the least important thing for a filter, although flow is generally important in the aquarium.
> what's important for a filter is the space it has for biological filter material and actually lower flow filters perform better bio filtration than high flow filters for the same amount of biological load, simply because there exists an optimum time for the water to be in contact with the beneficial bacteria in order for nitrification to properly take place (so called optimum "hidraulic retention time")
> and the Aquael 1000 seems to have very little space for bio material, although it has good flow.
> ...


Hi 
Biological filtration isn't too much of a problem in this described set up. All the riparium style plants such as peace lilies etc act as fantastic filtration sucking up nitrates ammonia etc. 
Biological bacteria also grows over wood rocks the substrate and the hydro balls or gravel used In the planters so shouldn't be much of a problem once the tank settles in.
Not disagreeing as in certain situations your right, ie the standard scaped tank fish only tank etc but these style tanks the plants do the majority of filtration

In the chocolate puddle I did, although I was running a fluval 306 this only had filter floss in and was used purely for mechanical filtration..

Tom with his bucket of mud initially only ran a powerhead for a good while before he decided to get a filter mainly for more flow on the surface. 

Looking forward to this though


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## BigTom (12 May 2014)

Khuulio said:


> In terms of spectrum, which one would plants grow in better, or does it not really matter. Photosynthesis best occurs in the blue and red spectrums right?



People who know more about this than I say that plants are pretty adaptable and that spectrum really isn't important. So you could try a 20k bulb I guess, although I'm not sure how well the previous advice applies as you start getting into the more extreme ends of the spectrum. Plus it'll look really weird.


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## dw1305 (12 May 2014)

Hi all, 


> what's important for a filter is the space it has for biological filter material and actually lower flow filters perform better bio filtration than high flow filters for the same amount of biological load, simply because there exists an optimum time for the water to be in contact with the beneficial bacteria in order for nitrification to properly take place (so called optimum "hidraulic retention time")


 I'm pretty dubious about this, Hamburg Matten Filters do this to some degree, but we used to do a lot of work with "landfill leachate", which has a huge BOD, and one of our key findings was that only factor that really mattered was that the water didn't become de-oxygenated in the filter. 

In a canister filter as soon as water flow slackens de-oxygenation becomes a real issue. 

Theoretically you can have both oxidation of  ammonia to nitrate and anaerobic de-nitrification (of NO3) to N2 gas in the same filter media, but it is not without risk. Have a look at this thread <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/alfagrog-for-reducing-nitrates.19636/>.

cheers Darrel


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## Khuulio (13 May 2014)

That was a really informative read Humbert, thanks. The plants should take care of most of the filtration though (my 10g is doing fine with NO filtration at all), so I personally am only getting one for the flow aspect, and that had good flow. Koralias near me are the same price as a canister (read: expensive). I will obviously upgrade over time, but a cheapo filter as a boost while the plants are settling in is all I need it for.

As per lighting, my mum said she is ready to fork out a bit more for less wattage, like LEDs, so I'm on the lookout for fairly priced LED fixtures. TMC Grobeams tiles are around $270 online for the square panel though.... I did spot a 14K metal halide, and a 6.5K metal halide BUT it had a ridiculous price for shipping. 

I plan to set an order for the tank the coming weekend, probably going to make it 34 tall, because 4cm for the substrate leaves 30cm for the plants, and maybe increase the width to 30 inches (76 cm) just because some lighting fixtures are that wide (good for if I ever want to convert to tube lighting).

*EDIT: *I got linked this light, http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PAR38-16...FRESH-WATER-AND-MARINE-AQUARIUM-/190898081000

It seems to fit my budget and looks like a viable option also


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## Khuulio (14 May 2014)

Researching online, it seems that PAR38 LEDS are pretty cheap and might possibly do the job. I'd get the ones on the link above, but it seems the 8 white, 4 blue and 4 red diode light has been sold out, so its just the 12 white and 4 blue diode one. There are others, but it looks like that one is the best suited (might have to supplement red light with something else).


*EDIT: *I'm probably going to get this, http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PAR38-16...FRESH-WATER-AND-MARINE-AQUARIUM-/190898081000

Its sufficient. Right?


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