David Edwards
Member
Good evening all,
I'm David from sunny Shropshire in the UK.
I'm returning to the hobby after almost 10 years away. Never really intended to leave the hobby but when we downsized house the 2 metre tank had nowhere to go! its still sitting gathering dust In the garage and I live in hope of being able to resurrect that tank someday.
I have now acquired a Juwel Lido 200 and intend this to be a planted tank with C)2 injection. I've been a lurker on the site reading information and have just registered. There is a mountain of information to sift through and understand and the site has extremely helpful in assisting me in planning out the set up but there are still some things that I am trying to work out.
I am concerned that the T8 lighting standard on the Juwel may not be sufficient ( the Juwel is quite a deep tank) although my reading suggests that too much light can be more of a problem than too little.
I'm also concerned about flow which again from my reading appears to be one of the reasons problems occur in planted tanks. The juwel has the internal filer with a 600 lph flow rate which is not enough. I have a external rena XP2 (with XP3 impellor) that I can use to supplement. I am thinking of putting the spray bar on the XP2 and placing this in the back facing forward and then fashioning a spray bar for the internal to also go on the back wall and face forwards to the front glass. This may not be enough and so an alternative is take out the internal and buy a larger eternal with a 2000 lph rate and attach a spray bar.
I'm leaning toward an inline diffuser.
I was going to use a soil substrate (be it tropica, jbl pro scape, Amazonia or seachem fluorite) but my reading also leads me to conclude that these are not of much benefit and only really provide a safety net in the event of inadequate or irregular fertilisation. I'm therefore thinking of getting something else (cannot decide what at the moment).
I currently have purchased pre mixed banded fertiliser but after reading the article on EI fertilisation i'm thinking of acquiring the salts and mixing them myself (in that thread I noticed that Aqua Essentials ere down as a supplier but I cannot find any salts on their website).
Anyway thanks for reading this if you've taken the time.
Best
David
I'm David from sunny Shropshire in the UK.
I'm returning to the hobby after almost 10 years away. Never really intended to leave the hobby but when we downsized house the 2 metre tank had nowhere to go! its still sitting gathering dust In the garage and I live in hope of being able to resurrect that tank someday.
I have now acquired a Juwel Lido 200 and intend this to be a planted tank with C)2 injection. I've been a lurker on the site reading information and have just registered. There is a mountain of information to sift through and understand and the site has extremely helpful in assisting me in planning out the set up but there are still some things that I am trying to work out.
I am concerned that the T8 lighting standard on the Juwel may not be sufficient ( the Juwel is quite a deep tank) although my reading suggests that too much light can be more of a problem than too little.
I'm also concerned about flow which again from my reading appears to be one of the reasons problems occur in planted tanks. The juwel has the internal filer with a 600 lph flow rate which is not enough. I have a external rena XP2 (with XP3 impellor) that I can use to supplement. I am thinking of putting the spray bar on the XP2 and placing this in the back facing forward and then fashioning a spray bar for the internal to also go on the back wall and face forwards to the front glass. This may not be enough and so an alternative is take out the internal and buy a larger eternal with a 2000 lph rate and attach a spray bar.
I'm leaning toward an inline diffuser.
I was going to use a soil substrate (be it tropica, jbl pro scape, Amazonia or seachem fluorite) but my reading also leads me to conclude that these are not of much benefit and only really provide a safety net in the event of inadequate or irregular fertilisation. I'm therefore thinking of getting something else (cannot decide what at the moment).
I currently have purchased pre mixed banded fertiliser but after reading the article on EI fertilisation i'm thinking of acquiring the salts and mixing them myself (in that thread I noticed that Aqua Essentials ere down as a supplier but I cannot find any salts on their website).
Anyway thanks for reading this if you've taken the time.
Best
David