general advice please I'm new

[fly boy]

hello people as the title suggests I'm after a bit of advice and need guiding in the right direction , ok the story so for is - I'm in the process of breaking down my 4 year old very successful 125g reef tank . and i want to set up a dutch style planted tank , so equipment wise i have a 5'x2'x2' tank , 2 x 150 watt metal halide , i will be changing my 27g sump in to a biological filter the return pump is rated at 5000 lph but delivering about 3500lph back to the tank and i also have pressurised co2 bottles . i am planing on using eco complete substrate and dosing with powder fertilizers . would i be better off using one large co2 diffuser or two smaller ones ( one at each end of the tank ) . im planning to have a shoal of rummy noise tetras , plenty of Otto's and a small army of shrimp . anything im missing ? does my hard wear sound ok ?

 

[Piece-of-fish]

The Dutch of this size would look stunning. The hardware sounds good. You'd probably be advised here to add some more flow, a powerhead or 2 to get to the 10x rule for better co2 and nutrients distrubution. CO2 loss through the sump has to be adressed as well. Try to find a read about that. Planters almost always use external filters for this reason. It'd be more expensive for you though to switch now. And you cant forget about unlimited bio-filtration and easy maintenance of the sump 😉 So both have advantages and disadvantages. I'd be tempted to try a sump if i already had it. CO2 is not expensive and you can compensate losses just by adding more.
Not many people use eco complete here. There are better substrates around for a little more money. If you are on a budget bonsai soil akadama enriched with some root tabs or osmocote is a good option. It would come twice cheaper and give same results. Akadama has to be washed which takes quite a lot of time though.

The tutorial section of the forum is very informative if you are just starting.

 

[fly boy]

hi , thanks for the repley , what about the dennerle doponitmix pro substrate ? is this a popular choice ?

 

[Piece-of-fish]

Havent heard of this one. My substrate list is short. Have used just gravel and akadama (3 times) because i just cant afford expensive ones for big tanks and lack of experience. Have a bag of Colombo florabase black for a future use.
From reading others posts i hear Oliver Knotts Nature Soil, ADA Amanos Amazonias and others and Colombo florabase used most often with good comments from the users. Amazonia will have an initial amonia spyke which not everybody likes. Akadama with some additives will save you at least 300 which could be spent for other fish stuff. Stems grow greatly and healthily in plain gravel as well. Its just that akadamas cost is the same as gravel. Amano used it for all or many of his setups untill he invented and started marketing and selling ADA products, substrates amongst them.
Its a pity it doesnt come in black it'd be the best substrate at just 9£ for 14l of soil.
Another point is that after a year all these expensive products become exhausted and turn in to the same burned clay substrate as akadama. You are probably aiming for a 1+ year tanks when its this big dont you?
If money wouldnt be an issue i'd go for double L size Adas Powersand plus top layer substate from ADA or other 2