Help me setup an ultra budget planted tank

[Navyblue]

Hi,

I am not new to aquaria, but I am mostly a salt water guy. I do know the tank and fish basics, but I am very new to plant in general. I have been reading a lot regarding planted aquarium in the past few days, and I am attracted to the low tech low light low maintenance tank concept. I want to get my feet (or rather, hand) wet, but on a minimal budget.

Basically, I want a tank that I only have to feed the fish once a day, top off evaporated water, and do pretty much nothing else.

I think I have most of the stuffs already. The stuffs that I am going to use:

- 24"L x 18"D x 12"T custom made ADA style rimless
- Seio M620 for in tank circulation

Fishes and shrimps

I know I want some otos for algae control, the question is, how many? For the main fishes I would like a school of neon or cardinal tetras, and may be also some zebra danios. Again, the question is how many is appropriate to achieve nutrient balance with the plants?

I like shrimps, but they seem pricy? I don't know how much they cost. Feeder shrimps are cheap, but can they be kept alive in a planted tank? Do they eat poop or algae or both?

Plants and substrate

I think this is where the majority of the cost would be. I need to cover a 24x18" base area.

I am not fussy about what plant goes in, as long as it is hardy, and cheap. It seems that I have to fill it up with enough plant mass for the method to work. My question is, how can I do this in the cheapest possible way?

Also, some plants like java ferns do not require substrate, so I can use any cheap inert substrate. But, are plants like this the cheapest thing to cover the tank with?

Filtration

If possible, I want to do without mechanical filtration. I have canister filter and overhead filter in storage, but I really want to go the "natural" way if possible. Can I get away with this with a low bioload? For circulation I intend to use a Seio M620, which I think should be more than sufficient.

Lighting

I have a 70W and 150W MH lying around, but I guess they are too much. I would like to use LED bulb from eBay. How many watts do I need? It seems that 1.5W/G is for CFL, and for T5 1.2W/G is more appropriate. What about LED? It seems that a 9W LED bulb is equivalent to about 24W CFL?

CO2

I also have an unused CO2 tank, but I prefer not to use it.

Thanks.

[felix_fx2]

Hi,

Your already have most of the stuff.
Your lighting might be too much as you have guessed. Your can choose those lower tech plants that grow slower.

Feeder shrimps aka ghost shrimps. They scavenge by nature, so maybe you'll get some algae eating ones at the same time.

You can worry what type of substrate to buy since your don't have any to start Wu , I would suggest to go for those compressed pellet types aquasoil.

I'll probably pop by this thread a few days down again. In the mean tune you can check the other folk's setups and see.

[ciaossu]

yeah agree, you already got most of the stuff. what you lack now is aquasoil, some hardscape and plants. hardscape u can choose rocks or driftwood or both. GC has lots of nice rocks and drfitwood but they're quite exp. basic plants like fern, anubias, moss and crypt shouldn't be a problem. as for shrimps you can get fire red shrimp or yamato as your algae crew. fire red shrimp cost more though. you might wanna get some low grade red cherry shrimp to try out first.

[Navyblue]

Is aquasoil the substrate to go? Can I do without these fancy soil?

Also what is the cheapest easy low light plant to cover the tank with?

[teowxu]

hi navyblue, generally nice carpeting plants requires high tech(strong lighting, CO2, nutirents etc). The more common low tech carpeting plant would be hairgrass. However, in low light low tech tank, it will spread and cover the rest of the tank at a much slower rate. Perhaps you can try moss (eg.java moss, spiky moss,taiwan moss, flame moss). These variety of mosses are more common and cheaper. You can tie it to stainless steel mesh and let it mature over time. Using several pieces of meshes can create your carpetting effect in tank as well. Hope this helps!

[Navyblue]

Hi,

For the mosses, are as cheap as say, java fern? Are they supposed to be fastened to drift wood or are they supposed to be planted in the substrate? And how about no substrate?

I don't really care what plant is in there as long as it is cheap and will do well in a low tech tank.

Anubias seems huge and thus need only a few to cover the tank.

[ciaossu]

Hi, for mosses you can get it from this forum marketplace. occasionally, there will be a few seller selling their mosses and sometimes some of them will be giving free plants. generally the common mosses from LFS range from $2-$5 depending on the species. java fern and anubias is also around that price range.

[David Moses Heng]

Hi.

A very budget set up would be as follow:

1) lapis sand
2) Nanas or Java fern on drift wood
3) Clip on LED available in LFS
4) Any internal power filter would do.

For plants fertilisation, simply feed the fish enough and it will be enough.

I have set up and maintained low tech tanks with NO fertilisation. The only thing I did is to make sure that lighting is enough and I feed the fishes regularly.

For the shrimps, you can try cherry shrimp or malayan shrimps.

Hope these help.

[Navyblue]

Hi, for mosses you can get it from this forum marketplace. occasionally, there will be a few seller selling their mosses and sometimes some of them will be giving free plants. generally the common mosses from LFS range from $2-$5 depending on the species. java fern and anubias is also around that price range.

Thanks for bringing up the marketplace forum, I think I will keep a close eye on it when I take the plunge.

[Navyblue]

Hi.

A very budget set up would be as follow:

1) lapis sand
2) Nanas or Java fern on drift wood
3) Clip on LED available in LFS
4) Any internal power filter would do.

For plants fertilisation, simply feed the fish enough and it will be enough.

I have set up and maintained low tech tanks with NO fertilisation. The only thing I did is to make sure that lighting is enough and I feed the fishes regularly.

For the shrimps, you can try cherry shrimp or malayan shrimps.

Hope these help.

Thanks.

This lapis sand, I suppose it is inert? If so, do I need root tabs?

So for a tank full of plant, to achieve equilibrium, do I want heavy stocking and heavy feeding? Or do I want light stocking and light feeding?

[David Moses Heng]

Thanks.

This lapis sand, I suppose it is inert? If so, do I need root tabs?

So for a tank full of plant, to achieve equilibrium, do I want heavy stocking and heavy feeding? Or do I want light stocking and light feeding?

root tabs or not it depends on what plants are you looking at. For ferns and nanas, root tabs is not needed. Some other low maintenance plant like crypts are also not really demanding on root tab.

To achieve a balance, my take is that you will have to figure it out yourself cos everyone will have different encounters.

Hope this help.

[Navyblue]

Thanks again.

I think I'll stick to the the plant mentioned, and in this list.

http://thejakearium.com/2012/01/22/5...uarium-plants/

For a tank of this size, how many oto cats do I need? And where can I get them? C328?

[teowxu]

For me personally, around 5-6 otos will be sufficient. Otos tend to do better in schools. Not sure about the bioload but you have to take note that you need to feed otos some algae wafer now and then to supplement their diet. The algae may not be produced at a fast enough rate for their consumption everyday. (They may be starved if you dont feed them algae wafers or other algae rich food). Gnerally most lfs do stock otos. (just make sure they are settled down in the lfs before buying because most tend to be wild caught--> high chance of dying after being imported into Singapore).

[Navyblue]

I went to Aquastar the other day and didn't notice any oto (may be I missed). I think I'm paying C328 a visit later.

Yeah the mortality rate of wild caught fish is horrible. Actually by looking at some LFS tank, even farm bred fishes have horrible record. On a related note, what LFS has good reputation for quality livestocks?

[ciaossu]

for livestock you might wanna check JXZ their fish are kept in good condition or at least better than most of the LFS. C328 they kept their oto in a small tank with shrimps and cory, condition isn't very good. GC kept their fish in good condition too but abit expensive though.

[Navyblue]

May I know where is this JXZ? I don't find it in the LFS list. GC I suppose is Golden Classic at Tampines?

I just went to C328, I don't see any oto, I suppose I can't really identify it in real life. I only have seen it online, but I'll worry about that later.

So I was at C328 trying to size up how my tank will look like if I bought the plants from there. With only drift wood mounted java fern and anubias nana and sand, I am not very optimistic that it would look good. I think I have a lot to think about.

Or may be what I need is a really suitable piece of large DW, put some moss on it and be patient till it cover the wood up. Or try do a moss carpet. That is assuming that the moss wouldn't die. And start with low bio load, and gradually increase the bioload as the moss increases.

[David Moses Heng]

JZX is at Ang Mo KIo central. GC is Green Chapter at Macpherson. Another good LFS IMHO will be Hong Yang at CCK Ave 4.

Regards.

[Navyblue]

Thanks.

GC, is it the one with big Sera banner?

Which are the good places for plants?

For moss, I guess the forum members is a better source?

[milk_vanilla]

For plants purchase

I used to go c328, seaview or online mizuworld or fishybusiness (tropica plants)

Sent using Tapatalk 2

[bravobb]

I also been thinking about a similar setup as what Navyblue wanted.
For filter, instead of internal.. can i use a hang-on filter type ? I got one spare lying around.. it is those that suck water up and throw down like small water fall...