Any suggestions to the set-up

[tony.ch]

I am about to collect a new tank and have been pondering over the set-up for some time. Thought I might as well post my proposed set-up to see what people would say.
New tank - 40.5" wide, 22" front to back and 22" tall.
Filtration - two 2224 eheim filters
Lighting - four 30watt tubes (tritons) with reflectors
Substrate - 4" of volcanit and terralit
Co2 - jbl compressed gas
Heating - undersubstrate heating cable and a normal thermostat heater.

I am going to have 100% planting. My water is hard so the plants will have to be appropriate.
Questions: Is there enough filtration?
Is the lighting adequate?
What hard water plants would you suggest?
Finally - a moderate fish load for the tank would be what? A silly question but how many could i comfortably have in a shoal of tetra's?
Cheers for any advice

[juggler]

Your tank vol = 320L or 86 gal
Eheim 2224 supports up to 250L, so 2 units is good. But why not consider getting a single Eheim 2226 that can support up to 350L?
Your light set of 4x30W will amount to about 1.4W/gal. Not really enough for planted tanks. Consider getting 6x30W or 6x36W so you can have more choice of plants.
Substrate heater? Are you from Singapore? Won't recommend it if you live here.
Try searching for plants that can fit your environment here: http://www.disky-design.dk/fish/Plan...antSearch.html

Good luck.

[sherchoo]

What hard water plants would you suggest?
How hard is your water? The water here in S'pore tends to be very soft and most of us tend to harden our water up to 4~5dkH for a good buffering of pH. Anyway, Not sure what plants you have at your location but plants like Vals are confortable in hard water conditions. Maybe you could let us know what degree of hardness you're talking about

A silly question but how many could i comfortably have in a shoal of tetra's?
Cheers for any advice
Most tetras shoal when they are in a group. So maybe you can get about 50 pcs maybe Neon or Cardinal tetra(depending the size of the fish) they will shoal naturally. Again this will depend on your fish availability in your area.

p/s: Welcome to our humble forum. Wish you a good stay here.

[tony.ch]

Thanks for the advice.
I already have an eheim 2224, so I was just going to transfer that and get another - that is the reason I am not getting one larger filter. As I am having two filters I was wondering about their output, the spraybars. Due to the tank the sprabars can only go on the sides and not the back of the tank. Should I have one on either end of the tank or both on one side so the flow is one way? Or should I just angle them towards the glass?

I'm from the UK so heaters are necessary for me. I will also put in a couple more lights. My water around me is 16dKh - hard. Once the tank is up and running I can reduce the hardness by adding ro water slowly over time but it is not economical to do the whole tank straight away. My fish plans were just to have a shoal of cardinals and rummy nosed tetras but I was just trying to work out what a MODERATE fish load would be.
cheers