01krisp10

Well here it goes. This is my first thank since my 5gal goldfish aquarium.

I'm going for an Amazon Biotope...

I've put 6x glowlight tetra's in my quarantine tank, taking their 2-3 week timeout. (my son loved picking these guys out, they are chilling at the bottom of the tank, can't wait for them to start checking the place out).

In the mean time, here is the list of substrate, plants, etc. for my 20H I'll be setting up.

I descided to go with Turf King Potting Soil (Aged Douglas Fir Bark, Peat Moss, Pumice, Genuine Compost) Then I added around a half cup of Prilled Dolomite and mixed it in evenly. I'm then going to layer that with a mix of natural and black gravel. (2-4mm in size roughly)



The white specs you can see in the picture are both dolomite and pumice.

I've run a jar test with successful results using this setup.

Results of Jar test were:

pH: 6.6-6.8
kH: ~4-5
gH: ~5-6
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate, Ammonia: These numbers aren't really useful at this point, but were within the allowable range and varied depending on whether or not I stirred up the jar before I took the measurements.

I've lined the back of the aquarium with basic black background (blue on the back to help with reflecting the sun light) to help with the amount of Southern Sun light I'll be receiving for around 4 hours daily. This could get intense during the summer, so I'm lucky we have the blinds we do.

My lighting (other than sunlight) is an Coralife Aqualite T-5 Double Linear Strip (28W total). It rests right on top of my glass top and has little metal extenders to make sure it doesn't fall in if the glass top fails (very unlikely, though I may knock it loose one day! :P) Its compact and according to the knowledgebase, if you match the wattage to CF it gives off 10% more light. So if you grab two of these it costs close to the same amount and you end up with more light and the bulbs seem pretty cheap. Also because there are two bulbs per fixture you can mix and match lighting!

In the corner you can see my little Moon light LED from Hagen. Everything I've read suggests that this can greatly increase the happiness of my fish, guess I'll find out.

OK, PLANT LIST: (Suggestions are welcome!!!)

Alternanthera reineckii 'rosaefolia'
Cabomba caroliniana
Echinodorus tenellus
Heteranthera zosterifolia (Stargrass)
Hydrocotyle leucocephala
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Limnobium laevigatum (Amazon Frogbits)
Mayaca fluviatilis
ADDED:
Echinodorus parviflorus
Echinodorus horemanii ‘Red’
REMOVED:
Myriophyllum tuberculatum

I'm new to plants, so I tried to go with easy/fast growing ones. Though I believe a lot of these are stem plants, so I'm still on the fence and reading the forums.

My filter is a AquaClear Powerhead 30 w/Quick Filter and my 100 micron filter's are on the way.

My heater is a basic 100 watt heater from visa-therm.

WHEW!!! Thats a lot of info. All I can think of right now.

Can't wait to get started!