badpotato39

I’m looking to add some livebears to my plant for profit 40 breeder. I would like to avoid endlers and guppies. It has the Brightwell active soil. Any suggestions? The goal is to breed and sell

Appreciate the reply. Do you think I’m good with just the stratum or should I layer/mix it?

By popular demand I have replaced the giant black square.

The 40 breeder pictured is about a month old. The idea behind it was to grow a variety of plants to help out my LFS. Substrate is an inch of golden pearl/activ flora / eco complete followed by 2 inches of stratum with another inch or so of the base mix. It’s running two ACO lights, fluval 407, large sponge filter and inline co2 injection. Most of the plants were from ACO plus a few trimmings from other tanks. Growth has been mediocre at best. Co2 is at 2-3bps and lights are running 40% for 9 hours. Dosing easy green and potassium twice a week. Here is the thing…I managed to talk the wife into letting me set up another 40 breeder to do the same thing. Knowing my goal is to simply grow plants to help out my LFS (and eventually sell myself), how would YOU set this up(not including plants)? Here is what you have on hand- 2 30 inch 3.0 stingray lights, fluval 207 and sponge filters, co2 injection, 34lbs of stratum and a budget of $150. I want to do this right so any input would be appreciated. Thanks! Short video of not a black square tank

Will a single ACO 36'' light be enough to grow high light plants in a 40 breeder with 4 inches of substrate and a twin wall polycarb lid if it is resting on the lid?

I’ll re-test the ph as you suggested. I would prefer to keep plants but I know that can be a challenge with most cichlids.

I appreciate the response! Unfortunately I'm already doing that in a 20 long lol. Fingers crossed they breed once they get bigger.

I have a 40 breeder ready to go with blasting sand. Im really looking to get one or two bigger fish to have in this tank. I do not want a community tank with nano fish or angel fish. A breeding pair would be plus. Right now it's planted with a couple swords, val, christmas moss, pogo stem. This can all be moved around of course. Filtration can be sponge/hob or cansiter. What would be some good options for this setup? Local water parameters ph 8.0 kh 4 gh 4 tds 71 Thanks!

I guess I’m one of the few that this change benefitted. Living in Portland, OR - as long as I order in the morning I always see the package arrive next day. USPS was always at east 2 days.

I’m going to build out a 20g long dwarf cichlid tank. My idea is to use as much existing hardware from previous builds as I can. I want to go with the HTH pool filter sand as a substrate as I have some left over. I like that it’s not super fine and hides detritus well. Filtration will be a Fluval 207 with a spray bar along the back and intake bottom middle. I will have a sponge filter in there somewhere as well. Lighting will be a 24” ACO light. Heater will be a 100w ACO. I was thinking about doing about 4 easy planters for crypts and a few small pieces of drift wood (need to buy this) in the center to stick some java fern and anubias on. Trying to keep it low tech and simple/clean looking. stocking…this is where I struggle. I know I can do dwarf cichlids and maybe apisto. There is just so much conflicting info out there. I’d also like to keep a small bristle nose in there. what are your thoughts on a set up like this? What cichlids would you put in there? What would you match them with? thanks!

There are not. The idea is to keep it that way lol

I've recently consolidated 5 tanks down to 2. My question concerns the planted 65 gallon (36x18x24) that's running with 5 young angels. I have an FX2 with the spray bar running across the back with the intake on the bottom in the middle. Consolidating the tanks has left me with an AC 30, 50, 70 and U2. I'd like to turn one of these into a water polishing filter that I just stuff full of poly and let it do it's thing. My issue is....I have to keep the lid on because cats are derps so the back is my only open area. None of the AC's fit with the spray bar in the way. My solution is just to run the U2....but is that going to even make a dent in such a large tank with an fx2 running? Ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.

I've been consolidating tanks and trying out new fish. A couple of days ago I bought a 14gallon cube. I set it up with a sand substrate, a few pieces of wood and some ferns/anubias. Filtration is an AC30 with a fine sponge filter. Lighting is a hygger planted clip on. The wood/plants/filtration all came from an establish tank I broke down. While this tank cycles I want to get a game plan for the stocking. The one fish I know that will be going in there is my 3 year old male koi betta. He's always been in a community tank and leaves other fish alone. Habanero will need some friends. I'd like to try some fish I haven't had before. Here are fish I'd like to avoid: -cardinal / neon / green fire / green neon tetra | cory's | Guppies | Harlequin Rasboras | any other super small fish. My original thought was to get 5 Khuli Loaches. AQadvisor says it's fine but I have no experience with them so wanted to check here. I'd also like to add a couple more plants. What are some ideas for sand planted plants? I've read that it's possible with root tabs but to avoid crypts. Any help would be appreciated 🙂

Etsy has a lot of options that will solve that problem 🙂

I appreciate all of the feeback! After a trip to our LFS, we now have 5 juvenile angelfish and one blue eyed bristlenose. We also added more taller decor to help break line of sight more often. No aggression yet but I'm sure it's coming. We also picked up a 14gallon cube but I'll make a different post for that one.