Hello =)

[mike the zealot]

I'm a newbie who just started with a 20 gallon high, with an opaline gourami, a golden gourami, a moonlight gourami, and 5 red eye tetras, with artificial plants and mossrocks imported from Brazil.

I have envisioned in my head this beautiful lush aquascape set in a 55 gallon, starring zeus, moon and shir khan, my gouramis

Are there any books out there that yall would recommend to someone new to this, who has hopes of rivaling your current toptanks? I've sketched this up in 3ds max as my DIY tank stand:

working on the canopy design I discovered I know nothing about what I'm about to do. IE: what types of bulbs, if I'm going to need onw of them sump deals I've seen, etc etc.

any advice on this endeavor will be greatly appreciated, and rewarded with lots of beautiful pictures of the project from start to finish.

nice meeting yall =)
-mike

 

[dattack]

First off, welcome.

First thing you want to do is to envision what you want to keep.  Do you want live plants?  If you do, then that should change the the objective in terms of lighting for your tank.

If it's just fish only, then it should become easier.

You might find it a lot easier and nicer if you find a tank that had extra depth from front to back.  I have a standard 55 gallon, and it's sometimes difficult to get that real 3D depth perception.  Consider jumping to a 75 gallon or find a 58? gallon that will give you a larger front to back depth.  

Furthmore, find a tank that's somewhere in the 4foot range because it is easier to find lighting for these tanks because a lot of commercial bulbs are 4 foot long.

 

[honeybee105]

well I'm not sure exactly what kind of info your looking for but my friend loaned me "Aquariums for Dummies" its an awesome book that covers all the stuff you need to know for a fishtank, from the basics up to advanced fish keeping. *thumbsup2*

 

[mike the zealot]

excellent! a reply within 3 minutes, I knew I'd found a good fish site finally.

yes my plan is for lots of live plants, with the 3 gouramis and some smaller "filler" fish I suppose, some type of schoolers, and the obligatory algae eater of whatever type.

What Im looking for is a chunk of info I could read through dealing with everything involved in creating a live plant eco-system, from chemistry to species, etc.

 

[ronrca]

Many good books around and a good place to buy them is on ebay. I bought around 7 books for under $100. Some used, some not.

 

[colesea]

TetraPress -The Manual of Fish Health- for freshwater fish

Dick Mills -You and Your Aquarium-

Ines Scheurmann -The Natural Aquarium Handbook-

Dick Mills Eyewitness Handbooks -Aquarium Fish- (forgot I had that one<G&gt

Hmm...there's more I have at the shop, and I've got some saltwater handbooks as well. All I can say is go to Borders. They have the best selection I have seen.
~~Colesea (the aquarium book collector)

 

[Matt Nace]

Agree with dattack.

I love my 55 gallon planted(so far, not yet done), but a deeper 75 gallon would be much better.

 

[mike the zealot]

I just visited petco to get a friend a 10 gallon setup for his birthday and saw these beautiful 72 gallon bow fronts. Anyone have any info on these? It was the same size as a 55 gallon except that it had 17 gallons worth of bow added to the front of the tank... it looked ideal as a planter tank, and was made of real glass. Any drawbacks to this type of tank? Besides the fact that my DIY stand plans would have to be re-tought

progress so far btw:

 

[JWright]

No drawbacks I've ever heard of. Bow-fronts are really pretty tanks, but the stands can be more expensive (wouldn't be an issue it you're building your own though).

Josh

 

[mike the zealot]

ok scratch all that   :

I've decided to wait a bit on my dream and plant my 20 gallon instead.. get a better feel for fish / plants / aquariums in general before I go dumping $500+ on the big daddy

once again I'm looking for learning resources... ie: plant species, how to care for em... basically an A-Z of how to make a planted tank. would be nice if I only had to purchase 1 or 2 books, so if anyone has some 5 star recommendations I'd really appreciate it. Websites are an acceptable medium of course. *thumbsupsmiley*

 

[mike the zealot]

hmm ok...

I have a 20 gallon high with an undergravel filter system. Currently im using some rather large grain gravel. I've had this setup with fish for about 2 weeks. After reading an article done by one of the regulars here, am I correct in saying:

I have to put the fish in another tank, yank out my UGF, dig all my gravel out, put down 10lbs of flourite, put the 25lbs gravel back down, buy a power filter, buy a chemistry set, let it cycle for 4 weeks then test it and if it checks out put the fish back in and start planting?  ???

 

[mike the zealot]

haha ok also since I'm using this thread as my own personal "help me I'm a newbie" thread...

I'm trying to find some type of algae eating fish that will compliment my current stock cosmetically as well as socially. I'm going for the primary-color type feel as opposed to the brown earth tone type, and I read in another thread that red-tail sharks will eat algae. red tail sharks are the ones with black bosies right? how big do they get and how would one interact with my current stock typically?

thx in advance, I'm going to bed now so now more posts from me for 8 hours at least  

 

[Cackett]

mike_the_zealot

what art package did you use to create that pic??? *twirlysmiley*

 

[mike the zealot]

I do graphic / web design for a living out of my home. The program I used to create the fishtank stand is 3DS Max 4.2, which is the same sort of software used to make movies like Bug's Life, Toy Story, and Final Fantasy. Click on my WWW ( or just go here: http://www.zealotron.com ) and click "portfolio" to see more of my work. I'm still pretty new at it though