Ok well recently I was able to pick up a 29 gallon tank with stand off craigslist for pretty cheap. I plan on having a planted freshwater setup. I have been reading up for the past week now and I understand for the most part how to cycle and how important it is, and I already have a master test kit. Im now ready to start setting up the tank. The problem is that it is just the tank and stand. So I have been looking around and have chosen a couple items and would like to know your opinions on my choices.
AquaClear Powerfilters 30
Versa-Tops 30" glass top
Eco-Complete Plant Substrate
large smooth stone substrate to put over the plant substrate to help anchor plants
Theo Heater 200 watt (including a emergency spare)
Satellite Compact Fluorescent Fixtures Dual 30" light fixture (2-65 watt bulbs)
Digital Thermometer
One of my main questions to ask was if i should go with that light fixture. It is really nice and comes with lunar lights and is 130 watts. From my understanding the 29 gallon tank is on the deeper side so the extra bright lights would help the plants grow. I did realize though that there were actually bulbs for plant growing which started to get confusing since they were such low wattage. I'm also not sure exactly which plants I want and understand that different plants like different wattage. The only thing that I know that I want in the tank so far is a center piece of a piece of driftwood.
Now onto the hard part... the fishys
I have been doing as much research as I could and have seen the charts of compatibility and such and have a rough idea of what I want. I know that I will probably use a solo angel fish as a center piece fish. From there I was thinking of adding a school of tetras (ornate?), 3 or 4 kuhli loaches, a couple hatchets, a couple barbs, a small school of corys, and maybe some ghost shrimp or red cherry shrimp.
I'm not sure if that is overstocking or not. I just want to have a lot of activity with top, mid, and bottom level swimmers. I picked the loaches shrimp and corys because I thought that might help with the cleaning process as well. Would a sucker cat be more efficient?
One more question. My girlfriend was looking at a tropical aquarium book of fish and saw one that she liked and would like to know if we could get one.
It was called a red lyretail. The description said it was for a community tank but it looks crazy so also dont know where I would ever find it lol.
Thank you in advance for reading this and putting up with my lack of knowledge.
-l burke l-