My new tank's water has become cloudy

allirreza

Thank you Jeff for your consideration nad taking your time for my problem. I saw your aquarium. It is very beautiful and dreamy. Your advices are useful and I will do them. I would like to have some fishes in this tank but plants comes first and fishes comes second to me. About two leafy plants I have to say all of them are aquatic you can find the large one in Iran especially lake and spring-heads but the small one I think is related to Singapore or Malaysia. Now, I have two question:

1-If I want to use fish, what do you think about discus or neon? or do you have another offer?
2-I would like your idea about lighting your aquarium by LED light; we have plenty of models LED in Iran. If is possible I want to create light same a s you but I done know what LED is correct. Please give me quantity of LED and specific features of them. I think I can find it and make it.

Thank you Jeff.

GwenInNM

You can look on the tab under "Tropical Fish Profiles" and learn about types of fish, requirements etc. I think your tank is too small for Discus, and they need very special water requirements, and may not be a good fish to start out with. It's good to understand what type of water you have, soft, hard, what is the ph etc? From there you can make fish choices that best suit the fish.

JDM

Well, I have no idea what native plants you have in Iran. Those are not something that I have run across at all.

Quite a range in choice between the Discus and Neon tetra . Skip the Discus, needs a very large tank with extremely soft acidic and hot water. Neons are OK, some small rasbora, barbs. You can just put these names into the search and get all of the options. There are many but you have time while you are letting the tank get going with the plants anyway.

As mentioned, you should know the hardness and pH of your water and scour above fish profiles for fish that match this and your tank size.

As far as LEDs are concerned, check out this thread that a fellow assembled his own fixture.

The key is getting 1 Watt LEDs that are rated for between 6,000k and 7,000k light temperature and matching power supply and heat sink. The heat sink is important as if it is not done properly the bulbs will burn out quickly.

Jeff

allirreza

Thank you all of you especially Jeff and GwenInNM. I will do your advices until next week and will report results to this page just I'm in doubt whether use fish in my tank or not. Because I think without fish worries about caring are not much. However I want to know what are the reasonable reasons to use fish in planted aquarium. Indeed I want to know about advantages and disadvantages of using fish.
Thank you

JDM

Well, it's the other way around. If you are keeping fish, plants are very helpful, the returns are worth the effort. For plants, the fish are beneficial but not worth the effort if you really weren't looking for fish in the first place. The ammonia and CO2 they give off are beneficial but can be duplicated with less work than fish with supplementation. I rely on the fish for some of this and have no "plant only" experience.

Don't let me or anyone talk you into fish if you aren't really interested in keeping them.

Jeff
Posted via Mobile Device

GwenInNM

I agree. Don't get fish just to put them in the tank. If you can get a Betta fish, they are easy fish to keep. Also, perhaps a shrimp only tank is something to consider.

Gwen

Byron

I also agree. Those who are only interested in aquatic plants will be wanting to provide high light, CO2, daily nutrients, etc, and to be honest all this does not suit fish that well. As only one example, you will want to dose nitrates (this provides the nitrogen that would otherwise come from fish and organics as ammonium) and all fish are sensitive to nitrates in varying degrees.

Byron.

allirreza

Thank you all of you. Your advices are very useful. I will report results next weeks in this page.

Alireza