[Graeme Devine]

This is my first freshwater tank. First aquarium ever actually. My current setup and fish community goals are below. I'm currently doing a fish-in cycle with the zebras and will add more fish little by little after the tank cycles all the way. Let me know what you think.

Current Setup:

20 gallon long glass tank
30 lbs of black gravel
AC 50 filter with biomax and sponge (will put Purigen in after cycling)
Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED+ light
Aqueon Pro 100w heater
custom made artificial plants, Brazilian beach pebbles, driftwood (still soaking), cory cat house made out of slate

Current Fish Community:
8 zebra danios (fish in cycling)

Future Fish Community:
8 zebra danios
8+ Harlequin Rasporas
6 Sterba cory cats
some yellow rabbit snails
some neo shrimps

Photos:
I've included some shots of my tank with the different custom light colors I've programmed. The first shot is how I will mostly likely have the tank lit most of the time 6500k/blue. You can seen in the photo of the light how the LED's look in the fixture. The light is super thin and doesn't take much power. I love the color it puts off. Way better than T5's.

 

[willow]

hi
nice tank…i like the first pic,and the blue light.

 

[Barry gibb]

Nice set up you have there, that light units stunning, am not a red spectrum person but i like the first 3 pictures, 2nd being red/blue am takein it.
Nice choice of fish, i have a group of cory sterba my self a nice hard working cory. Likes the higher temps unlike most corys,

Nice work

 

[Graeme Devine]

Another new re-scape! I've added in my driftwood finally. I had it soaking for 2 weeks and it was still floating. I took it out of the water for 2 days and it was dry again. I found some slate plates at Wal-Mart and siliconed the wood to that. Now it's looking pretty in the tank.

I tried re-scaping the tank with the golden ratio and I think it turned out pretty decent for what I had to work with.

Here is in some different lighting

Tank Chemistry: I haven't read any Ammonia or Nitrite since I put in the Safe Start. I've had the same 5-20ppm on the Nitrates. I have 1 of my original zebra danios left and 4 golden danios. My PH is still high at 8.3-8.4. We'll see if the driftwood moves it down at all. The hardness of our tap water is crazy high so I'm not sure how low I'll be able to go. New Additions: I went to the local shop to buy some red Moscow guppies but they were out. I ended up at PetSmart and picked up a pair of male red coral guppies and a stellar looking Endler. I'd loved to have got more Endler's but the ones they had left hadn't colored up much. I'm now researching them and will probably buy some from AdrianHD.

Future: Looking at plants and shrimp next. Since the water is so hard and PH is so high rasboras and cory cats are out of the picture for me for now. Maybe if I got real plants and removed the rocks from the tank I might be able to get the PH down easier. The aquarium store wanted to sell me Seachem Neutral Regulator but I don't really want to mess with having to dose that all the time or killing the fish if I take the PH down too fast and can't keep it stable.

 

[rsskylight04]

very nice tank

Congrats on yout first tank. Very nice.excellent photos of your fish. I wouldn't worry about hardness of your water. I have very hard water and my corys are fine. Hard water buffers your water and stabilizes it against swings in ph. Soft water subject to ammonia spikes under certain conditions. I think your stocking list is very reasonable for your tank. Good luck and happy fish keeping!