Any aquarium enthusiast onboard?

[LACamper]

Looking for advice on lighting for a 29 gallon freshwater (for now) tank. Will probably go salt later but am just setting it up for the first time.
T5 or LED?


I have filtration under control. I'm doing an undergravel plus a good backfilter.

Fish will probably be various sharks (esp. balas), some tiger barbs, maybe some giant danios... My wife keeps mentioning angels, I'm resisting. Some fresh water plants but not sure what yet.

Open to other advice... I haven't had a tank since Katrina.

 

[JLouv]

depends on two things:

1. Do you want live plants? Go with the t5 IMO. It'll have a more balanced spectrum for growing

2. Being you plan on saltwater later, I'd still go with the T5.

It's all about the "type" of light in freshwater....in saltwater, it's more about colors & penetration.

Of course, I've been out of the saltwater hobby for a few years now and I am blissfully unaware of the capability of LED lighting....but it was never a serious thing back in the day unless they've made some major improvements to the output. Saltwater lighting is all about power, aka penetration. Unless they've seriously ramped up the output of LEDs, I wouldn't run a tank more than 12" deep on it.

But again, I've been away for a while.

undergravel will be fine for FW....I'd run a powerhead instead of an airstone as a lift pump. You'll be trashing the entire system when you go salt however.

 

[kcinnick]

If you can DIY LED, it is by far the better way to go. You need completely different spectrum's for Plants and Saltwater. I personally wouldn't spend my time on freshwater and would go straight to saltwater.

It's not what it use to be, but Louisiana Reef club has a forum, LAreefclub.com. I know there were some LED builds posted on there.

 

[Dustin-R]

LED would be cooler than T5 or T5HO and cost less to run. For 30 gallons LED would be a good choice. I have a 125 gallon with African cichlids in it. I use T5 now but will be changing to LED in the future. LED has come a long way. You can go LED if you start fresh and stay LED if you go salt just buy the correct fixture.

 

[Hattrick 22]

I'm not a huge fan of under gravel filters myself you do better just by doing partial water changes every week to two weeks.

I've never fooled with saltwater. I'm more of a chiclid person I have a 125g and a 29 gal set up. Depending how in depth you want to get with it you could build a sump for filtration or buy one. Even the canister filters are nice.

I have both led and t5 lighting in my 125gallon the led one's are submersible so at night they come on and shine upwards it gives it a cool looking affect but I don't know much else about works better for plants etc I just threw some anubis plants in and they seem to do fine java fern as well these two are really hardy and the chiclids leave them alone.

Monsterfishkeepers.com is a good place to search for questions and answers those guys go way more in depth than I ever had.

Lastly angels don't do to well with current if memory serves correctly you can probably still run an undergravel filter with power head as long as you pointed at the wall it's attached on so the current doesn't cause any problems if you go with angels.

 

[IfBrownThenDown]

If ur going to get into saltwater I would do an led build. A little more up front cost but saves money in the long run. Cree LEDs are the best. But www.aquastyleonline.com makes some good led kits using bridgelux LEDs.

LEDs make ur colors pop more. These pics don't much justice since its a crappy phone pic. But gives u an idea


Here's my 120 with 90 3w Cree LEDs on dimmable drivers

 

[LArifleMAN]

You do know that the Balas can get quite large right, and aggressive. Check out Mosterfishkeeps forum network and ThePlantedTank, they are a wealth of info.

 

[kcinnick]

If ur going to get into saltwater I would do an led build. A little more up front cost but saves money in the long run. Cree LEDs are the best. But www.aquastyleonline.com makes some good led kits using bridgelux LEDs.

Here's my 120 with 90 3w Cree LEDs on dimmable drivers

Those are some nice sized SPS colonies. I was never disciplined enough to clean my back glass... I let it go purple. What are you using for circulation?

 

[IfBrownThenDown]

I have 2 vortech mp40s

Here is a rimless 57g I'm bout to start up

 

[JLouv]

Nice tank Brown&Down!

I never could do SPS. I'm not around enough to take care of it as well as it deserves.

This is one of my old tanks with Metal halides & VHO's.

 

[LACamper]

Yes I know undergravel is old school tech but it works. It'll cut my cleanings down to once a month or so... I'm running a back filter also, btw.

Yes, I know bala's get bigger. My last tank was a 40 long that had about an 8" bala... but it was never aggressive. Rainbows on the other hand... aggressive fish is exactly why I want to stay away from angels. Those attractive fins...

The 29 is a fairly deep tank. That's why I'm worried about lighting. Thanks for the links guys!

 

[nomadic1]

If you decide to go salty, come and spend some time with us over on www.bayoureefkeeping.com. There are plenty of helpful, very friendly, and truly expert folks there. Best of all, there is nary any drama there, unlike what you see on so many other Internet forums, regardless of what their subject matter is.

 

[JLouv]

If you decide to go salty, come and spend some time with us over on www.bayoureefkeeping.com. There are plenty of helpful, very friendly, and truly expert folks there. Best of all, there is nary any drama there, unlike what you see on so many other Internet forums, regardless of what their subject matter is.

so there was a split at LaRC?? I find that surprising. I was close to many of the people there IRL.

I saw the split coming at the RAG but I was in deep and eventually was forced to choose sides and actually lost friends over that.

I'm glad to see none of that stuff here.

 

[franch1se82]

once upon a time, i was elbow deep in the saltwater aquarium trade. LEDs are the newest hottest thing and there's just no comparison. maybe one day, i'll get back into it... until then, i'll just oogle everyone else's setups.

Jared may not realize it, but many moons ago, i bought a 29gal tank from him :P

 

[JLouv]

once upon a time, i was elbow deep in the saltwater aquarium trade. LEDs are the newest hottest thing and there's just no comparison. maybe one day, i'll get back into it... until then, i'll just oogle everyone else's setups.

Jared may not realize it, but many moons ago, i bought a 29gal tank from him :P

I remember you well Francis! I see you're not tanking anymore. Sorry to see that. But welcome to the "other dark side."

It's like a big ole LaRC reunion up here in BS. LOL

 

[kcinnick]

I remember the yahoo LARC board, that was horrible, but those meetings were fun... if you call them meetings. People would wonder why we were so ready to go to the next "meeting".

 

[JLouv]

I remember the yahoo LARC board, that was horrible, but those meetings were fun... if you call them meetings. People would wonder why we were so ready to go to the next "meeting".

I was there too....matter of fact...I'm like #8 member on the LaRC website...I hosted 2 "meetings". First one was right at the transition...had like 5 people show up....Second one was a few months after LaRC went public. Had about 40ppl show up! That one was better! Look at the tank, swap frags, then booze & poker!

Then the site got bigger and ppl started bringing their kids....I quit going to "meetings" right about then. Unless someone had something cool that I wanted. But that was infrequent.

 

[kcinnick]

I was there too....matter of fact...I'm like #8 member on the LaRC website...I hosted 2 "meetings". First one was right at the transition...had like 5 people show up....Second one was a few months after LaRC went public. Had about 40ppl show up! That one was better! Look at the tank, swap frags, then booze & poker!

Then the site got bigger and ppl started bringing their kids....I quit going to "meetings" right about then. Unless someone had something cool that I wanted. But that was infrequent.

Looks like I was member 19, I may have been to your house... When it was on Yahoo we just would get together and drink and cut up corals, it is amazing how hardy those animals are and at the same time so fragile.

 

[JLouv]

Did you ever drive to lafayette for a meeting? As far as I know, I was the only person in this area brave enough to host a meeting, much less two. It seems like I had to drive to BTR or farther for every meeting unless it was at my house.

 

[kcinnick]

Did you ever drive to lafayette for a meeting? As far as I know, I was the only person in this area brave enough to host a meeting, much less two. It seems like I had to drive to BTR or farther for every meeting unless it was at my house.

I think I drove to Lafayette to get a frag I wanted from a guy in New Orleans. Even though we were closer together it just worked out to go to Lafayette. The first meetings tended to be right off of LSU's Campus, you would have tanks worth more than the remaining contents of the house. When I was in high school I had livestock worth thousands of dollars, I remember when my tank would make me money, but back then I had time to go look at LFS's and pet stores and find the jewels that nobody else saw. I got a colony of purple Tongas for $45 and made about $500 of of it and I got a batch of pink/red Ricordia for $25 and it must have made me $2500. I had to take the risk because they were both brown under the lighting conditions they were under, but a few weeks with Metal Halides and VHO's and the colors would pop. I wish I could just have the tank, play with the stuff I wanted to do, then have someone else clean up the mess. I don't want turn key, but I don't want to do the full maintenance either.