Starting A New Tank - Lots Of Questions!

Hi Jack, welcome to the forum 

To answer your questions (but not necessarily in the same order):

Dechlorinator
I use API Tap Water Conditioner. This just detoxifies chlorine and binds metals. It does not detoxify ammonia so it is fine if your water company uses chlorine. If it uses chloramine, this dechlorinator splits the chloramine into chlorine and ammonia, removes the chlorine but leaves the ammonia there. In this case, you will need a dechlorinator that also detoxifies ammonia. You could try contacting your water company to find out which they use but when I emailed mine all they did was send me a water quality report which does not contain the information. I might have got the info I wanted if I had rung them but emailing is free 
API TWC does not contain anything to 'stimulate the slime coat', another reason I like it.
It is also very concentrated, which means it is very easy to add the right amount to each bucket of water during a water change.


Carbon
It isn't necessary as you have discovered. It is a throwback to the days when all filters did was remove the yellow colour which builds up when you don't do any water changes. But it is useful for removing medication after treating sick fish, so keep some in the cupboard.


Lights
If the fitting is for T8s that's all you can use. However, I have LED lights that can use the fittings for supports. They have their own power supply and use plastic end caps so they can slot into the fluorescent tube holders. Google Superfish retrofit led.
But if you only want low light plants, T8 tubes are fine.
The colour is mainly down to personal taste. Some lights make everything look pinky-orange which I don't like. And with low light plants, the colour doesn't make much difference. However, if you want high-light plants you will need better lights than 2 x 18w T8 tubes, so I will let those members with this type of planting advise you for that.


Fertiliser
This depends on the plants you intend. Some grow in the substrate, some grow attached to decor.
There are special plant substrates but my understanding is that after a year or two, all the added fertiliser will have gone and you have add fertiliser for the plants when this happens. Or you could use plain gravel/sand and add fertiliser tabs from the start.
I have only plants that are attached to decor so I use a liquid fertliiser that is added to the water. Because mine are all slow growing plants I use less than the manufacturers say.





Have you read up on fishless cycling yet? There is a newer method now (see Filtration and Cycling section) which is designed to stop nitrite getting high enough to stall the cycle. The old "add ammonia every time it drops to zero" method made so much nitrite that it inhibited the nitrite eaters and stalled the cycle.
Alternatively, if you intend having a lot of plants (and I mean a lot) you can set up the tank with plants, wait a week or so to make sure they are growing well, then add fish a few at a time. Floating plants are particularly useful for this method. Plants use ammonia as fertiliser and lots and lots of well growing plants will take up the ammonia before it has chance to harm the fish. The reason that floating plants are regarded as an ammonia sink is because being at the surface they are nearer the lights and can access carbon dioxide straight from the air.




Any other questions just ask. One or other of the members will be able to help 

Yes, it's the third pinned topic in that section.


If you intend doing a fishless cycle, it is better to leave planting till after the cycle has finished as some plant species can't cope with that amount of ammonia in the water. When there are fish, the ammonia is made tiny bit by tiny bit over 24 hours adding up to a total of 3 ppm, or a bit less. But with cycling, the whole dose is added in one go and some plants don't like that.


With fishless cycling it is a good idea to know how hard your water is. Most water companies have that information somewhere on their websites. There are two types of hardness, GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonate hardness) Most water companies that have hardness on their websites only give 'hardness' ie GH. A very few also give alkalinity, which is their term for KH.

GH is important for choosing fish. There are hard water fish, soft water fish and those that can live in any but the extremes. It is much easier to get fish that like your hardness than to try and alter the hardness to suit the fish.

KH is also useful. In general terms, if GH is high, so is KH, and they also tend to be low together. KH is important during fishless cycling for two reasons.
The bacteria we want to grow need carbonate in their diet, so you need to artificially boost it if you have very soft water.
Carbonate buffers the water against pH changes. If there is a lot of it, pH is very stable. It is almost impossible to alter the pH of water with high KH. But with low KH it is easy for the pH to fall. The cycling process makes a lot of acid, which uses all the KH in soft water leaving nothing to buffer the pH. The pH then drops very quickly - but the filter bacteria need highish pH to multiply properly.



So all that essay really means is - have a look at your water company's website and see if you can find your hardness. If it is med soft to hard, good. If it is soft or very soft, we can tell you what to do about it.

It is plenty hard enough for cycling 

There are two units used in fishkeeping. These are dH or German degrees (usually called just degrees) and ppm (or mg/l CaCO₃). You already know your ppm (371) and this converts to 20.7 dH. Those are the two figures you'll need when reading fish profiles. The website Seriously Fish is one of the better sites for fish info.


Littlefish on here also has very hard water so she will be able to suggest fish that will be happy in your water.

Hi jpskinner,

I have an old AquaOne 850, which is a similar tank to yours. When I started, I had fluorescent lights and they were ok for the easy plants I had. I later converted to dual tube LED lights because some of the light brackets broke so I could only have two bulbs instead of three (though your two bulbs should be enough for your tank).

As for substrate I'm using a layer of Tetra CompleteSubstrate topped with 1.5-2 cm play sand and it's been working well for the past few years. I heard you could use John Innes No1 instead of aquatic substrate, but I didn't try that myself.

Just be aware that any type of soil will probably leach some ammonia into the water initially. So if you decide to go that route I'd recommend waiting a few days before you check the water and add ammonia for fish-less cycling.