Setting up first 150g tank.

Hello all,

Newbie here to the forum. Had a few questions with setting up my first 150 gallon tank. (Well I believe it's 150. I acquired it from a best friend who upgraded to a 180. He originally told me it was 120 but the dimensions are 72" long X 18" wide X roughly 27" tall. I took fast measurements.) I have had a 30 gallon tank for quite some time now, but hasn't been up and running for 2 years. I have had angels cichlids plecos tetra danios and maybe a few others (not all at the same time).

With this new 150 (or 120) tank I was wondering what I could keep in there? I have been looking at an array of fish, including a fire eel, gouramis, clown loaches, discus, catfish, African cichlids, sharks, angels (which I know probably won't work), and lastly sunnies. I would really love an eel and to live feed some fish, not all though. So any suggestions with tank mates would be greatly appreciated.

I have a marineland 400B, aqueon which I forget the model but its for a 45g, also have another 45g filter available, and looking into an API Filstar canister. I'm assuming this will be plenty of filtration and water movement. Does anyone have any suggestions with filter set up?

For substrate I don't know the exact route I'm going to go on, I'm planning on at least half sand for the eel. I would like a creek look so maybe half sand half rock looking like a bank kind of with some plants. Any suggestions for this?

Any other suggestions is greatly appreciated. Like I said this is my first large tank and I can't wait to get it started!!!

Thanks,
-Blair

 

I would do a fishless cycle. You should start now, as these take weeks.
Are you interested in tropical or saltwater?

 

Tropical/freshwater. What should I do with fish less cycle? I never really had to do it since our house water is so good. (Filtered like 5 times). I've only had it running fish less for a maximum of 3 days before adding fish. Should I add substrate, plants and just let it run? Should I add any additives/chemicals?

 

I would like to feed some if not most of my fish worms, etc. I don't know why but I guess it just fascinates me. Any suggestions with fish would help too.

 

I would like to feed some if not most of my fish worms, etc. I don't know why but I guess it just fascinates me. Any suggestions with fish would help too.

Hi! If you click the words nitrogen cycle it will take you to a page on it. Filtering the water won't cycle your tank as you need ammonia to build the bacteria. Another option is to add the fish and do frequent water changes, but with such a large tank, doing frequent water changes would be exhausting.

So onto the fun part, what kind of fish are you wanting? Chiclids? Community? Semi-Aggressive? Aggressive?

One thing I highly recommend is going to your local fish store (the more the better) with a pen and notepad and write down the names of the fish that are interesting to you, then researching them for hours lol. The more research you do on the fish the better (and the members of fishlore are more than happy to help you with stocking and what fish do well/ don't do well together but having names of what you like helps us ).

On the worm note, it depends on what fish you get, some will get big enough to eat worms (for some reason I assumed you meant earth worms, but if you mean frozen blood worms most fish can eat those). But they would need to be treats since they are such high protein

 

Hi! If you click the words nitrogen cycle it will take you to a page on it. Filtering the water won't cycle your tank as you need ammonia to build the bacteria. Another option is to add the fish and do frequent water changes, but with such a large tank, doing frequent water changes would be exhausting.

So onto the fun part, what kind of fish are you wanting? Chiclids? Community? Semi-Aggressive? Aggressive?

One thing I highly recommend is going to your local fish store (the more the better) with a pen and notepad and write down the names of the fish that are interesting to you, then researching them for hours lol. The more research you do on the fish the better (and the members of fishlore are more than happy to help you with stocking and what fish do well/ don't do well together but having names of what you like helps us ).

On the worm note, it depends on what fish you get, some will get big enough to eat worms (for some reason I assumed you meant earth worms, but if you mean frozen blood worms most fish can eat those). But they would need to be treats since they are such high protein

Yea I read up on my nitrogen cycle, which honestly I have never done before guess I just lucked out haha. But this time I will definitely be doing that. Will be setting the tank up this week then.

I like cichlids specifically discus, red devil, red empress, but I'm not sure if they will all get along. I also really like the fire eel, but again I'm not sure if one would get along well with the cichlids mentioned above. I've seen quite a few discus in a 180g so I would assume they would be community?

I have been to LFS and also that fish place, which I will be going to on Monday again. (Not far from me...yayyy!!!!).

Hopefully this helps?

 

Bump for some help for a newbie