Advise for new tank + filter

[Younglim]

Hi all,

Thank you in advance for spending time to read this post and any advise and feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Background:
I currently own a 5g tank with some plants 9 adult guppies, 10 fries, 1 small albino pleco, 2 small Chinese sucker, 2 Chinese algae eater.

Starting knowing about cycling a tank and biological filtration few weeks ago after washing my filter with tap water. Managed to complete a fish in cycle with a total of 3 fries fatality. Tough work. But I definitely learnt a lot.

I know my tank is pretty overstocked. But the filter media i'm using is able to support the bioload as of now. 2wc a week keeps the nitrates under control.

Now:
So now that I'm getting the hang if it, I am planning to build a built-in tank into a full height partition and will like to seek some regarding the whole setup from tank dimensions to lighting and most importantly, the filter.


Tank material:
Glass

Tank dimension:
85-90cm (L)
What will be the ideal width and height for this length?

Filtration System:
Tentative choice is sump. Will be great if anyone can advise on a good sump size and setup.

Lights:
How much lighting do I really need?

Bottom:
Gravel, sand, soil, or nothing?

Filter media:
Bio-home plus? K1 moving bed? AZoo active 4-in-1(using this now)? Ceramic ring and bio balls? Love rocks?

Ideally I will like to include denitrification in my sump setup to reduce nitrates.


Fish choices:
Likely to remain as guppies plus some small fishes.
Freshwater setup only

[BigBlueTang]

"REEF Central"

[Dans85]

"reef central"

+1

[ericp351]

This is a saltwater forum. Some of us also keep freshwater tanks so I will give you my thoughts. I like the deeper dimension tanks. I would say for your 90 cm (36 inch) long tank 30 cm (12 inches) deep would work. If you are doing a planted tank I think you may want to do a taller tank. A standard 40 gallon high would be what I would go with. As far as filtration goes the canister filters work well as do trickle filters with bio balls. I prefer natural colored gravel in my freshwater tank. HTH.

[Younglim]

Thanks ericp351!!

I'm new to fish forums and as mentioned in my post i only got to know all these cycling, bio filtration etc few weeks ago. I was reading lots of forums but choose to post my questions in reef central because i find the comments and community really helpful.

But little did i expect to check back to my thread and read replies like BigBlueTang and Dans85's. I'm really new in this hobby, didn't realize that this forum is salt-water only. So if any of you feel offended by me posting here, I'm sorry. Not posting in this forum again.

Once again, thanks ericp351q for the kind response. Your advice is greatly appreciated!! ^-^

[woodnaquanut]

I don't think anyone was offended, just confused.

I would guess most of us here started with FW tanks. They certainly MUCH less $$ and work.

Some of us really crazies also keep planted tanks along with reef and SW fish only. It's all good if it's wet!!