First Timer Planted Journey.

So let me begin with a short background that leads up to this journal...
For my birthday June 30 I talked my hubby into getting me a tank. I got a 27 gallon cube with stand and a cabinet, it came with a glass hood and a LED light. I got some fake plants and blue gravel and a few fake rock ornaments. I was pretty pleased with how it looked.

I stocked it with a few black skirt tetras, and some zebra danios... Than I wanted some color so I got GUPPIES... And you can guess what happened next.... I had a pregnant guppy. I decided to trade in my other stock and just keep guppies since they are so darn adorable.

This is where I first started to look into plants, I figured a few for the fry to hide in so they don't get eaten, easy right...? Wrong

This turned into the dreaded MTS (multiple tank syndrome) I figured I should get another tank to put the fry
in than I was thinking well I'll need to separate my males and females (yet another tank)... So I settled on getting 2x 10 gallons and a 5.5 gallon.

So anyway I was looking at what plants to get for the fry to hide in since they would be here before the tanks were ready, and started looking in the planted threads, and all of the gorgeous tanks I saw there totally ruined my opinion of my technicolor ornaments and gravel... Severe tank envy sets in at this point.

That pretty much brings me to my present situation. I decided to turn my main display and 2 10 gallon tanks into planted tanks (the 5.5 gallon will be just for the baby fry so it will be bare so I can keep it very clean for them)

I plan on setting up my new tanks when they arrive and moving all of my livestock so I can totally redo my main tank and I decided it would be a lot of fun to keep a journal of my journey into the planted world. Along the way ill need tons of advice and lots of help and feedback and I figured this would be a great way to do that.

this is my tank as it is now (notice the sad little moss ball and anacharis...see its planted lol) and ill be updating as soon as I do each step

Hopefully when you change out a bunch of stuff (gravel) you don't lose your cycle!  Good luck with it all!

I was worried about that too so I'm going to put some of that horrible blue gravel in a stocking and keep it in the tank for a while. Hope it helps.

if you do a planted tank... dirt it  

Dirt...?

yes you take organic soil... cap it and plant the plants... wait until the water parameters are safe and you can add in fish
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsf5YMU2HrI
if you watch that guys channel he has A LOT of information on aquariums... plants and fish

Even though there is this beneficial bacteria on the substrate, the cycle is in the filter! As long as you don't lose the cycle in the filter you absolutely won't need to put any of that blue gravel in your tank!
 
For plants you can use dirt, or you can also use Eco Complete or Fluorite (by Seachem) as substrate.
 
http/www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourite.html
 
http/www.caribsea.com/itempage_freshwatersubstrate_ecoplanted.htm
 
You can then top it up with gravel if you like. 

I have nothing more to add to what has ready been said but I look forward to following your journey

Thanks for the advice so far. I was wondering...when people say that you can put media from a new filter into your old filterto seed it. How long does that take ? A few days, hours , weeks? Like I said I'm really new at this so I'm kinda just winging it.

Also the blue gravel would be in a nylon so I could just fish it right out after a while (like a tea bag) would this help or should I not even bother?
Oh also I already purchased the EcoComplete so ill be using that.

here are some pictues of my plants I got so far
sagittaria subulata narrow leaf:

bacopa caroliniana:

marsilea minuta:

 
 
and my eco complete

 

this will be my new background

 
and this is the anacharis I have plopped in my tank at the moment . I know its more of a weed than a plant but I really love the look/texture of it

 
 

I think you're doing great! Looks like it will be a beautiful tank!
 
If you were cycling a tank and someone were to offer you some of their gravel I'd say go for it, add it to your tank it may speed up the process. Since you already have established filter material in my opinion you don't need to bother with it.
 
As to seeding a new filter by adding it to an existing established filter, it would be best to run it together for a couple of weeks. What I have done setting up a second tank was to take the filter material from the established filter and rinsed it in the new tank in front of the new filter's intake tube. Then I plugged the filter in to start it up and it sucked all this bacteria rich gunk into the housing and into the media. 
 
I added 6 of the fish from the previous tank into the new tank, and kept checking the ammonia and nitrite for a couple of days, but basically had an instantly cycled tank. 
Hope this helps! 

Meeresstille said:

I think you're doing great! Looks like it will be a beautiful tank!
 
If you were cycling a tank and someone were to offer you some of their gravel I'd say go for it, add it to your tank it may speed up the process. Since you already have established filter material in my opinion you don't need to bother with it.
 
As to seeding a new filter by adding it to an existing established filter, it would be best to run it together for a couple of weeks. What I have done setting up a second tank was to take the filter material from the established filter and rinsed it in the new tank in front of the new filter's intake tube. Then I plugged the filter in to start it up and it sucked all this bacteria rich gunk into the housing and into the media. 
 
I added 6 of the fish from the previous tank into the new tank, and kept checking the ammonia and nitrite for a couple of days, but basically had an instantly cycled tank. 
Hope this helps!

Click to expand...

Thanks so much. I think I'll do what you suggested, I want those 10 gallon tanks up and running ASAP this way I can move all of my fish and empty the 27 gallon tank for rescaping . They should be here by tomorrow and than the fun will start!

Quick question.... Do I wash the EcoComplete ? It has some water or liquid in the bag

I was told not to wash the eco complete, so I didn't. There weren't any problems!
 
After you've moved the fish over to their new tanks make sure you check daily or even twice daily for any possible spikes! You may not get any, but if you do, you want to be on top of it so you can prevent any harm to the fish!
 
In my case I had 6 Rummynose Tetras with a Betta in a 10 gallon (Beginner's mistake) and I then moved the 6 Rummynose Tetras into a second-hand 30 gallon, so there was a lot more water to dilute things! Yours are moving into smaller tanks, less water can make/show problems quicker!

Yeah kind of backwards lol but it's temporary ... The only good part is that ill be home from work for the next 6 weeks so I can pretty much keep an eye full-time on things.

so I finally got my rack set up and my two ten gallon tanks came in the mail, but unfortunately I cant fit the 5.5 gallon also. it should be fine just have to adjust my plans slightly.
here is my mess so far. the mailman is gonna start crying if I get anymore packages lol.

I also picked up some dental tools that I think will be useful for planting and trimming, they were like $3 each the really long ones are 16 inches, the shortest are 7 inches and the one in the middle is 8 inches. they are stainless steel and I figured since they are surgical instruments they shouldn't harm the tank...

 
so not much progress really but I should get my mopani wood that I ordered tomorrow and than I can figure out how I want to arrange everything...
 
does anyone have suggestions on boiling vs. just soaking the wood