From 10 gallon to my new 50 gallon, here we go!

5/15/17 Day 1 - Purchased the 50 gallon tank in San Francisco! It came with a really nice stand with tons of room underneath. Tank dimensions are 36Lx15Hx18W or in cm, 91x38x46.

5/18/17 Day 2 - 75 pounds of Quikrete brand Play Sand has been rinsed and washed and put into the tank

I am going to keep it low on water volume for right now because I want to get some plants in there and it'll be so much easier to do that with a lower water volume. At least judging by from the other fine folks here! Unless anyone thinks it would be massively beneficial to get all the water in...

I hope to get some of the plants in this weekend! And begin the cycle!

Day 3 update...

All the water is in, I decided against waiting and trying to cycle the tank with the plants in it, so now it's just a matter of waiting for the dust to settle as they say. I'll get the cycle established and then plants n animals, as it were.

For anyone reading this, if anyone is, how long will the very little cloud of sand remain suspended in the water? I assume I can't start the filter up until it's pretty much completely clear?

You can run the filter as soon as you put in water. I would also put the plants in there too, they aren't gonna effect the cycle, and they help clear your tap water as well

I took your advice, Baker, and planted it. The rest of the parts should be arriving today (HOORAY) but here's what it looks like, on what I'll count as Day 4...


I really want to get more plants in there. But I couldn't get it authorized through the executive branch yet (wife lol). I did get my choice of drift wood and a solid set of plants though. I gotta choose my battles so when it comes time to buy FISH she is less controlling right?

It does look like the water has cleared after the addition of the plants.

Anyways here it is... I am welcoming of constructive criticism as well. I am not super happy with the lay-out but I feel like it'll grow in nicely. We'll see. I'd like to get some plants to attach to the driftwood with fishing line as I found some of my old Trilene line and it looks to be in great shape too! Charmed life.

Looks like a good start. One thing though, it looks like you may have planted some java ferns in the sand? I would recommend tying or gluing them to your driftwood or some rock fixtures etc as burying the rhizome on the java fern will cause it to rot and die off. At the base of the javafern is a green stem looking thing that should have a bunch of smaller roots growing from it. That green stem is the rhizome and it's basically the "crown" of the plant where all the new growth comes from. It doesn't like to be buried so just make sure that part is out of the water or better yet just anchored to something outside the substrate

Oh no! I looked at LiveAquaria, which said that it can be planted, I hope I didn't do it wrong... So I should take the plant out of the sand and attach to it to driftwood? It's an odd looking plant for being "loose" not anchored into sand (unlike brazilian pennywort which looks like it's meant to be attached to driftwood and floating around)

As long as the roots itself it buried, I think it should be fine. But I have tried Java Fern, it went dead in my care.

Yes, you can attach it to driftwood, leave it loose, or just pull the plant up so that the rhizome isn't covered.
Good job on the planting!

"Day 5"


So here it is. First day of Cycle, I placed one capful of Fluval's bio booster along with just a pinch of flake food. The filter is up and running and I have seeded some ceramic cylinders from my old tank that are seasoned.
This little guy is already stretching toward the light!



Not really sure how to do this, as it's my first time really getting this into planting a tank, but my thought here is that the java fern will be happy and extend its root all the way to the substrate. Not sure if that's realistic so I can change it obviously... it's attached with fishing line (4 pound test, very light)



Here is my third java, this one I did not attach, but have uproot its rhizome as recommended, and gently placed it against my bit of tangled driftwood there.

Equipment:

MarineLand Emperor 400 dual biowheel
Hydor Koralia Evolution 600 powerhead
Fluval 300W heater
AquaticLife EDGE LED 60W with full spectrum lighting and a really nice sunrise/sunset feature

Available:
Flourish Comprehensive liquid ferts
Flourish Root Tabs

I have been told by folks on the forum like Byron that I have VERY soft water. Water parameters:

pH from tap: 9.0-9.2
CaCO3 hardness: 10-27 ppm
Bicarb alkalinity (CaCO3): 7 ppm
Carb alkalinity (CaCO3): 15 ppm
Potassium <1 ppm
Magnesium 1 ppm
Silica 9-12 ppm
Sodium 6-7 ppm

Fish that currently thrive in my 10 gallon are Cory cats of all types I have had (panda, albino, emerald), Neon Tetra, Cardinal Tetra. Haven't branched out much from there just due to the size of the tank.

I am really wanting to get even more plants in there. I haven't thought too much about stocking yet as I want a great cycle and for my existing fish to "re-home" nicely into it. But, I would love a much bigger school of Cardinals, at least 5 more Corys and some sort of crown fish (GBR? Powder Blue Gourami? No idea yet..) and perhaps something else. Open to suggestions!

Finally, I am going to turn the 10 gallon I have into either a male betta habitat or a female sorority, it's my kiddo's tank (he's 6 1/2) really so I am trying to "mostly" leave it up to him since it's in his room etc.

Anyways thanks for sticking with me here...

Interested in any advice/comments/thoughts!

Large schools of fish would look fantastic! Cories would especially love the sand, it looks really fine.
This is a very useful article on aquascaping, if you aren't happy with the layout.
Sorry I don't have too much input, but keep up the good work.

If you do plan on adding some cories I would highly recommend corydoras pygmaeus. I've been keeping them for the first time for about 4 months now and they really add slot of life to the mid half of the tank. They're are also very small so they or the other Pygmy Cory species would be an ideal choice for a 10 gal because they add so much depth to smaller tanks and you can keep them in much larger numbers (which will make them happier and act more naturally)

You do not need to worry about java fern burying their roots. Java fern are column feeders and seem to only really use their roots for anchoring to things. I don't know where you got your java fern but yours look like they came from the tubes at petsmart (no issue with this) and if so they usually have a large clump of tiny black thread tying the rhizomes together. I noticed this on the ones I got from petsmart and if yours do indeed have thread on the rhizomes I recommend you take them out and carefully unravel all that thread because it can also suffocate the rhizomes and you plants won't be able to spread and grow as easily if it's all tied up like that. (The fishing line is fine, that won't bother the plant)

Baker, I love the Pygmy Cories, and if I can find some, I would love to put them in. I read on Seriously Fish that aquatic plants and them don't get along though... Perhaps they eat the plants moreso than do other fishes?

My Java Fern are from a local fish store in San Francisco. They came in a little black pot with the soft substrate stuff around them. I don't really see any thread on them when I got them.

I have a really tall Amazon sword that has outgrown our 10 gallon tank that I am going to transplant to the new tank. My wife is going to pick up a couple more smaller plants to replace the amazon sword (it reaches the very top of the water column, it's got to be 8" high at least)

The cycle seems to be going well. I dosed up to 3.0 ppm ammonia yesterday following the sticky thread on this forum and today it's down to about 0.50 or so. CLearly the bacteria are doing their thing already. Hopefully it cycles nicely the rest of the way and stays that way.

Lyra, thanks for the link. That's a very advanced essay on the hardscaping/aquascaping, but I did take away from it that I need a "focal point" for the tank, and I'm going to give it some thought. I really like the driftwood tangle I've created on the left (which also hides the powerhead and heater to an extent) and would be ok with that being the FP, except it's not in the middle. For some reason I gravitate to making the edges look snazzy and leaving the middle fairly open. Maybe subconsciously (and selfishly, Byron would say...) I want the fish to be exposed more in the middle so we can see them better. Hm, things to think about.

Aquatony said:

Baker, I love the Pygmy Cories, and if I can find some, I would love to put them in. I read on Seriously Fish that aquatic plants and them don't get along though... Perhaps they eat the plants moreso than do other fishes?

My Java Fern are from a local fish store in San Francisco. They came in a little black pot with the soft substrate stuff around them. I don't really see any thread on them when I got them.

I have a really tall Amazon sword that has outgrown our 10 gallon tank that I am going to transplant to the new tank. My wife is going to pick up a couple more smaller plants to replace the amazon sword (it reaches the very top of the water column, it's got to be 8" high at least)

The cycle seems to be going well. I dosed up to 3.0 ppm ammonia yesterday following the sticky thread on this forum and today it's down to about 0.50 or so. CLearly the bacteria are doing their thing already. Hopefully it cycles nicely the rest of the way and stays that way.

Lyra, thanks for the link. That's a very advanced essay on the hardscaping/aquascaping, but I did take away from it that I need a "focal point" for the tank, and I'm going to give it some thought. I really like the driftwood tangle I've created on the left (which also hides the powerhead and heater to an extent) and would be ok with that being the FP, except it's not in the middle. For some reason I gravitate to making the edges look snazzy and leaving the middle fairly open. Maybe subconsciously (and selfishly, Byron would say...) I want the fish to be exposed more in the middle so we can see them better. Hm, things to think about.

Click to expand...

On the pygmy cories and plants...no cories eat plants. They may nibble decaying or dead vegetation, but they willnot eat or kill live plants. I suspect the issue is that sometimes they can dig up shallow-rooted plants; I have problems with this in one tank with microsword, until I got a couple of smallish stones to hold down some of the roots and the runners. But larger cories are more likely to do this than pygmy.

You have live plants, so I would not add ammonia, certainly not as much as 3 ppm. Ammonia is toxic to all life forms, and can kill plants. I never "cycle" tanks with live plants if the plants are showing signs of growth. Some of yours come from other tanks, so this is a given.

I am not fond of a "focal point" in an aquarium; it always makes the tank look smaller because it is like a picture in a frame. A better option is to create several small focal points, and tie them together. This expands the visual space. How I do this is to take a chunk of wood, or maybe two chunks, and position them. Then do the same with another chunk, or three chunks together, varying sizes sometimes works better. This will usually break up the larger space in vignettes of a sort. Have these at different distances from each other. Any sort of equal spacing, whether with these or the chunks of wood themselves, immediately calls attention to the space and makes it artificial. Nature is always haphazard. You can then use the substrate, or small groupings of various sized pieces of river rock, to tie things together. Using the same tyope of wood throughout helps, and the pebbles should be the same or similar; any "odd" pieces will immediately stand out, destroying the natural aim.

Byron.

I did my first chemical panel this morning on the new tank:

Ammonia 1.0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 5-10 ppm
Heater holding all of the water at a nice 77 degrees F.

Byron, the plants are probably keeping the nitrate count artifically low, but there is obviously some sort of cycle beginning by taking the ammonia which I did add to the tank. Byron, if you don't introduce ammonia to the tank how do you begin your "cycle" and why do you put "cycle" into quotes?

Things to learn, things to learn.