Just added plants, advice for cleaning and maintaining?

[Stefan3289]

Hello all,

I talked a lot to @Byron on a separate form that was relating to one of my sick mollies about plants as well, but I decided I make a new forum so others can also find it easier

I have just added some water sprite and cryptocoryne to my 29 gallon tank with mollies.

What I did was rescape my aquarium. I removed my fish and temporarily put them in a bucket. I then syphoned the gravel just to get rid of as much poop and stuff stuck in the gravel. I then added some more gravel I washed off with conditioned water and then planted the plants and rearranged the decor. It is all set up now, but how long should I wait to add the fish back? Also, any tips for how to now clean the gravel as I am worried to damage their roots and uproot them. I put a picture below of the set up. Would love your help again @Byron

Here are the water parameters about 30 minutes after I finished this. I can also redo the test in a few hours after the plants had some time to absorb the chloramine from my tap.

Temp: 74
PH: 7.5
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia/chloramine: .10

 

[Byron]

Where are the fish no? If still in a bucket, I would put them in the tank. I assume the plants are growing. The filter you can add back with a quick rinse in a bucket of tank water (being overly cautious here, given the fish being mollies).

 

[Stefan3289]

Where are the fish no? If still in a bucket, I would put them in the tank. I assume the plants are growing. The filter you can add back with a quick rinse in a bucket of tank water (being overly cautious here, given the fish being mollies).

Yea they are still chilling in the bucket I will go ahead and add them back. As for cleaning the substrate, how should I go about around the plants as I don’t want to damage their roots but I don’t want to leave poop around the floor near them?

 

[Goose3080]

When I siphon around my plants, just get in as close as you can to them, and surface siphoned only around by them, do not dig into the substrate otherwise you will risk damaging the roots.

Also you do need to be careful how deep you are siphoning the substrate, you shouldn't go in any deeper than a few mm at the most otherwise you are going to also remove all the friendly bacteria that's built up in it.

If the tank is finished and ready to go then get the fish back into, they'll be happier

 

[Stefan3289]

When I siphon around my plants, just get in as close as you can to them, and surface siphoned only around by them, do not dig into the substrate otherwise you will risk damaging the roots.

Also you do need to be careful how deep you are siphoning the substrate, you shouldn't go in any deeper than a few mm at the most otherwise you are going to also remove all the friendly bacteria that's built up in it.

If the tank is finished and ready to go then get the fish back into, they'll be happier

Yep I put the fish back in and they look very happy especially now without the artificial plants they have some more space to swim. And will do I have about 3” of gravel for the plants so I will then only syphon the top like you said especially being careful around them. Thank you!

 

[Byron]

Just keep an eye on ammonia. Mollies cannot tolerate any, and it is very quick acting. You should be OK if those plants are growing (they assimilate ammonia/ammonium) and with the filter moved over.