My Planted Tank Journey

[paulc]

Journal Entry

Since a substrate change was mentioned yesterday I have been looking at different options. I currently like the look of the following two:



and

 

[minnnt]

1st one.

 

[paulc]

Journal Entry

Popped into my LFS today to see what plants they had available. Came out with 5 peppered cory's - cute little fella's which are now bombing around the tank

1st one.

Thought that would be your vote - i'm pretty sure this will be the one as I think it would show the plants off better plus give a nice warm look to the tank.

 

[minnnt]

Yep, it would make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside too as well as your tank.

 

[ian]

i have the second one in my nano. It's up to personal taste IMO, they both would suit an aquascape.

 

[paulc]

Journal Entry

Being a guy that plans pretty much everything, I have the following plan for my substrate change over and just wanted to run it past you guys. The idea is to keep fish stress down to a bare minimum and try and prevent the water from going too cloudy:


1. Im going to buy 3 of 42l buckets from Tescos (£3 each). This will hold approx 120 litres of my tank water.



2. Switch off filter etc. and block outlet so filter media etc remains wet.

3. Fill first bucket, (attempt to) catch fish and add them to the tub

4. Fill other two tubs and use one to contain plants

5. Using a new dustpan, remove existing gravel and store in a bucket

6. Clean gunk from bottom of tank (or should I leave this?)

7. Put in new (pre washed) substrate

8. Put back water from one tub (gently)

9. Put back plants and water from second tub

10. Put back fish and water from third tub

11. Top up tank

12. put old gravel into a couple of large media bags and put in aquarium (not sure if this is required but can't hurt)


I also have a spare heater to put in the fish tub but hopefully this process won't take that long.

I am hoping that because the majority of the water will be reused, the filter media will still be ok and that I can use some of the old gravel in media bags that I will not cause a mini cycle.

Please let me know your thoughts on this or just tell me to shut up if you think i'm over thinking this

 

[ian]

sounds good, but i would just use all fresh water, water holds very little if no 'a' bacs in it. The substrate also hold very little, although it does hold some goodness. I would personally leave the mulm in the bottom. If planted heavily enough, you should have a mini cycle as long as you put the old filter back in.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

You plan generally sounds good to me. I would make a few adjustments for myself though.

I would put tank water, filter and heater into a bucket (filter and heater running, unless you filter will create a whirlpool!). Add fish.

Put plants into another bucket of tank water.

No need for a new dustpan, unless you really want to spend the cash. Any flat-sided dish you have will be fine. I found the rectangular shaped dishes like you get your Chinese takeaway in worked really well for me!

I would then take the oppurtunity to throughly clean the tank, getting all gunk and bits of substrate out if possible (I don't know how big your tank is, obviously the bigger it is the more difficult to shuffle it around and get everything out)

Add washed substrate.

Fill partially with fresh dechlorinated water, add plants, fill the rest with more fresh dechlorinated water. Try and temp match your water if you can.

Net fish back into tank. Toss out all old water. Clean and store old gravel if desired. No need to add to tank.

As long as your filter is mature you won't cause a mini cycle and even if you do, it's not really a big deal! Just watch your levels for a couple of days afterward and do a water change if needed. My filter was only about 2 months old when I changed to sand (this includes the cycling period) and I had no cycle problems after the change.

 

[paulc]

Thanks for the replies guys - unfortunately I can't put the filter in the bucket as it is an overhead jobby. I will make sure that the media remains in tank water though. Is it not worth keeping the tank water as it will maintain some of its temperature ph etc? Out of the tap my PH is 8 but since I have been adding co2 it is now 7.2.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I think with the amount that you will be diluting it, there's not much point - I may be wrong. Just try and take the chill off of your tap water a bit with some warm water - a few degrees cooler does no harm. In fact, what I do, which is probably overkill, is reverse acclimatise my fish.

I do this by taking a decent amount of old water out of the bucket and adding in some fresh (roughly temp matched) water to the bucket over a period of time, then I just net them back into the tank.

 

[paulc]

I think with the amount that you will be diluting it, there's not much point - I may be wrong. Just try and take the chill off of your tap water a bit with some warm water - a few degrees cooler does no harm. In fact, what I do, which is probably overkill, is reverse acclimatise my fish.

I do this by taking a decent amount of old water out of the bucket and adding in some fresh (roughly temp matched) water to the bucket over a period of time, then I just net them back into the tank.

Thanks AA

 

[paulc]

Journal Entry

I picked up a copy of 'Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants' by Peter Hiscock yesterday and can highly recommend this book for planted tank newbies like me. The book is split into two parts with the first covering the biology of plants, water quality, substrate, lighting, planting, feeding, propergating, aquascaping and maintaining. The second part covers plant profiles for around 150 popular plants.



One thing I immediately did was un-bunch my bunched plants. In the past I have simply put them in complete with weight which may explain why they never grew that well.

 

[Mcbenthy]

Liking this journal mate, looking good

I knwo what you mean about unbunching plants made a fair few of those errors myself lol (what, no, i deffo didn't leave my Java fern planted in the substrate.. what you on... *whistles* )

What do you think of the book? I have 2 similar books that I got cheap 2nd hand, but I'm always happy to expand my libary...

 

[paulc]

Liking this journal mate, looking good

I knwo what you mean about unbunching plants made a fair few of those errors myself lol (what, no, i deffo didn't leave my Java fern planted in the substrate.. what you on... *whistles* )

What do you think of the book? I have 2 similar books that I got cheap 2nd hand, but I'm always happy to expand my libary...

Thanks for your kind words

Re Java fern - yeah right - I read that last night as well lol.

IMO the book is fantastic. My knowledge of aquarium plants extended to 'They need to go in the water' but this book is very thorough and goes into a lot of detail about what they need and why and compares plants in the aquarium to how they are in the wild.

 

[SO19Firearms]

...covering the biology of plants.......feeding.....

I've not read the book, but always be wary of (older) books and the feeding part - They sometimes re-regurgitate the old skOOl ways or mix in a bit of CO2 knowledge with old info etc