I want to start an Aquarium...

Gastanker said:

Is the 36g up yet? Have you formulated a battle plan for the landscaping?

Click to expand...

Nope, not yet...I should be cleaning a place for it right now, but I just got home from work and I'm about to break into some of my indoor, so I might be stuck for like an hour...I've discovered a new addiction to purchasing things online as well, good thing I only have a pre-paid credit card...cause I've been loading it every day, and depleating it every night...lol...Lets just say I have a little extra cash coming in, and since my birthday is coming up this week, I'm treating myself to gifts from the internet!

Anywho,back to the fish...No essential game plan yet...I'm assuming I want to cycle with my 'scape in place, correct? I was thinking since it's a tall tank, maybe some rocks forming caves, and then I'll try to see if I can work out a stealthy way to plant some aquatic plants on TOP on the caves, so as not to clutter the bottom of the tank and still have some greenery up towards the top. I would really like two rocky structures on either side, and maybe a rock bridge connecting the two...I have about 2.5' width and almost 2' height to play with, so I wanna make it feel full without being cluttered...As for fish, I have NO idea...but I'll be ready for some cherry shrimp as soon as I can...I'll drive up to ya, no need to mail 'em...

Purchased a refractometer to gauge the salinity levels in the saltwater pico...coulda gotten a hydrometer for about 25 dollars cheaper, but i opted for the refractometer to get some my results truely accurate. since I'm working with only 3 gallons(less since the volume of space taken up by the rocks/sand/powerhead/etc.)

For the fresh water tank...slate works great for making caves and shelving the landscape...putting an airstone under the slate,you can make some really cool bubble patterns...like a wall of bubbles , or direct the bubbles to come up from one slate to another, I always look for a big piece and then break it into what I need so it all matches...and the fish love it.

rowlman said:

For the fresh water tank...slate works great for making caves and shelving the landscape...putting an airstone under the slate,you can make some really cool bubble patterns...like a wall of bubbles , or direct the bubbles to come up from one slate to another, I always look for a big piece and then break it into what I need so it all matches...and the fish love it.

Click to expand...

Nice idea...I was watching this guy set up a Cichlid tank that used slate, it definately offers plenty of arrangment options.

Metasynth said:

Nice idea...I was watching this guy set up a Cichlid tank that used slate, it definately offers plenty of arrangment options.

Click to expand...

and like I said, you can make those bubbles do some cool stuff...I had a piece of slate that the bubbles completely surrounded...a little cat fish stayed on that slate, hidden by bubbles, and would just peek out to grab food. He lived in their for ever...or a bubble curtain to block the front of a cave is cool too.

How many plants were you thinking? Will you be dosing with nutes? I would recommend a dirt bottom tank - throw a couple handfuls of happy frog in the tank and then cover it with your substrate and it will provide the nutes for a long time.

Many of the fresh water mosses thrive in low light tanks with very very little nutes. They are really easy to drape over items and you can easily mat them over slate to create living back drops. If you drive up for shrimp I'll include some mosses and other water plants. Moss on a log:



Look into crypts as well - great plants for the bottoms of lower light setups.

yeah i dig the moss´s ability to cover just about anything you dont want see as well

my filter is completely covered in moss (and bit of rock and tree to make it look more interesting)

I bought more fish today - I blame this thread.

Nice tank gastanker,is it yours? I like the anubias on the rock. And that little ram hiding is pretty cool too.

Soil bottom tank, never really thought of that! Would it be possible to just put patches of soil(where I want to plant) and then cover everything with the substrate? Awesome about buying more fish, I hope this becomes a thread where we can all share in the joy of the hobby...Even if I AM being a bit slow about setting it up, but I've been busy at work...I just now have 2 days off in a row finally, so I'm hoping to get the rest of the furniture re-arranged tomorrow so I can finally get rolling!

Yes,you can do that metasynth. ake sure you "cap" the soil with a good inch of substrate or else it will make a mess in the water column. Also you dont want to move the soil around too much for the same reason. The soil will just float away....plus it leaches ammonia and nitrogen into the water column,i believe

The soil can really go anywhere in the tank as long as it is capped with some other heavier substrate. Many plants benefit from being able to stick their roots directly into soil but like pumpkin head stated, the nutrients are just leeching into the water column so the plants don't need to be in contact with the soil to receive nutrients. I would suggest be slightly picky about capping substrate as different plants prefer different particle size - it's hard to grow tiny plants on large pebbles for instance.

Keep in mind that if you cover the entire bottom of the tank in soil (like my larger tank) you will for the most part be unable to suction the mulm from the gravel. If you have a well planted tank with enough soil this isn't a problem as the mulm is broken down safely as fast as it collects - if your tank has very few plants/soil then you really need a way to suck the mulm up during water changes, so if you go with soil and few plants just place it along the back of the tank or in corners/isolated pockets.

Essentially you can try to make as much of a natural biome as possible with soil/high plant concentrations so that cleaning isn't necessary, or you go with a "clean" tank and maintain water conditions through constant maintenance (nute dosing, bi weekly water changes, vacuuming substrate...)

If you use a high quality (highly amended) soil like happy frog I would suggest letting it sit over night in a bucket of water. You want to leech just a bit of the water soluble N out or you'll end up with a bit of algae the first month due to high N levels.

I love fish... Though I'd set up a vivarium. I got a 20gallon with 2 frogs and a couple guppies. Just look up vivAriums. They work great for cloning also

having alot of plants in your tank, seriously lowers maintenance need.

I dunno, for just starting out, I might go for a gravel bottom in the freshwater tank...don't like the idea of the soil leeching extra N into the water before I've even attempted cycling. I'm still new, so I'm gonna go slow at first, taking baby steps. I like that I can vacuum gravel, seeing as I'm not sure I can set up a planted tank to filter out waste like you guys can for my first try. But THANK you so much for all the help, it's indispensable...I'm planning on hitting up Petco in a bit to see if I can get like 40 lbs of black gravel, ande maybe tonight I'll be able to water test the aquarium!

I totally respect going with a traditional gravel bottom tank but keep in mind that soil most only adds nitrate to the water column. This is the good form of nitrogen that plants can use which doesn't harm fish.

The forms of nitrogen you need to stay away from are nitrite and ammonia - the soil and the bacteria it houses will actually act as a biological filter converting the bad nitrite and ammonia to the good nitrate - thus the no need to vacuum the substrate.

On the first fill up of a soil bottom tank small amount of ammonia and nitrite enter the water column and start the cycling process. The abundance of soil microbes drastically speed this process up and quickly convert the ammonia and nitrite to nitrate. From that point on (the end of the first cycle) the soil simply acts as a biological filter with the addition of breaking down its own matter into additional nitrate, and the other macros, for the tanks plant.

Again totally respect the traditional gravel bottom approach - and if you don't have plant to put in the tank there's no point in providing extra nutrients.

Gastanker said:

I totally respect going with a traditional gravel bottom tank but keep in mind that soil most only adds nitrate to the water column. This is the good form of nitrogen that plants can use which doesn't harm fish.

The forms of nitrogen you need to stay away from are nitrite and ammonia - the soil and the bacteria it houses will actually act as a biological filter converting the bad nitrite and ammonia to the good nitrate - thus the no need to vacuum the substrate.

Click to expand...

Hmm...I thought nitrates in high levels were bad for fish as well, even though they're not NEARLY as harmful as ammonia or nitrite...I dunno...lol...now I'm conflicted.

If they are too high it isn't great... Generally in a planted tank you actually dose nitrate weekly or monthly.

Read, read, read, read, read. Sounds like that's what you've been doing Fish are complicated. If you feel more comfortable with gravel go with gravel. Go with what feels comfortable. I grow in dirt organically as I'm an ecology major focused on soil - dirt makes sense to me so I put it in my tank after reading about others doing the same. You're a hydro guy right? Might be more natural for you to dose - Its a much more controlled method and not nearly as sloppy as soil.

I definitely don't want to be responsible for fucking up your tank hehe.

Gastanker and Pumpkin...thats some interesting read on the plants...I always did pretty good with just putting them in the gavel and cleaning around them, but it sounds like with this soil capping you can grow some nice plants. Good advice. I was always into the fish more, the plants were just something I started adding in my last few years in the hobbie.
And I only had them in a few tanks...more for decoration.Like I said before, I had mostly big fish that thrased the gravel around so much I didn't even have to vacuum, the stuff was always moving...lol...even my plastic plants took a beating! But for a tank of more mellow fish, I really like the soil thing. I would of said you were crazy 10 years ago...lol. I never even seen the plant tanks at the pet store do this. But I like it. I had always kept top quality aquarium bulbs on my tanks too,mixing up the spectrums, so that helped my plants that I did have alot. I had one tank that I never cleaned the glass except in the front...it had 4 inch green algea just flown off the glass sides and back...lol..and people would say it was dirty!...fuckin not dirty at all,it was awesome!!...that was my guppie tank.

metasynth...things are sounding good. If you don't want to add soil at first, try starting with something in the water spritsa family. I had those, they grew like crazy in gravel, I just vacuumed around them...my oscars would tear the plant up and I would take the little floating pieces and just stick them in the gravel, they would root and grow fast. They also have a free floating banana plant...the roots look like bananas and rest ontop the gravel ( better ask gastanker though...some plants are not true water plants)...I had those and they did fine...and I planted a bulb plant, looked like a lilly pad, it would grow to the top of the water with big leaves, then they would fall off after a few months...and later more would come up from the bulb...it did that for 2 years....Did you think of any fish yet?

Too much nitrates IS a bad thing and depending on what kind of fish you have will determine the threshold of too much nitrates. For example,my co2 injected daily dosed tanks only housed hardy community type fish (just not the average tetras oe anything like that) because they could "take" the abuse. However id never put any of my rare or more expensive less hardy fish in those tanks because they would not last a second (literally). It's like gastanker said its all about reading reading reading and trial and error,much like this hobby. May i suggest checking out plantedtank forums theres tons of info on there id compare it to a bunch of "squares" and or kids doing the same shit we do here just on a pg13 level (highly policed on there,those mods dont play). If you ever have any plant specific or maybe even fish questions shoot me a pm id be glad to helpout if possible.