Starting over!! What should I do?

[MrTetra]

Hey fish keeper friends. I made a few stupid mistakes last time setting up my tank. I added fish too early. Used too many chemicals. Didn't cycle fully, etc. I want to restart everything and I will be ditching all the chemicals this time and I will allow my tank to cycle at least two months.

I'm looking for creative ideas on how to setup a planted-fish tank. I want to use a main piece of drift wood in the middle and am still debating on what type of substrate I should use. What kind of plants should I add? And if you haven't realized yet by name I LOVE Tetras!!!!! I will be adding only tetras to this tank and maybe 1 bigger main fish (or 2).

Tank Specs:

30 Gallon
Fluval 70 Filter (3 Stage)
Flourescent Bulb (Good or No for plants??)
No background

Right now it has been standing empty for over a week, I steam washed everything down (no chemicals) and I took the old filter inserts out and thoroughly clean it out as well.

Thanks
~MrTetra

 

[Kimlafeiet]

The plants you will want to get will depend on what kind of lighting you have. Low tech low light plants good for starting out are java moss, java fern, bolbitus, anubais, anarcharis, water wisteria, just to name a few easy plants. They dont require a whole lot, and do ok without co2 supplimentation.
I have (mostly) all tetras in my planted tank....rummynose, ember fire, and neons.....and a pearl gourami. Lol. Someday, I would love to upgrade to a little bigger tank and get some congo tetras.

 

[iforged]

Mr tetra... Welcome ... I also restarted my tank about 3 weeks ago and have too made same mistakes as you to the point where my fish were dying and my remainder fish developed serious case of ich. I have cleaned out my tank completely and bought a new filter Fluval 306 canister 3 stage and new ornaments. I'm also doing one drift wood in the center and rest rocks and live plants.

Before starting over, I read a ton of articles about fish less cycle and decided to go that rout. Been running for about 3 weeks now with only ammonia showing up. I added java moss and java fern to the tank. I'm waiting for my anubias to arrive any day now. Java moss responded to the tank in negative way by turning brownish, which forces me to have my low tech 17w t8 light on for around 6hrs a day. I heard java moss is actually a lot more difficult plant to take care of than what most say.

I assume you be doing fish less cycle too??

 

[Rivercats]

Before setting the tank up you need to decide if you want to go with a low light easy maintenance setup or go with a medium or even high light tank which will require more work and money depending on how high tech you want to go.

For substrate you can do sand, any small grained gravel (don't use larger gravel as plants have a harder time with it), or any of the commercial plant substrates.

Once you have all the above figured out you can actually set the tank up and plant it right away. The plants will actually help the tank cycle.

Also when you decide what light your using, which btw the light you have now would be considered very low light and you would have a very limited amount of plants you could grow if you use it.