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Real plants move and flow in the tank, fish seems less stressed with real plants to hide in, swim through, and rest on. They also tend to soak up the bulk of the nitrates your bioload creates, so the only time you really need to do a PWC is to vacuum out the gravel and remove non-nitrogen...

I've used Stability to cycle 2.5g and 10g tanks, went pretty quickly. Only issue was getting nitrites to absolute zero, but two PWCs finished both in about a week and a half/two weeks

My Java Ferns blackened and made me worry, same as you. However, after two months, each leaf that blackened sprouted new leaves and I found little sprouts floating all over the tank, stuck in the java moss.

i soaked mine for a couple days to soften it up a bit, then drilled into it with a normal drill

mine stalled after a power outage and ran dry for a few hours, wouldn't prime when i first flipped out. swabbing and wiping the impeller didn't help, but i noticed that it was hot to the touch, so i detached the burning hot pump and threw it in the fridge for half an hour, reconnected it, and...

SeaChem makes FlourishTabs that work pretty well, just need to put in new ones every 3 or 4 months (so they say). I'm kinda suspicious of whether you really need new substrate or not, plenty of people get by with normal non-special pea gravel as long as they dose the water column with ferts...

Bettas aren't the strongest of swimmers. I had one that would spend an hour at a time swimming into my HOBs strong output, and another that would stay as far as possible from any current whatsoever. It really varies, and even the same betta will have a different attitude to current depending...

Go nuts with the hardy low-light plants like anacharis, java ferns, and java ferns if you're new to plants. They're hard to kill and easy to provide for. You might try branching out into more demanding plants with fancy light setups and injected Co2 later on, but for the simpler starter...

The penguin 100 will probably struggle to keep a 20g or larger stable. The gph rating is said to be obtained without filter media or any of the blockages that naturally develop (mulm, dumb fish that swim up the intake). If you're worried about stable temps, I'd go with a Marineland Stealth...

Couple things: 1) Kind of curious why you'd bury the seed gravel. It seems like the seed gravel would better circulate by being directly in the path of of water flow than buried beneath it. 2) Why not take media from your established tank and stick it in the mini-filter or in the seed gravel...

The inch of fish per gallon really goes out the window with planted tanks. If you're thinking about really slender fish, 12 sq in of surface area per inch works a bit better, and with planted tanks you could probably go even higher. My 10g is at well over 2 inches of fish per gallon, and just...

nitrates aren't exactly good, they're just the least dangerous of the major nitrogenous compounds. as for getting rid of them, live plants help keep nitrates down, although keeping a planted tank will take more effort. partial water changes and gravel vacuuming are still regardless since there...

You might also consider putting some tall decorations or plants in the path of the flow. Floating plants affixed to the output can work as well.

Plants also provide a nice surface for bacteria to grow as well. They do consume some ammonia, but I don't think it slows the cycle down. Unless there are so many plants that they keep the ammonia level down to zero, there should always be enough ammonia to get the bacteria going. I've used...

Sadly, I think the Betta went into shock from the tankplosion. He was a little jittery going back to the big tank, but seemed otherwise fine. I woke up this morning to find him hiding inside a crock pot with the top half of his caudal fin torn off and covered with a brown/white fuzz at the base...

It works decently well for creating a rock/sand background. Using it on the substrate is asking for trouble. It ends up creating tons of nooks and crannies for food and fish waste to decompose in. Unless you're a big fan of blowing it out every week or so with a gravel vac or something, it's...

It was just a 2.5g tank that probably didn't cost me more than 7 or 8 bucks. Not worth the hassle or loss of good faith at the store. I got back the cost of the heater, so no harm no foul except for 5 lbs of gravel I had to chuck b/c it was full of glass and heater bits. It might just be...

Searched the forum, but didn't see anything quite like what happened to me, so I finally registered to share my disaster. I bought a 50W Petco heater about a month ago, to heat a 2.5g experimental/holding tank. Figured it was cheap ($17), could maintain a chosen temp, and there was little...