joannde
Aquarium Advice Addict
After what seems like a month I'm FINALLY at the end stages of getting ready to "plant" my 29G tank (1.5 wpg).
The plants are being shipped overnight on Monday, so that they will arrive on Tuesday.
I'm not doing a "traditional" planting. My tank is pretty much bottomless and I'm keeping it that way except for two ceramic pots for two of the new plants, a ceramic "tree" and a bunch of ceramic "rocks" and "caves" that I've made to tie Anubias and Java Ferns to. I'll be using
I've been removing about a dozen or so of my current "glass beads" from the tank every couple of days so that my good bacteria can build up on other places - probably a bad idea in the end since all of the other decor will also shortly be removed (I see a mini-cycle in my future !).
Questions:
1. Since I made the ceramic pots myself am I setting myself up for a worse diatom outbreak (I really HATE diatoms - although I have nothing against oto's I really didn't plan on having any in the tank)
2. Since I'm removing all the current resin decor (2 large "rock / cave" things) and all the silk plants - leaving only a few of the "glass bead" substrate should I remove the fish while I "redecorate" ? Which do you think is less stressful to the fish - leaving the fish in their own tank and having them "watch" me redecorate or taking them out and putting them in a 4 gallon bucket while I give their home a makeover ?
3. Is my risk of a mini-cycle reduced because of the addition of the plants (L. repens, 5 anubia v nana, 5 lace java fern, 2 regular java fern, 3 anubia barteri v barteri, 1 red rubin sword, 1 bunch of pennywort and 4 moss balls) ?
TIA
The plants are being shipped overnight on Monday, so that they will arrive on Tuesday.
I'm not doing a "traditional" planting. My tank is pretty much bottomless and I'm keeping it that way except for two ceramic pots for two of the new plants, a ceramic "tree" and a bunch of ceramic "rocks" and "caves" that I've made to tie Anubias and Java Ferns to. I'll be using
I've been removing about a dozen or so of my current "glass beads" from the tank every couple of days so that my good bacteria can build up on other places - probably a bad idea in the end since all of the other decor will also shortly be removed (I see a mini-cycle in my future !).
Questions:
1. Since I made the ceramic pots myself am I setting myself up for a worse diatom outbreak (I really HATE diatoms - although I have nothing against oto's I really didn't plan on having any in the tank)
2. Since I'm removing all the current resin decor (2 large "rock / cave" things) and all the silk plants - leaving only a few of the "glass bead" substrate should I remove the fish while I "redecorate" ? Which do you think is less stressful to the fish - leaving the fish in their own tank and having them "watch" me redecorate or taking them out and putting them in a 4 gallon bucket while I give their home a makeover ?
3. Is my risk of a mini-cycle reduced because of the addition of the plants (L. repens, 5 anubia v nana, 5 lace java fern, 2 regular java fern, 3 anubia barteri v barteri, 1 red rubin sword, 1 bunch of pennywort and 4 moss balls) ?
TIA