gimmethatfish
Aquarium Advice Activist
So I had a bad start of things with my 54 gallon tank. I used the wrong kind of silicone to glue my 3D background in - I managed to somehow grab one single tube of kitchen & bath silicone in the mix of door/window tubes, and the anti mildew gunk poisoned my fish. They were acting weird and then died overnight and it was only then that I realized what I had done. I did only have 3 glofish in the tank at that point so at least it wasn't fully stocked, but it was not my finest moment in life. Those poor little guys . I literally almost just scrapped it and gave the tank away I felt so bad.
I still have the tank running because I have a bunch of live plants, but I obviously have no fish in there. I don't know at this point if I need to scrap the plants that are in there or not. I'm going to pull out the background and put in a new one (using the right silicone...). I already ordered a new filter (the old one was secondhand and loud, and I don't trust what the media may have absorbed). I have several new plants to put in as well. I'll remove and thoroughly rinse the gravel. All in all, it's going to take me probably 2 weeks to dismantle the tank, make the new background and allow it to dry/cure, stick it back in, and then I'm going to do a fishless cycle. I have an empty 10G tank I can house the plants in for now. They will be a tight squeeze, but I'll be diligent in rotating and fertilizing them.
I guess my questions are:
I still have the tank running because I have a bunch of live plants, but I obviously have no fish in there. I don't know at this point if I need to scrap the plants that are in there or not. I'm going to pull out the background and put in a new one (using the right silicone...). I already ordered a new filter (the old one was secondhand and loud, and I don't trust what the media may have absorbed). I have several new plants to put in as well. I'll remove and thoroughly rinse the gravel. All in all, it's going to take me probably 2 weeks to dismantle the tank, make the new background and allow it to dry/cure, stick it back in, and then I'm going to do a fishless cycle. I have an empty 10G tank I can house the plants in for now. They will be a tight squeeze, but I'll be diligent in rotating and fertilizing them.
I guess my questions are:
- Would you keep the plants or scrap them? I don't know how much toxins they may have absorbed. Do you think they will purge themselves with 2 weeks and frequent water changes?
- Would you keep the gravel or scrap it? I have 30 lbs of Caribsea peace river gravel on top of 20 lbs of Caribsea eco-complete. It *should* just rinse clean I would think. I hate to wash away all the established bacteria, but probably better safe than sorry.
- I have heard very conflicting advice about whether to fishless cycle with plants or without. What does everyone advise?
- I also have no concept of what makes a tank lightly vs heavily planted. I lean toward mine being medium planted? Right now, I have 2 large and 1 small java fern, 1 amazon sword, several bunches of moneywort, several bunches of hornwort, 2 sizeable jungle val, 1 small and 1 large anubias, and I also have a plant trimmings package on the way (ordered before fishpocalypse '14) which will contain a large mix of duckweed, frogbit, rotala, java moss, crypt, pennywort, anacharis. I could take pictures of everything and post.