Today officially marks day one of my first fishless cycle. My wife bought me a 55 gallon tank and stand as an early Christmas gift. It was pretty rough when we brought it home, I've since sanded down the trim and the stand, cleaned the heck out of it, primed and painted the stand, and installed new hardware on the stand, and painted the trim. Took a lot of painstakingly applying tape and a whole lot of black friday salespapers to ensure none of the paint made its way into the tank 
The lighting is a little wonky because it came with one working bulb, the other needed replaced. We replaced the bulb in the other hood with a T8 18" aqueon colormax 15 watt. I didn't want to sink too much money into replacing both because lighting is what I want to upgrade on the tank first, I'm looking for a good option for a T5HO fixture because I want to do a planted tank. I don't want high lighting yet though, aiming for moderate/low for now because a CO2 system is a pretty intimidating at the moment and I understand that too much lighting is going to cause an algae festival.
Filtration (my next upgrade after lighting): I'm using a HOB filter, I know its not the best but I got a 75 gallon TopFin PF and it seems to be doing ok thus far at least. I'd like to get a canister when I can but that probably won't be until after the holidays. I have a 150 watt aqueon heater that is keeping the tank at a pretty stable 84 degrees.
Anyway, it still looks quite sparse and I'm sticking with very low light plants but this what we have in it so far:
Anubias Congensis
Java Fern
Wisteria
Cryptocoryne "green"
I'm using an API Master Test Kit Freshwater
These are my starting stats:
Tap Water pH is 7.8 and negative for ammonia or nitrites.
Ammonia - 4ppm (Just dosed it up today)
The lighting is a little wonky because it came with one working bulb, the other needed replaced. We replaced the bulb in the other hood with a T8 18" aqueon colormax 15 watt. I didn't want to sink too much money into replacing both because lighting is what I want to upgrade on the tank first, I'm looking for a good option for a T5HO fixture because I want to do a planted tank. I don't want high lighting yet though, aiming for moderate/low for now because a CO2 system is a pretty intimidating at the moment and I understand that too much lighting is going to cause an algae festival.
Filtration (my next upgrade after lighting): I'm using a HOB filter, I know its not the best but I got a 75 gallon TopFin PF and it seems to be doing ok thus far at least. I'd like to get a canister when I can but that probably won't be until after the holidays. I have a 150 watt aqueon heater that is keeping the tank at a pretty stable 84 degrees.
Anyway, it still looks quite sparse and I'm sticking with very low light plants but this what we have in it so far:
Anubias Congensis
Java Fern
Wisteria
Cryptocoryne "green"
I'm using an API Master Test Kit Freshwater
These are my starting stats:
Tap Water pH is 7.8 and negative for ammonia or nitrites.
Ammonia - 4ppm (Just dosed it up today)
