Converting to planted, need advice.

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bazook

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 27, 2017
Messages
55
About a month ago I bought a 29g and being a newbie I started a fish-in cycle with a rather large community. Lost a platy, a guppy, and a snail. Surprisingly the rest survived...consisting of 3 platies, 3 guppies, a Molly and a pleco. I'm pretty sure I goofed on the cycle and restarted it because of a 50% wc about 2 weeks ago. Params are as follows:

PH- 7.6
Ammonia- roughly 2ppm (recent spike)
Nitrites- 0 ppm
Nitrates- roughly 1 or 2 ppm

This tank has pretty hard water, I do small wc's every other day now so I don't disrupt the cycle too much. I also dose with fluval bio booster during water changes, and it has recently become cloudy again. I'm worried about the condition of my fish but I also would like to soften the water and start planting the tank.

I have a bunch of plastic decor but I luckily used nat geo sand substrate and have 20g tank in the midst of the nitrite portion of the cycle that's already planted and I would like to use some clippings to get my 29g started. I was gonna drop in some root tabs and plant a couple clippings in hopes that they will eventually make use off the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate.

I've already cut off my air stones so that co2 levels can increase for a suitable environment. Any advice? What mistakes am I making? Expected downfalls?

This is my first post, very glad to be a part of the fish freak community.

Thanks in advance!
 
P.s. also using aquaponic filtration on both tanks.
 
No need to soften the water. Plants actually prefer harder water (well makes it easier to balance). A few people on this forum have very soft water including myself. This has made things a lot harder to balance/dose.

I'd throw some plants in there whenever you like. Root tabs are a good idea. Also your usual dosing of ferts etc. start ferts straight away, no need to wait for the cycle. Plants will also help your cycle.

Good plants to start off are Java fern, anubias, mosses, crypts, bacopa etc etc. all require low light and minimal co2 (just liquid co2)

Dose flourish to recommended
Dose iron to recommended
Dose trace to recommended

Hope I've helped :)
 
Hey welcome to the forum.

I myself am a newbie here and to fishkeeping in general, so please take my advice with a pinch of salt.. however, I have done a lot of research and believe I might be able to help in some way.. hopefully :)

I'm not sure that a 50% water change would be why your cycle would of messed up as very little (if any) of the beneficial bacteria is kept in the water channels. It is all in your filter and on any substrate/decor/plants etc. Therefore whilst in the midst of your cycle, especially with the amount of fish you have producing ammonia, it would hurt to even do a water change daily in order to keep the ammonia levels down.

The cloudiness you talk about sounds like a bacterial bloom, this is harmless to your fish and it just basically means that your beneficial bacteria is establishing. I've found this happens a lot whilst using the Fluval Cycle booster, this stuff always speeds up the cycling time of my tanks, love it!

There are plenty of low maintenance plants which would do well in the sand with root tabs. Java moss/fern, anubias and amazon sword just to name a few, so if you had any of those in your other planted tank I believe they would be fine.

I think as long as you keep up with your water changes and also keep an eye on your water parameters your fish will be fine! Doing a fish-in-cycle can be hard work but I'm sure it will pay off! Good luck (y)
 
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