So my tank is delayed by a week. The shop I got it from got the tank and the stand, but the stand's top front corners are damaged. So I've asked them to get it changed and that takes another week
However, in that time, I've bought some plants online and they arrive Tue or Wed this week. To home them, I started up an empty 20g tank I had lying around. I put some pool filter sand substrate and created an area with black diamond blasting sand in the middle. However, I have 2 problems:
(A) Lots of particles of the BDBS are floating around. Several are at the top of the water line, accumulating at the edges. Not sure why this is happening... Have you faced this? How do I make this not happen when I setup the big tank?
(B) the black sand and white sand seems to have already stated to mix. When I had added water, I started off quite cautiously with pouring water onto a plate, but as volume started to build, I got a little overconfident. Oh well, lesson learned! But question for any of you who have both black and white sand in the same tank: how do you keep these two separate?
Now back to my 90G tank (thats not here yet!): Thanks to advice on this forum, I am going to do a fishless cycle, even if it takes longer. I'll use the HOB filter from my 10G goldfish tank and add that to my 90 setup which will also have an eheim 2217. The 10g HOB will look puny and funny, but I'll plan on taking it off in a month or so, assuming that I'll still need another month to finish the cycling. I am willing to be patient! I've never cycled a tank before, and so I am also trying this out on the 20 g with black and white sand. Hope to learn something valuable from it for my 90g tank.
Thanks again for all the help and advice!