Planted Molly Tank Beginer! Help?!

[Michelle9]

Hello!

This will be one of my first tanks. My neighbour gave me a old 20 or 30 gallon tank. It has no lid. I want to have Mollys and live plants. I had read that these plants are acceptable in this kind of environment,

hornwort
duckweed
anacharis
amazon sword
java fern
java moss

I don't even know how to start or where to start.. What kind of substrate do I need? Will I need a lid on my tank, I know I need a filter, do I need a heater? how do I take care of the plants?

Basically, I need some help starting this tank from scratch!

Thank you!
-Michelle

 

[Pseudomugil]

Substrate- any substrate you want is fine. I would recommend Tahitian black moon sand but it is a bit expensive.

Lid- you do not need a lid, but I would recommend one. It may be tough finding one to fit the tank though.

Filter- yes you will need a filter. A filter rated for a 50 gallon tank or so would be good. I know it's weird, but it's better. Aquaclear filters are good.

Heater- for mollies you should have a heater, especially for most of those plants.

Plant care- most of those plants seem pretty easy to care for, though I wouldn't recommend duckweed. Anubius is another better plant. I'm not a plant expert but you will probably need fertilizer or root tabs which are like nutrient packs.

Other people can probably help you more but I just gave some basic answers to your questions. Definitely get an API master freshwater test kit to test levels.

 

[Shedd]

Everything pseudomugil said was correct. You also need to cycle your tank. That means you need to fill your tank with water and leave it for about 5 weeks (worst part of aquariums)
I would put the plants in for cycling because they help
Develop essential bacteria

 

[Shedd]

Depending on how many mollies you want to add, I would also add more fish. If you do make sure you can handle them

 

[sinibotia]

Everything pseudomugil said was correct. You also need to cycle your tank. That means you need to fill your tank with water and leave it for about 5 weeks (worst part of aquariums)
I would put the plants in for cycling because they help
Develop essential bacteria

He's right, although you don't just "leave it for 5 weeks", you have to add a source of ammonia in order to build up populations of special, beneficial bacteria. The bacteria convert toxic fish waste into a much less toxic form. It's rediculously important to do this first!

Usually the way to do this is to find a hardware store or sometimes a dollar store that sells liquid ammonia as a cleaner. You want clear ammonia with no surfactants or additives. You add a very small amount of this (a teaspoon or two) per day as well as a pinch of fish food (to provide nutrients).

As someone else said, you'll want to get an API freshwater master test kit. This includes tests for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Ammonia is the toxic fish waste; nitrite is a highly toxic intermediate form; and nitrate is fairly safe for fish up until high levels. You want to keep dosing your tank with ammonia until 2-4 ppm of ammonia is converted completely to nitrate overnight; this means the bacteria are fully grown and ready to support fish. It usually takes around a month.

Once you do have the bacteria built up you can safely add all of the fish you want at once. You can keep just mollies or have some other kinds of fish like small catfish and schooling fish. Then all you have to do is change enough of the water every week or two weeks to maintain a low nitrate level.

What are the dimensions of your tank? That would be helpful in telling you how big it is and how many fish you can put in it.

 

[Shedd]

Whoops.sorry

 

[Shedd]

You could also add small plecos but they poop a lot which causes ammonia. You must make sure it will not grow to much. Some plecos can grow very large. Plecoptera help with algae problems in tanks. I would suggest a bristle nose. They require driftwood though

 

[Coursair]

Mollies are Livebearers. If you add any female Mollies you will get babies. Decide how you want to deal with this. Leave room for some extra Mollies.

We have stickies on this site about
Fishless Cycling and
Fish In Cycling. Read up ?


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[Pseudomugil]

Do lots of research on cycling tanks.

 

[serena00]

I'm gonna say now... I would not do very many mollies. Mine have births about once a month. It's crazy how many babies they have. Mollies also get to 4 inches. I would suggest platy if you like the look of Molly. They stay 2-3 inches so it gives you more room. They also have tons of babies.

I would put guppys, endlers, or a small group of tetras (5 or 6)

Plecos get 5-6 inches at least. Some get 20 inches. They poop A LOT. I would suggest otocinclous or snails instead for algae control.


36g semi-aggressive
20g community
5.5g betta/ghost shrimp
3g betta
2g fry