Fishtake

Added 2 Oto Cat's and 2 assassin snails in the tank the other day. We have a bit of an Algae bloom. This will be the stocking of the tank until September when i get back from a birthday trip. After that we'll probably get the dither fish, CPD's or some sort of rasboras Couple pics of the current tank. Turned the light down to 30% and 2 % blue light. Also added some Nathans Super Red and Rotala Indica this weekend

Dosed my tank with Dr Tim's Ammonia Chloride yesterday. This morning the values read a bit different. Ammonia: 0.5 ppm Nitrate: 10 ppm Nitrite is sitting at 1~2 ppm Looks like we might have a ways to go still.

So milestone today, both Anubias are growing new leaves and my rocks are starting to grow some nice algae on the surface. Plants ordered from Aquarium coop are definitely going through a transition and some leaves are dying off but i totally expected that after being cooked for 5 days in transit. I don't think that attempting to save the Ludwigia red's is working out but we shall see the stems are getting really dark but still seem very solid. (New ones are on the way, amazing live guarantee policy) I tested my water today after the 50% water change (I'm going to need to figure out how to get that better my syphon doesn't reach my sink and if i stretch it the sink doesn't quite drain fast enough to handle it). - pH 8.0 - Ammonia 0 pm - Nitrite - 0.25 ppm - Nitrate - 0 ppm I believe we are going the right direction. I'm super eager to add in fish but since nitrites aren't 0 I'm not sure if that is a great idea. By now I've gone through an entire bottle of quick-start which should treat 110 gallons so I'll have to buy more of that. Still floundering on stocking. I really want cory's but they like lower pH and the same with the harlequin rasboras. I think I'm pretty set on trying out 2 groups of Kribensis for the main fish which should be able to inhabit opposite sides of the tank. I was considering Chindigo Saulosi but I'm really worried they will destroy the plants in the tank. Totally open for some ideas

Start of Week 3 of cycling. Tested the waters this morning, after adding the plants from Coop yesterday. Results: - pH 8.0 - Ammonia 0 ~0.25 ppm - Nitrite - 0.25 ~ 0.50 ppm - Nitrate - 5.0 ppm Going to do a 50% water change today and redose with leaf zone, quickstart for 20 gallons

We are getting some algae on that capstone!

Ferns and crypts have found their place. time to go dissect the sword and pray it recovers.

Woo, new plants from Aquarium Coop arrived. All of them look as expected besides the Ludwigia red they did not quite make it across the country. Half the plant stayed in the bags they came in and one of the pots has no leaves left as you can see. Do you think i can revive either of them? I'll put them in the water to recover before i attempt to split them all up and plant them properly.

@Whitecloud09 Tank looks great but is that stand even? looks like there is like half an inch difference in water height left to right

I had that white gel looking substance on my wood also, LFS told me it's basically bacteria eating the decaying matter from your wood. He suggested i take it out and boil it if i don't want that in my tank (which i did it is gone now). I have also read and watched other resources that told me it would clear up eventually when the bacteria reaches equilibrium.

Bought a 40 Gallon Breeder probably 5 years ago at a Petco sale with the idea of drilling it and adding a sump. Totally chickened out and bought a canister filter instead. This is my first serious dive into fishkeeping I've had a goldfish as a kid and a ton of guppies but never could make it last. Me and the wife got onto a betta kick for a while where we had like 10 different betta tanks but none bigger than 10 gallons. Going to try my first properly cycled/matured planted tank with a couple feature fish, dither fish and maintenance crew. All the contents are currently bought at Aquarium Depot in California (Tazawa visited them) 40 Gallon Breeder (Petco dollar per gallon sale) Stand bought at Wayfair (Someday I'll be brave enough to build my own) Large piece of wood Seiryu Stone Fluval 307 Canister Filter (No extra media yet) Fluval Planted 3.0 Fluval Stratum base layer Pool filter sand cap 300W heater (75 gallon rated) Currently on week 2 I have done 3 massive water changes to get the tannins out. I did not boil the wood initially and ended up with a nice dark tea and biofilm/gel looking substance on the wood. I took it out and put it in an old cooler and poured about 5 soup pans worth of boiling water ontop of it and let it sit for 3 hours occasionally topping off with boiling water. I have dosed with API Quickstart pretty much every water change API Leaf Zone every water change API Accuclear every water change (had been messing with the scape a bit) API tap water conditioner every water change. Tank currently has a couple of Anubias, and some Borneo Fern (Which i found out later are not actually submersible) I have been sitting on 0 Ammonia and 0 Nitrites and between 0 / 5.0 ppm Nitrites for 2 weeks now. I have ordered more plants from Aquarium Coop this week arriving tomorrow. 2 Ferns (Going on the wood probably), 1 Sword probably to cover up some of the heater, and 2 ludwigia reds to give the tank a pop of color and hopefully propagate to cover up other mechanical items in the tank. I'm doing a plant-in cycle and eager to get some actual life into the tank. As for stocking the tank Some sort of cory not sure which yet but i'm thinking like 6 ish Some sort of dither fish i'm highly leaning to harlequin rasboras And then i want some sort of feature fish. Currently going between Apisto's, Kribensis and Chindingo Saulosi My water is pretty hard so Apisto's might be out of the question if i don't want to deal with softening the water. And finally I'll probably end up throwing in a couple shrimp to leave to fend for themselves (mbuna's will probably slaughter them), and really considering not putting in snails Totally stole the light settings from @Bentley Pascoe's video on the Planted 3.0

Awesome thanks folks, Will wait another week and get my new plants settled in before considering which cory's i want to splurge on. After that I'll get my dither fish and then whatever i decide to be the show pieces

So since I'm not dosing ammonia and completely relying on my Stratum layer to slowly leak ammonia how long should i wait before putting in something like shrimp? Should i wait until I'm seeing some actual algae? I'm about to put in 5 more pots of plants this Friday.

Awesome that is good information to have. I tested my water before i did a massive water change (75%) ammonia and nitrites were sitting at 0 at that time. nitrates between 0 and 5.0 ppm.

Hey, Thank you and I've started cycling. I've added API QuickStart to the tank and re-dosed every massive water change (3 so far, a lot of tannins from the wood). So my understanding is that it should be cycling.

I've had a 40 breeder setup for about 2 weeks now. Fluval Stratum capped by pool filter sand. A big piece of bog wood and some Seiryu stone. I have 2 pots of anubia in there and a couple borneo ferns. I also have 2 pothos plants (very small) and a couple prayer plant snippings in there. Fluval 307 canister filter Fluval Plant 3.0 I just ordered more plants from aquarium coop (2 ludwigia, 2 ferns and a sword) so i am going to fill out the plants more. I've been dosing the tank with leaf zone every time I've done a water change (had quite a bit of tannins), and I've been dosing with QuickStart. My water tests look great and I'm sitting around 8.0 Ph. Can/should i start adding some life to the tank now? i was thinking either shrimp or a little team of cory's. I'm wanting to go towards either Apistogramma's or Chindongo Saulosi in the tank eventually but i want to make sure that I've gotten the tank to do it's maturing properly before i put in my feature fish. P.S. I've had tanks before but they were either guppies or Betta's and they were all in tanks 10 gallon or below. So this is my first real dive into the hobby.