This post will be long winded and I apologize in advance.
Backstory, Current tank was rushed together and some mistakes were made. Last year I bought a house and moved. I had a 55 gallon set up and was going strong, good plant growth and healthy tank. Easiest way I could think of was to set up another 55 at the new house. I borrowed a empty tank from a friend, used quartz sand as a substrate, put in a marineland c220 loaded with sponges and Seachem Matrix and moved over my plants from the old house first, When I was ready to move my fish, I swapped out one of the containers with my other canister for established bacteria. I moved all my fish and everything has been fine except for 2 things.....Algae and I can't keep snails alive. I am guilty of not staying up on root tabs but have been dosing with Easy Green weekly.
Specs on current tank
Quartz Sand substrate
Marine Land C220 canister (coarse, medium and fine foam, polishing pads, the remainder of the compartments are full of Seachem Matrix) with spray bar
Aqueon optibright led plus for lighting
Whisper air pump with 2 small air stones going
Eheim 300w Jäger for heat
Stocked are
3 Gourami's (1 4" and 2 2")
1 Clown Pleco (2")
1 Bristle Nose Pleco (2")
4 Danios (3/4")
4 red eye tetras (3/4")
4 platy's (1")
5 Black phantom tetra's (1/4")
4 Tiger barbs (1/2")
Snails have all died and I have no idea why, water parameters are good in Ammonia/PH/Nitrate and Nitrite. So anything I should test for would be greatly appreciated. Some seem to have died when I put them in the water recently. When I started the tank they lasted a few months.
Now onto my plan. I don't have enough space for my current 55 and my 90 to be set up at the same time so I have a 36 gallon bow front set up and plan on keeping it set up for some other fish.
Specs on 36 gallon Bow Front (Aqueon Bundle from Petco) Using supplied light
Stratum substrate
Tidal 55 (coarse supplied foam, coarse/medium and fine foam added, Polishing pad, supplied Matrix bag full of Matrix.)
Aqueon 150w heater
Seiryu Stone (2 lb single stone)
Driftwood
10 plants
So far I have moved the black phatoms, 2 tiger barbs and 1 small gourami over. I plan on moving 1 fish over every 24-48 hours with watching parameters 2 times daily, more if there are signs of stress and change out water if needed, so far ammonia is sitting at 0, when I moved the phantoms it hit .25 ppm the first day and a 50% water change with a dose of prime and so far so good since. I have does 2 times with Easy green for the plants and they seem to be ok. I work from home so I can monitor things throughout the day.
Specs on 90 gallon
Marineland 90 48x18x24 dimensions
Substrate 50lbs of Quartz Sand 17.7lbs of Fluval stratum, the Stratum will be on the bottom where the plants will go, The sand will be covering everything
Decor will be Dragon Stone and Driftwood. I placed a recent order of plants through Coop and will do some more down the road, currently they are in the 36 gallon tank. Also plan on swapping from the 55, but more on that later.
Filters will be 2 Tidal 110's (supplied coarse foam, then coarse, medium, and fine foam, topped with polishing pads, then the supplied Matrix bags filled) The filters will hang from the back of the tank on the opposite ends, as far left and right as I can go. )
2 Fluval 300w Heaters hanging from the supplied heater clips on the 110's
Fluval Plant 3.0 59w light
Co2 art regulator and supplies with a 5lb bottle tied into a Co-op diffuser that will be at the bottom of the tank, placed in the middle in between the Tidal filters. C02 regulator will be on a wifi timer that I got from Coop.(more on this later, this is my first co2 attempt)
So now to my plan.
I will drain the 55 gallon and leave some water in a bucket to pull my plants in the 55 and set them in there to swap to the 90, will unplug the canister and set aside, move the 55 out of the way and pull my stones out of it as well. Put the 90 up and get it going, fill the tank and dose with Prime, Clarity and Stability and Easy Green. I will pull all the Matrix out of the established canister and fill up the bags to go in the Tidals, if I have any room left I will add more Matrix. I will punt in my Stratum and put down root tabs, top off with sand and partially fill the tank, place my Dragon stone and driftwood and swap over 6 of the 10 plants from the 36 gallon tank, and then comes the fun, remove the algae from the plants I pulled from the 55 gallon and place them as well. Fill the tank and make sure everything is working correctly and check for leaks. Plan on letting the tank run for 24 hours to balance out the temperature and then start moving fish over from the 36 gallon tank.
So where I need help is How do I safely remove the algae from the plants safely and quickly that I am removing from the 55 gallon?
Co2 I will start a new thread on.
Thank you to anyone that has read all of this, now I seek advice from the experts. Is there anything I should be doing different? Is my train of thought, good, bad or needs improvement. Once the tank is set up I will keep this going with photos ASAP.
