on my day off

[lpiasente]

I will change my tank......yaaaaaay can't wait. changing from gravel to sand adding a blue background and some new plants and well whatever else comes my way :)

[Ben75]

Make sure you post some pics once done to
show off all your hard WORK on your day off :)
Regards,

[lpiasente]

I sure will

I just got given from the lps a sera plant care set it has co2 tablets flore plus tabs and florette tabs and a plastic co2 dispenser. Has anyone used these before? Am I waisting my time adding these co2 tabs (the other tabs are root ferts). I am having probs keeping my plants looking good, although I don't have many , I really don't want to add a whole Co2 system.

[exv152]

I sure will

I just got given from the lps a sera plant care set it has co2 tablets flore plus tabs and florette tabs and a plastic co2 dispenser. Has anyone used these before? Am I waisting my time adding these co2 tabs (the other tabs are root ferts). I am having probs keeping my plants looking good, although I don't have many , I really don't want to add a whole Co2 system.

What kind of plants do you have now, and what are you planning to plant?

[rickztahone]

keep in mind that the sand won't settle quickly when making the change. also, getting rid of all your gravel will get rid of a lot of your beneficial bacteria which might cause a mini-cycle. just some things to keep in mind.

[lpiasente]

I ended up using very fine gravel not sand but it looks the same as sand. The background is is a cross between a cobalt blue and a navy blue and gosh it is amazing how much it brings the colour of the fish out, they look magic. I have been keeping amazon swords and they were looking terrible very thin and covered in black hair alge. I gave them a peroxide bath and stripped all the black leaves so hopefully if I keep up with the ferts things will improve. I also added some crypts. I always seem to have great success with crypts. I was a little worried about the mini cycle. I did have about a 40 litre bucket of gravel in a 4x2x2 so it was just a scraping across the bottom of the tank. So now to keep ontop of it should I do daily water changes, I usually do 3x 70% a week? I will post a pic in a few days.

[lpiasente]

so now a small problem.... I am running 2 x 2217 's and now the background is darker I can see all the floating debris and I HATE it. How do I get rid of it all?

[smiley]

Can you Net them?

[lpiasente]

I can't net them they are like fine dust particles and a bit bigger

[smiley]

The last time i had thorughly cleaned my substrate and rearranged the plants I had this issue with debris all over the tank...it took nearly 2 hours on my 50G to settle down everything..Maybe patience is virtue :D. There are liqud products (from JBL etc) where you can do this faster as they claim to compound these particles together in water and then start floating on top...Have used this product just once and it works well...but once again why waste those additional $$ when you can achieve it by just waiting a bit...

[lpiasente]

Ok it has happened the tank is cycling again. I am getting an ammonia reading but it doesn't seem to bother the fish, just checking that as I am using prime I will get an ammonia reading but the ammonia has been neutralised?? I am doing water changes everyday but still get a reading on both tanks even when I have done 100% change. Will I get the whole nitrite problem? Damm damm damm this is all hard work (is it ok to winge:()

[Jhhnn]

Are you using the seachem ammonia test kit? It's the only one I know of that can tell the difference between ammonia and ammonium...

If your tap water has chloramines, the tank will show some ammonium right after a big water change using prime, which disappears relatively quickly as the biofilter gobbles it up...

[lpiasente]

i use aquarium pharmaceuticals. I tested the tap water and the ammonia reads 0 but the tanks are reading a small amount, no nitrites yet though. The fish really aren't showing any signs of being bothered by it.