hello,
I havent posted for yrs, but now that I have an opportunity to have a tank, I'll be posting LOTS of questions, so please bare with me!
Anyway,
I have 46 gallon, fully stocked, its been running for 5 months. I did not use any substrate for a few reasons which i'll briefly talk about. Instead, I have set up a pile with a combination of quite a few large rocks, driftwood, and plastic plants in a seemingly random, chaotic looking manner.this pile provides the optimal number of nooks/caves/territories, and the plants act as "privacy curtains", and also "road blocks", to help prevent the nippy cichlids from lunging at the smaller barbs I have in there. I am giving away the aggressives because I am remaking the tank into a planted tank. It has become habitual for me to start off a tank by just throwing in large decorations which are used just for shelter and surface area for bacteria, rather than starting with a substrate base. I always planned to add the substrate, but lately I have figured that a substrate free tank is actually cleaner and easier to maintain than w/ substrate.(if your not using UGfilter). I would almost go far as to say that substrate can create more harm than good, because anaerobic bacterial colonies easily take hold, especially if the substrate is more than a few inches deep. when detritus gets lodged underneath the substrate, it becomes a time bomb. if you don't syphon with extreme care, (unless you syphon very often, which is also a bad thing), you cant avoid unleashing a cloud of detritus and the toxic byproducts of anaerobic bacteria. (which only occurs in the substrate), and this often kills sensitive fish, even if your water is otherwise clean. So, this is why in any tank where the fish dont require substrate to burrow or sift through, and I dont care about aethetics, I leave it bare. Then, I add at least 2 bubbler strips, and a powerhead, and a handful of java moss, so every square inch of the tank has fresh water flowing. I believe this combination creates very high o2 levels, which of course feed greater bact. colonies, and I cannot understate the role a good thick coud of java moss plays both in good water and also in stress reduction. I am gonna syphon my tank today (the first time since I set it up 5 months ago) Oh, the other thing I do is add aquarium salt and just a pinch of ammonia pebbles whenever I top off my tank. does anyone have any thoughts or advice about this method? Since I am switching to a planted tank, I will be adding tons of substrate to form some slopes. now i'm gonna post my substrate question in the planted tank forum, i wanna now about good ways to get lots of o2 in the substrate to stimulate root growth. thanks for reading! I owe almost everything I know to this wonderful community!
-pat
I havent posted for yrs, but now that I have an opportunity to have a tank, I'll be posting LOTS of questions, so please bare with me!
Anyway,
I have 46 gallon, fully stocked, its been running for 5 months. I did not use any substrate for a few reasons which i'll briefly talk about. Instead, I have set up a pile with a combination of quite a few large rocks, driftwood, and plastic plants in a seemingly random, chaotic looking manner.this pile provides the optimal number of nooks/caves/territories, and the plants act as "privacy curtains", and also "road blocks", to help prevent the nippy cichlids from lunging at the smaller barbs I have in there. I am giving away the aggressives because I am remaking the tank into a planted tank. It has become habitual for me to start off a tank by just throwing in large decorations which are used just for shelter and surface area for bacteria, rather than starting with a substrate base. I always planned to add the substrate, but lately I have figured that a substrate free tank is actually cleaner and easier to maintain than w/ substrate.(if your not using UGfilter). I would almost go far as to say that substrate can create more harm than good, because anaerobic bacterial colonies easily take hold, especially if the substrate is more than a few inches deep. when detritus gets lodged underneath the substrate, it becomes a time bomb. if you don't syphon with extreme care, (unless you syphon very often, which is also a bad thing), you cant avoid unleashing a cloud of detritus and the toxic byproducts of anaerobic bacteria. (which only occurs in the substrate), and this often kills sensitive fish, even if your water is otherwise clean. So, this is why in any tank where the fish dont require substrate to burrow or sift through, and I dont care about aethetics, I leave it bare. Then, I add at least 2 bubbler strips, and a powerhead, and a handful of java moss, so every square inch of the tank has fresh water flowing. I believe this combination creates very high o2 levels, which of course feed greater bact. colonies, and I cannot understate the role a good thick coud of java moss plays both in good water and also in stress reduction. I am gonna syphon my tank today (the first time since I set it up 5 months ago) Oh, the other thing I do is add aquarium salt and just a pinch of ammonia pebbles whenever I top off my tank. does anyone have any thoughts or advice about this method? Since I am switching to a planted tank, I will be adding tons of substrate to form some slopes. now i'm gonna post my substrate question in the planted tank forum, i wanna now about good ways to get lots of o2 in the substrate to stimulate root growth. thanks for reading! I owe almost everything I know to this wonderful community!
-pat
