# Just Started A Planted Tank...



## AJTapper (Aug 14, 2014)

So yesterday I got my tank all set up and planted, currently there's not much in there plant-wise, I have three Wendtii Greens, one anacharis, and a moss ball. It's a ten-gallon tank with soil in the bottom, gravel, and a piece of driftwood (the moss ball is loosely tied to it until it holds on itself). I have a 6500K LED light that I got at my LFS (it was highly recommended for plant growth so I'm okay there).

My real question is, do you guys think it would be bad to get a fish already? My levels right now are as follows:
-Ammonia: 0.25
-Nitrite: 0
-Nitrate: 0
-pH: 7.2

The reason I ask is because there's this beautiful elephant ear at petco that I really want to save. It's gorgeous and exactly what I want, the only problem is that I have no where to put him until this tank is ready. 

I plan on getting more plants soon, but I wanted some hardier ones to take root and get cycles going before I started to get the more finicky ones. 

If anyone has any suggestions for me I would truly appreciate it. Thanks!


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## kjg1029 (Jun 14, 2014)

I planted mine and put my betta in the same day, but that's just me, and I also did a massive water change and made sure any wood pieces where gone and is it filterd/heated? I'm assuming it is but I gotta ask lol.


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## AJTapper (Aug 14, 2014)

I've removed as much of the floating debris as possible, but obviously there's still a little bit of the smaller pieces. I have a heater that my girlfriend's dad gave me, but I'm probably going to get an adjustable one as soon as I can afford it. It keeps the tank at about 76 degrees. I've done one large water change so far, it seems to have helped. There are a lot of tannins in the water because of the wood though, but that shouldn't be a problem, right?


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## kjg1029 (Jun 14, 2014)

in my experience, no the tannis doesn't do anything, it just looked like that for a while untill I fixed a few spots and changed the water a few times, as long as you have a thermometer to watch the heater, and it works fine and isnt fluxuating alot then IMO its fine to get a betta. You should give him something to hide in though! Oh and idk if you've conditioned it yet but you should do that lol. And make sure there isn't any ammonia, because when it hits .25 you'd need to do a PWC.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

Is your 'mossball' marimo? They sink on their own and a light fluffy green blob. Some stores sell fake marimo (real ones are the same fluff all the way to the core, fakes are usually grow on some sort of armature/structure in the core. Real ones are rearly perfectly round and can easily be reshaped by rolling them around between your palms. Fakes won't change shape because they have a man made core.
*fakes:*
































*real:*























If you have a true marimo its actually not a moss but a specialized form of very slow growing hair algae. It will never grow roots, just very slowly grow in size. Contrary to what many say, having marimo in your tank will not cause the undesirable long green hair algae to grow on other decor/glass/substrate.. that algae grows from too intense/too close a light to tank or too long of a photo period (lights on time). If you have a fake marimo you may have anotehr form of algae or a real moss. Only true mosses will grow roots and attach themselves to decor. That said if you have real marimo simply get some low poundage (thin) clear fishing line and tie it where you want it permanently (easy to find at sport stores (or spot section of kmart, walmart, sears)), possibly live bait shops too. The algae will slowly grow/thicken and hide the fishing line in time. Thread will break down in the tank in a few weeks and let the marimo go. Marimo is too slow of a grower to make an impact on ammonia/nitrite/nitrate in the water, though it will absorb some for nutrients it won't even make a dent in it.
If you plan to put a fish in I'd buy more than 1 stem of anaharis, this is your fast growing plant in the group and if you plan to throw a fish in without properly cycling first the more fast growing plants you have the better!
Crypt windtii green is a slow grower, since its new to your tank you may experience a 'melt', as long s the roots don't root off its still alive and will send out new leaves within 1-3 weeks, its just adapting to your water (same can happen to anacharis (old growth dies off) though it will grow back much faster).
*Some more fast growing plants to look into* are: hornwort, duckweed, frogbit, salvia minimia (note; they can be illegal in some states, NEVER let them go down the toilet/drain or toss outside)
For slow but hardy growing plants check out java fern and anubias. These plants have rhizomes (horizontal stick that roots and leaves grow from) it CANNOT be buried in the substrate or it will rot and kill the plant. They are most often tied to other decor (like driftwood) their roots will attach them to said decor over several weeks time. 
You can also look into pennywort and the many varieties of hygro (Hygrophila sp.___) for more medium to fast growing plants.


*Fish and new tank-cycling*
What do you have for a filter and filter media?
Do you have preexisting cycled tanks?
Do you have a heater?
Do you have Seachem Prime? 
Do you have a liquid test kit (for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate)? Test strips are unreliable

*If you have an older tank that has been up and running with fish for over 2 months *and no disease you can easily cycle your new tank (or at least partially cycle it) by taking between 1/4-1/2 of the old tanks filter media (ceramic/bioball/biomedia is best, next is sponge/foam.. carbon bags won't hold much of what you need) this will give you a decent chunk of established beneficial bacteria colony that may be enough for 1 fish right off the bat or at least get you partly cycled (which is better than starting from scratch if you want to put a fish in immediately). Take this old media and put it in the new filter's media holder.. if it cannot fit in any way wrap it around the intake of the filter with thread or rubber band, this will allow the media to get the flow it needs (the unsightly attach it intake method should only be for several weeks-2 months at the very most). Test water with liquid test kits with fish in and be ready to follow steps in next section (frequent water changes and use of Prime) if after 24 hours you see ANY ammonia or nitrite readings.

*If you do not have a cycled tank but do have a filter* I STRONGLY recommend getting a bottle of Seachem Prime. You will have to go through a cycle if you put a fish in now and the ammonia and nitrite build up can harm it as the tank cycles. Seachem Prime is a dechlorinator and also in up to 5x doses safely binds ammonia and nitrite for about 48 hours in a way that allows plants and beneficial bacteria to consume it, but it won't hurt the fish in this bound state (without it you fish can get ammonia burns and have many many other complications from rising ammonia and nitrite through the cycling process). Do a daily or every-other-day water change and re-dose. Don't slack off on this! Test your water every few days-once a week. You tank (with fish living in it) is cycled when the ammonia and nitrite read 0, at this time you don't need to do 5x dosing of prime, and can do a 1-2x a week water change instead of every 1-2 days. Test your water before a water change, not after.

*If you do not have a filter,* I strongly recommend getting one, you do not have enough plants or fast enough growing ones to rely on them to consume ammonia immediately and keep the water clean. You would have to do daily large water changes, and I'd still recommended dosing prime, but doing this daily will add up in $ quickly which is why you should get and cycle a filter.

*Heater:* even if you keep your house warm its a good idea to get the tank a heater to keep a consistent temp for the fish, having the temperature fluctuate can cause stress which leads to other (health) issues.

*
If you want to wait and do a fish-less cycle* before putting a fish in I'd recommend looking at [this site] its very helpful and informative, gives a few methods for non fish cycling. I use pure ammonia (janitor strength ammonia from ace hardware) and the site includes a converter and calculator to dose ammonia properly (you can over feed and kill your bacteria with too much ammonia, just like you can with fish and their food).

Hope that wasn't too long and boring of a read for you, just wanted to give some info ^^


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## SunnyCydUp (Aug 31, 2014)

I'd go ahead and pick up the betta (so that nobody else does), but add more plants to the tank before introducing him. He'll be ok in his cup short-term; be sure to do daily water changes.


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## AJTapper (Aug 14, 2014)

Aqua Aurora said:


> Is your 'mossball' marimo? They sink on their own and a light fluffy green blob. Some stores sell fake marimo (real ones are the same fluff all the way to the core, fakes are usually grow on some sort of armature/structure in the core. Real ones are rearly perfectly round and can easily be reshaped by rolling them around between your palms. Fakes won't change shape because they have a man made core.
> *fakes:*
> 
> 
> ...


I got all my plants from my LFS, the moss ball is definitely the real one as you described and I have it tied with fishing line to the driftwood. I'm going to order some more plants from people on here, I especially want the frogbit.  

I ended up getting a friend today because I just couldn't resist. I do have Seachem Prime and a filter. I will do all the water changes and Prime if I find that I have readings of nitrate and nitrate. It is a 10 gallon tank though, so I'm hoping that since I only have one fish in there it won't drastically change anything. I checked all the levels today and will do so again tomorrow. (I do have a liquid test kit, as I have read that the paper strips aren't reliable.) 

If there's any other advice that you may have, I'm super appreciative of anything you could offer.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

Just to clarify Prime does not effect nitrate/bind it, only ammonia and nitrite. The only way to get rid of nitrate is with a large amount of fast growing plants and/or water changes. With the larger tank you will probably still get some readings but the larger volume of water will make the ammonia and nitrite levels during cycling smaller than they'd be in say a 2.5g. More water means more dilution ^^
I'm not terribly knowledgeable about LED lights but thr 6500k is very good spectrum for plant growing. Did you buy a specific led brand like USA Sat Planted + Or one of the Finnex brand LEDs?

[Here's a thread about lighting], the first post has a few diagrams about different lights and how intense they are from distance between like and substrate, maybe give it a read over, you can find if you have truely "medium" lighting or even closer to "high" (if so I''d raise the lights unless you want to get into CO2.. "high light always means algae unless you use a co2 system)

quoted from thread:
"Low light - 15-30 micromols of PAR - CO2 is not needed, but is helpful to the plants
Medium light - 35-50 micromols of PAR - CO2 may be needed to avoid too many nuisance algae problems
High light - more than 50 micromols of PAR - pressurized CO2 is essential to avoid major algae problems"








"
thats most applicable to you but the whole first post is a good read.

Knowing what light intensity you have lets you better understated what plants you can successful grow.

I'd like to warn you about keeping marimo in anything more than "low" light: it is prone to getting other algeas growing on it since its such a slow grower, but because marimo is an algae, you cannot use any of the algae killing methods or you risk loosing the marimo too. This means you cannot use: Seachem Excel, bleach or peroxide dips, or any other algae-cide. If marimo gets algaes on it you have to manually remove them. I'd recommend shading the marimo under other taller plants or moving its position on the driftwood to be shaded to help reduce the chance of invasive algaes growing on it.

If you get stem plants, they are often sold in bunches/bundles tied together with non lead plant weights or rubber bands most commonly.Remove these and plant each stem individually with a little bit of space between the base of each stem to allow light to get down to the lower leaves. If you plant too close together or leave them bundled the bottoms can choke from being constricted and rot stem and leaf, or if planted too close together the bottom most leaves will melt off (sometimes older leaves will also melt form adapting to new water conditions).

If you're willing to use aquarium safe root tabs buried in your substrate(I'm talking stuffing it down tot eh very bottom with 1 root tab per 3 square inch area of root feeding plants) you can look into the many varieties of val aka Vallisneria. For a 10g I'd recommended corkscrew val or Italian val, the others get too big for that size tank. Its a fast growing grass like plant that like your lawn grass can be cut with sharp scissors, it will continue to grow. Another fast growing root feeder are the many varieties of sword plants. Amazon sword is the most common but it would eventually get too big for your tank, but there are plenty of others too check out. A few brands sell aquatic root tabs including api and seachem if I recall correctly, you can also buy cheap osmocote + root tabs capsules from ebay and sometimes forum members (not sure if on this forum, but the forum linked above has a sale section that members sell them + plants in)

On the subject of photo period (duration of lights on) be careful not to leave them on too long or you run the risk of algae! Exact timing varies depending on lights used, height from substrate, and plants you're growing, but a common total photo period usually ranges between 6 and 9 hours, sometimes 10. Since I'm not in the main area of the house my planted tanks reside in all day long I actually have a lights off period during the day so lights go on for about 4 hours, off 3hours, then back on another 2.5-3 hours. Some people say breaking up the photo period like this helps prevent algae but there's no hard evidence/tests proving it yet (that I've seen). So if you are going to be away from your betta say for school/work/chores whatever you can get a nice cheap light timer (home depo has them for i think 4$, make sure you get the right type for your light (they have both 2 and 3 pronged outlets) i use the mechanical but there are also digital ones) and set it up you have lights on when you're there, and off when you're out, keeping it from being too long of a photo period or an "opps forgot to turn off the light for 24 hours and have an algae bloom x.x"


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## AJTapper (Aug 14, 2014)

I'm ordering some floaters online so as to have faster growing plants! I hope to get them really soon so as to avoid anything bad happening to my new fish! (Just in the last few hours his color has vastly improved and he seems so much happier in his tank. He loves coming to the front of the tank to say hello as well.  ) 

I have a Satellite Freshwater Current light, it has a remote that allows for less light/less intense light (I had blue lights on for awhile that are supposed to imitate moonlight...) which is really nice, and currently have it on a purple/white light so that it isn't too intense. Because of the tannins in the water right now, I'm not super worried about too much light for my plants. 

I also had to create a filter baffle for my filter because it was too strong for my little guy. 

To try and erase some confusion, here is the tank right now, it very clearly needs a lot more greenery, it's coming as fast as I can get it, but my LFS has EXPENSIVE plants, so ordering off of here is the only real way I can afford to plant my tank more.  

This is my boy in his cup, very dark as you can see:








This is my boy now (yet to have a good name for him):








This is the overall tank:


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## Crateria (Sep 11, 2014)

AJTapper said:


> I'm ordering some floaters online so as to have faster growing plants! I hope to get them really soon so as to avoid anything bad happening to my new fish! (Just in the last few hours his color has vastly improved and he seems so much happier in his tank. He loves coming to the front of the tank to say hello as well.  )
> 
> I have a Satellite Freshwater Current light, it has a remote that allows for less light/less intense light (I had blue lights on for awhile that are supposed to imitate moonlight...) which is really nice, and currently have it on a purple/white light so that it isn't too intense. Because of the tannins in the water right now, I'm not super worried about too much light for my plants.
> 
> ...


Lookin' a bit cloudy there. You sure you don't want to cycle your tank for a while before introducing your new friend?


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## AJTapper (Aug 14, 2014)

Most of the cloudiness has gone away with water changes, and a lot of it is also the tannins from the driftwood I have in there.


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