I'm currently setting up a 55 tropical freshwater with a 10 gal underneath for future quarantine needs (and probably a crab or two). I'm looking for opinions and suggestions on different products and fish, as well as help with an obvious problem…
My end goal is a community tank of mostly smaller schooling fish. Corys are my favorite, but I like variety. I'd also like a couple that are easy to see at a distance, like angels or discuss, but I know from working in a pet store that you have to be careful even with "docile" fish. If something smaller fits in their mouth, they'll eat it.
My 55 and blue/white hood lights are from Petco (where I work, so I get a nice discount). I have a sicce shark pro submerged in it. I still need a bubbler, heater, thermometer, decor, and plants. I want do a mix of natural and fake plants in this tank, and I'm going for a natural theme.
For my 10, it's just Aqueon kit. I also want to do a natural theme, but probably with fake plants as I'm not sure how good the light is.
And now the problem… For substrate Im using pool filter sand. At under $20 per 50 lb, it was by far the cheapest. I rinsed in buckets in 25 pound batches, stirring occasionally until th pm after ran clear, or so I thought… But obviously I didn't rinse it to nlong enough. This pic was taken 18 hours after turning the filters on. The 10 actually looks clearer than the 55. Say what you want about cartridge filters, they seem to do a better at clearing sand particles…
Anyway, I'd love suggestions on decor, fish, crabs, chemicals, and how to go about clearing up my water. I'm not rushing to add fish. I would rather get my set up done correctly now than add them and realize I need to redo something big (like, idk, a whole water change in both tanks for being impatient with my substrate rinsing…)
Thanks in advance!
Posted by DastheDruid
7 Comments
A 100% water change will drastically reduce the particulate, unless you stir more up refilling it…
You spoke of a lot of things but it doesn’t sound like you have taken cycling the tank for ammonia into account?
I just got a 55 too!
Purigen is the shortcut for this imo
“Don’t talk to me or my son ever again!”
If it were me I would put some live plants in there (after 1. the water and 2. adding some beneficial bacteria). If you want to stick with your current substrate, you could do some Amazon swords, java fern (or any similar variety- I like lace fern a lot), and maybe some Anubias glued/tied to some driftwood or rock. Maybe some hornwort or anarcharis as well. Water wisteria is another one you could add a little later. It grows fast, so it’ll help absorb nitrates (faster growth=faster absorption). The only inert substrate I’ve used is gravel, so hopefully sand functions in a similar way. If you want to put slightly higher-tech plants in, I would suggest removing all the sand and replacing it with fluval stratum. If you like how the sand looks, you can add it on top of the stratum (called “capping”). Plants just help the whole tank to be more stable, and a nice natural environment for any animals you add in there.
I would just reset it and remove the sand because its terrible stuff to work with to make it not cloudy up the water. You would have to take out the sand put it in a 5 gal bucket, take a 1/4 of it at a time into another bucket and rinse it by overflowing the water in the bucket and stir it for a minute with it overflowing then stop and see if the water clears up within a couple of minutes. Because you have to rinse out all of the silia which sand is 60% comprised from. Its not impossible to use sand, but you have to purge the silica in the sand as it likes to stratify in the water column.
The cheapest substrate and what I use instead of sand is coal slag that is used for sand blasting. Which is cheap ($15/50lb bag), contains little to no silica, and the aluminum oxide that is normally contained in it prevents algae growth while being neutral in effecting water parameters.
Regardless of what substrates you use, always rinse it.
I would suggest a totally bare tank for quarantine tanks.