Help Planning And Cycling My New Tank...roma 125

Thanks Emmet, but not really too keen on the look of cory's, trying to come up with a nice alternative ;)
Went to my LFS today to look at plants and spoke to them about what I wanted and came away with five bunches of I have no idea what!! I think one of them is twisted vallis? My sand is about an inch and a half deep, is that enough?
Also got a nice piece of bogwood which is now soaking in a bucket of boiling water ;)
In another bucket I got some medium size rocks/pebbles. They have passed the vinegar test, I take it they would fizz immediately if not suitable? And therefore no effect on the ph?

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So can anyone ID these?
Thanks all!
 
yeah the one in the bottom picture on the right looks like vallisneria spiralis.

vallis spirilis

i'm not to sure about the vineger test, I did it on a rock and it had no effect but the rock still brought up the pH and most likely altered the hardness.
 
I think the plant on the left (with white markings) is not really an aquatic plant, although the pet shops do sell them as such...I think it will die after a while...might be a semi-aquatic that needs the leaves out of the water...

The one on the far right looks like a not so well normal vallis to. All 3 from middle to right have quite big leaves, so are not your standard vallis, not sure it's spiralis 'tiger' in the middle either, the leaves look too broad, maybe the 2 on the right are both Vallisneria Americana (Gigantea)?

Once you're ready to plant you'll want to get the plants out of that foam and possibly even split them up a little, you'll get more for your money and the plants have a better chance to grow well...with the foam on the roots will have a harder time and the plant can't spread out so easily.

If you want to see a plant catalog, try going here: http://www.plantgeek.../plantguide.php

Hope that helps
 
Yeah I just dumped them in the tank with the foam on after work ;)
As far as planting them goes, the sand is maybe an inch and a half deep, is that ok?
 
Perfect.

If you do decide to fishless cycle, expect the plants to suffer..!

my tanks just got sand in and thats all at the mo
 
Due to my daughters 35 litre tank cycling with five platies, I'm going to move two of them to mine by the weekend, if not before. Hopefully the decreased bioload in hers will bring the cycle to a close. Plus its four males with one female, the poor wee thing! Two platies with 125 litres of water to play in plus plants means not too high levels hopefully. I'm looking forward to stocking slowly and planning it out.
Whats the plan for yours Simon? Decided on stock yet?
Thats a good plant site you linked me to kaivalagi :thanks:
 
Bolivian rams
tetras (rummy nose/cardinal/black phantom ...not sure yet which)
Kulhi loaches
red macro claw shrimp or blue pearl and amano shrimp
probably something else but not sure. might just leave that space open for any future fish
 
Due to my daughters 35 litre tank cycling with five platies, I'm going to move two of them to mine by the weekend, if not before. Hopefully the decreased bioload in hers will bring the cycle to a close. Plus its four males with one female, the poor wee thing! Two platies with 125 litres of water to play in plus plants means not too high levels hopefully. I'm looking forward to stocking slowly and planning it out.
Whats the plan for yours Simon? Decided on stock yet?
Thats a good plant site you linked me to kaivalagi :thanks:


How long has the 35L tank been running for? I only ask because you may be able to "steal" some mature media from there and use it to kick start your new tank....I setup my Roma 125 with old media at the weekend, it is now fine and has 9 fish in it :) Although the tank the media came from has considerably more load so the media had a good head start if that makes sense.


 
Yes, it seems to be a good general rule that any plants with "variegated" white and green leaves are not underwater (do not grow fully submerged) plants.

And the full story (I think) is actually not quite the simple one of straightforward greed that you might think. It turns out that there are actually relatively few freshwater aquatic plants that live their natural lives fully submerged year-round. Its much, much more common that they live in wildly varying situations of flood and drought, often marsh/bog like conditions. A significant factor in the adaptations of plants is that they can get lots more CO2 when leaves are emergent above the surface.

So.. many, if not all, aquatic plants raised for sale are grown emergent. I believe, given middle men in the business chain, this adds to the possibilities for non-aquatic plants working their way in to LFS sales. Doesn't really excuse it, just makes for a more complete picture when thinking about it I believe. (Not sure, but I think the Tropica website might sometimes have pictures of some of their plant growing processes...)

Anyway, most of us have learned to avoid variagated plants.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Thanks Waterdrop, will steer clear of variagated plants in the future.

I have thought about taking a squeeze from my daughters media, but the tank has only been set up for 25 days and getting daily readings of 0.50 ppm ammonia, with both nitrites and nitrates always 0 ppm. But I would rather just leave as much bacteria as there is in hers, rather than suffer some kind of set back. I'm really hoping the decreased bioload of two fish removed will help get the cycle finished, or at least keep the ammonia down.

I added my stones and a couple of pieces of slate tonight to make caves and planted the plants. I still have my bogwood to go in which I'm now thinking might be too big, but will find out soon enough I guess!

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I'm not too sure about the layout tbh, what do you guys think?
 
0.5 is very high, make sure you're keeping up those water changes. Daily isn't it?

needs moss and wood :nod: check out the planted tanks section for info on websites for plants...do a little research and you'll get some easy to grow, fast growing plants such as amazon swords. :good:
 
Yes, I've been doing about 60% daily.
Will do some more research on the plants, want to get it nice and green in there! :)
 
Watch the variagated ones closely and when they start to get a little brown on the edges you could consider replanting them to a window pot or to an outdoor garden. WD
 
Watch the variagated ones closely and when they start to get a little brown on the edges you could consider replanting them to a window pot or to an outdoor garden. WD

If they start decomposing they'll release ammonia wont they?
 
Yes, plants present a "cross-over" factor to the water chemistry. When they are new and just "alive" they are fairly neutral. If they get the right nutrition and light and "take off" in a healthy manner then they can begin to absorb ammonia and nitrate to some extent and be a factor in lowering those values (if you have fish in, this is a positive thing, if you are fishless cycling it can possibly cause some confusion.) But if they are unhealthy for any reason then their tissues can begin to decompose and they will add significantly to the bioload in the aquarium. Plants are definately one of the "wild cards" in our fishless cycing processes we watch here.

~~waterdrop~~
 

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