Restarting my aquarium

[Jbsteel87]

Recently lost all my fish so am trying to start over. I have a 32 gallon biocube. Am thinking about gravel over sand base with a large airstream in the center. Not sure on plants. I have had mixed results in the past. I feel it's harder to keep ph up with the plants, however they do pull nitrates from the water. What kind of plants do I want to look at? I had been keeping the lights on a 12 hour cycle.

 

[Rocky998]

Recently lost all my fish so am trying to start over. I have a 32 gallon biocube. Am thinking about gravel over sand base with a large airstream in the center. Not sure on plants. I have had mixed results in the past. I feel it's harder to keep ph up with the plants, however they do pull nitrates from the water. What kind of plants do I want to look at? I had been keeping the lights on a 12 hour cycle.

Well, Do you want to deal with roots in the substrate or roots out? Some plants can be tied to driftwood or rocks and then the roots will grab onto it.

 

[Rocky998]

Well, Do you want to deal with roots in the substrate or roots out? Some plants can be tied to driftwood or rocks and then the roots will grab onto it.

Or you can do both...

 

[OliveFish05]

Live plants are wonderful additions to a tank! I think if you do the sand and gravel, they will mix and look a bit funny. Plants do best in sand (plus then you can have corydoras!). What kind of lighting does the tank have? What kind of plants have you tried in the past? Dependingon your lighting, I would try amazon sword, anubias, ludwigia, cabomaba, java fern, vals, dwarf sags, java moss, water wisteria, water sprite, pennywort or some floating plants. Some great floating plants are duckweed (will likely get out of hand very quickly though), red root floaters, water lettuce, frogbit, or some water sprite or pennywort.

What do you plan to stock your tank with? Do you know what happened to the old inhabitants? It is usually recommended to wait a month after a fish death to add more fish, unless you know exactly what happened and were able to correct it. Do you know the GH (general hardness) of your water source?