Restarting Our 38g

Hello all, just sharing for the fun of it. If anyone has advice I'm always happy to listen but I'm not sure what I did wrong the first time to get the tank to complete its cycle.

After having the issues getting our tank to cycle we have started over and went in a slightly different direction. We have decided to replace the gravel with new substrate (Fluval Stratum) and change to live plants. We may have gotten some bad information from our LFS, we added a RhyzoMat and the LFS said we could add the fish back as soon as the water cleared. The instructions on the RhyzoMat recommended a 24/48 hour soak that we couldn't do. We lost the two Rainbow Sharks but the rest of the tenants seem to be doing well. We have a Molly but have decided to try going without salt and keep an eye on the fish as I have read a lot that the salt may not be needed. We are using Prime, Seed, API Quick Start and Fourish Excel on the tank. We have also moved the tank and have setup our Cascade 1000 with the spray bar across the back of the tank. The Cascade has been doing a great job.

The current tenant count is:
5 White Cloud Danio's
2 Cory Cat's
1 Molly
1 Pleco
5 Ghost Shrimp's

We are going to wait for the tank to cycle before adding anymore fish.

I have a little video of the new setup -

We are hoping to add a 75 gallon in the next month or so. We will be planting that one as well. I do need to choose lighting for the 38 (and 75 when we get it), I am looking at or a . Any advice on those will be appreciated!

 

I'm not very knowledgeable but why are you adding salt to what appears to be a fresh water tank?

 

I'm not very knowledgeable but why are you adding salt to what appears to be a fresh water tank?

Certain freshwater fish such as molly's can prefer slightly brackish water, at least that is my understanding.

 

Certain freshwater fish such as molly's can prefer slightly brackish water, at least that is my understanding.

Gotcha. Makes sense.

 

The restart is going well so far. We 4 days into the 8 day cycle with the aquavitra seed and have a bit of a bacterial bloom. Our ph is down a bit (around 6.4-6.6 from 7.8 but from what I understand the Fluval substrate and rhyzomat amongst other things in a planted tank can lower ph. The kh and gh are at 3 and 6 respectively and the ammonia is 0 ppm, nitrite is .25 ppm and the nitrate is at 5 ppm so far but the tank is still cycling.

I normally do a 10% weekly water change but am trying to decide if I should hold off until after the 8 day seed cycle is done.

On the plus side I my Finnex Planted+ 24/7 should be here tomorrow so that should be nice.