Setting Up Our Planted Community Tank

Current setup after 6 weeks
Equipment :
Ecocomplete and aquarium sand substrate
Fluval fx6 filter
Finnex planted+ 24/7 light
Boxtech aquarium heater

Plants:
Crypts
Anubias
Amazon swords
Moss balls
Whatever looked healthy at the lfs

Fish
7 neon tetras
5 ember tetras
1angelfish
6 gold dust mollies



We set up a 75 gallon tank about 6 weeks ago. It has eco complete and aquarium sand in the substrate.

Then I bought some plants, rocks and wood from the lfs tanks to seed some bacteria and help with our cycle. They also did a couple of filter squeezes for us that first week. We added fish food to give the bacteria something to eat

We then added some 1, 2, grow plants.

After a week of checking the parameters, they never really changed much. We've had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5 nitrate since that first week. After 2 weeks with the same parameters, we decided the tank was cycled enough and added 6 mollies. They've done great with no deaths and the water still tested fine.

So a week later we added 7 neon tetras. Again fine and parameter still testing the same.

So a week later we added the 5 ember tetras(goal was 6, but I got impatient after 10 minutes of watching the employee try to wrangle that last one. All water parameters still testing the same.

So 2 days ago we added the angelfish. So far so good.

When do you start worrying though that your test kit is defective? We have the API freshwater test kit and check a few times a week and it's never shown ammonia or nitrite. I guess the water is fine since the fish haven't died and spend all their time foraging around the plants.

Also, we're trying to figure out how many more fish we could add. We have 5 cherry shrimp and a bristlenose pleco on order at the lfs and I thought that was enough fish, but my husband also wants a few dojo loaches and some snails. Would that overstock us?

Any advise on adding co2 to a planted tank? We have the aquarium regulator, diffuser, tubing, and a drop checker, but haven't picked up a tank yet. Do you try to put the diffuser close to the plants?

 

The cherries may get eaten by the angelfish

 

You could probably safely double your neon school and triple your ember school... better stocking pros will chime in for more options but those fish will look great in a bigger school.. tank looks excellent!!

 

The cherries may get eaten by the angelfish

I had heard this and the angelfish was sort of an impulse, but he's settled in nicely. I wonder if the shrimp and tetras might be in danger as the angelfish grows.

The husband really wants shrimp though and likes the tetras, so I wonder if a shrimp tank would be better or returning the angelfish and not doing any more impulsive fish decisions lol.

Do you think a betta could be kept with the 5 cherry shrimp in a 10 gallon planted tank?

 

You could probably safely double your neon school and triple your ember school... better stocking pros will chime in for more options but those fish will look great in a bigger school.. tank looks excellent!!

Haha. I didn't even want the tetras, but we have a 4 month old baby and took him to the fish store and he just seemed fascinated by the tetra tank. They definitely have the neons at the lfs, but I got all the embers they could catch, they are fast little guys. I'll see if they are getting any more embers in. The neons and embers are fun to watch.

 

I agree with what everyone else says about upping the tetra schools. I went from 6 rummynose tetras to 12 and the difference was amazing! In a tank as big as yours you could have some really nice big schools and itd look great

 

So the lfs sold us 5 ember tetras and one looked completely different from the other 4. We've been trying to figure out what it is and finally Google got us the answer, he's a very bright orange and black colored endler's livebearer.

Do endlers need to be kept in a group? I didn't see any other endler at the store, but I think the ember tetra were bought from a store customer, so maybe the endler came along for the ride.

 

Beautiful Tank!!!!!!!

 

So the lfs sold us 5 ember tetras and one looked completely different from the other 4. We've been trying to figure out what it is and finally Google got us the answer, he's a very bright orange and black colored endler's livebearer.

Do endlers need to be kept in a group? I didn't see any other endler at the store, but I think the ember tetra were bought from a store customer, so maybe the endler came along for the ride.

they don't need a group they’re basically just guppies. They’re probably more secure with more of their own kind like most fish but its not necessary. The only thing would be to make sure it doesn't get eaten depending how small it is compared to the other fish

 

So we left my sister and her husband houaesitrI g while we were on vacation. Somefhing happen to reduce our water flow, so the water was pretty stagnant when we returned. My husband said something disconnected, but I was distracted by work and baby and didn't pay much attention.




I hope we can have a less prone to failure setup next time we go out of town. We also forgot to tell them about dosing the water with the plant nutrients, so we had some melt. We were gone a week and did a water change before we left and as soon as we returned even though our water was testing as fine, no ammonia or nitrates and only 5ppm of nitrate. Unfortunately, the angelfish passed while we were gone, so did one of the mollies.

Otoh, we came back to lots of baby mollies, a couple of tiny ember tetras, and 2 black guppies. The black guppies are an inch long, so they must have been smuggled in when we bought some ember teteas from petco. I reckon that's where the little embers came from too. They were kept with the black guppies, so that's all I can think for where they came from.

It's weird that we don't incorporate petco water into our tank, we pour the bag through the net into a bucket and immediately dip the net into our tank to release the fish. We also came back to lots of snails and those might have come from petco too. Here's where most of the babies are hanging out.




Today, we picked up a albino bristlenose pleco from the lfs and three gold dojo loaches from petco. With those, I think we are stocked up for now with no plans to add anything more.

Here's the pleco



And 2 of the dojos hanging out under a rock beside the glass. The third is on the other side of the rock



Another view