It’s a 20 long. I have 10 white cloud minnows, a few celestial danios and three pygmy cories currently at summer camp in a bucket with a sponge filter. I am trying to decide if I should leave them there and replace a gallon a day or chuck them back in the tank and watch ammonia like a hawk. I have a RO filter so water changes are no problem but I just can’t decide which approach is best.
And yes, I know this could have all been prevented with better planning. Let’s just stipulate that that ship has sailed.
Heavily planted tanks are very forgiving. Give the plants a few days to suck up excess nutrients and the bacterial colony in the soil to recover a bit.
Do a quick test to make sure everything is okay and toss the fish in. 3-4 days tops…
That’s the energy I need! I reused all the fluval substrate for the cap and also about five gallons of original tank water, I did everything I could to drag over a lot of bugs. I’m hopeful that this balances my carbon economy, I’ve been fighting hair algae and I eliminated everything but low carbon and I don’t wanna go to CO2 injection because I’m so so lazy.
I would personally recommend picking up some amanos if you haven’t already.
I spent loads of effort balancing my aquarium and it did eventually help some, but then adding amanos really reduced new growth of hair algae. I think they eat it when it is just starting so that it can’t grow mature enough to become resistant/unpalatable to algae eaters.
I’m gonna enjoy sitting on the couch and looking down the long side once stuff grows in more.
I like to wait until I see copepods, rotifers, and detritus worms on the glass. That’s how you know the base of the ecosystem is established before predators arrive. It’ll look a little cloudy but the water parameters should be good. Add the fish, give it a week, then partial water change and glass scrub to get it looking clear.
On one aquarium, I had to collect and add a bit of local creek water to get it going. Probably not necessary if the sediment is healthy, but it might have been near sterilized depending on what the manufacturer does if you’re getting bagged sediment from a pet store.
Oh I just did the Walstad thing and picked the woody bits out of some organic potting soil so while I have no idea what bugs are there I’m sure it’s pretty far from sterile.
Still no ammonia so I YOLO’d the fish in. Now the problem is the total lack of alkalinity, so I threw in an eggshell and I’m gonna add some crushed coral to the substrate for long term. Fortunately pH is pretty stable.