First try no more than 1" (about 1 pound of substrate per gallon of water for 1"). You can add more later if you find that you see the glass bottom too often. Just fill up that "blank" space. I had about 2" of play sand, and it was a bit too much, some spots got black due to denitrification of waste (not good).
75 gallon Firemouth species only Tank
- Thread starter FiremouthGem
- Start date
Removed a little bit of substrate and was going to do a few more scoops when i liked the way it looked so i filled the aquarium, got the canisters going and now just going start cycling, think i want to get a new light that ive had my eye on, would it be ok to add plants asap or should i wait till the tank is cycled more?
bumped the ammonia back up to 4.0 continue the cycling as the stickies say. Edit, it is about day 3 after I added Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria and a bottle of Dr. Tim's Ammonia.
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Just waiting for the last plant species to arrive, and the aquarium to finish cycling. Again massive thank you to everybody for your help and advice!!
Alright the benificial bacteria and the plants are sucking up ammonia like crazy 6-8 hours since i added ammonia to 4ppm its down to near nothing at .25ppm, nitrites are about .25ppm and nitrates are holding steady at 5ppm and ph is at 7.8. Big question once i order fish after a water change as the guide says should i order them all at once (swordtails and the firemouths) or should i do one species at a time?
