stillwtrs

Thanks very much for the tips guys. I am not rushing so all these suggestions are really helping with what I am able to look up and read online. For the cycling, at this point I have just treated the water and run it a few days to remove chlorine etc before adding a (kind of expensive) substrate that was recommended for tanks with plants. I've also boiled, baked and tested the rock I added to ensure it won't react with the water and change the ph in any way. I plan to keep monitoring the ammonia, ph and nitrate levels and will add the plants soon to allow the tank to cycle fully through the ammonia spike I can expect before adding fish. As I said, I'm having fun planning and starting but I'm not rushing so will add the fish only once I'm sure everything is set and stable. A few weeks...a month..no hurry.

Werner, thanks! Some very helpful info there and points I hadn't considered. I used a bricklayer's hammer and broke up the one rock so that it was 1/2 size and fit nicely against one side of the tank, also broke a slice off the bottom and used that to prop against the other wall in front of the pump intake. The other large rock I've put in the garden. The tank is beginning to take on the look I'm after. Soon as I get a day free I'll take a walk along the river with my camera while keeping an eye out for a suitable bit of driftwood. Then... plants! This is fun.. (like you folks didn't know that...)

First off, I'm setting up a 20 gallon aquarium, my first. I've got the water and substrate in and it is cycling. I had two rocks that looked to be about right for the aquarium but of course when I put them in they looked huge and overwhelmed the space... Silly of me not to realize the water would magnify their size... so back to the drawing board. Is there a rough guide/percentage you use to choose the proper size? I'm guessing something about 1/3 the size of these... Second.. I want to use live plants and I've been reading up on them but frankly find the descriptions of sizes confusing. I'd like a low growing ground cover in the open front areas. I've seen aquariums with a low grass like plant that looks ok and others with a sort of green almost carpetlike moss that I really like the look of. For the rear I'm thinking of taller plants to hide the various pipes etc and to add depth to the look while providing cover for the fish. Any plants in particular that are easy to start with and would meet these ideas? Third, I'm planning to start out with White Cloud Minnows. I know.. feeders, but I really like the look of them. What I want is a school of small fish in the tank with lots of room to swim. I was thinking of also putting in some type of small shrimp to clean up the bottom. Will this work or would I need a loach of some sort? or snails? I'd like to avoid having a large bottom feeder or large snails spoiling the scale look of the small white clouds. If this makes sense... Anyhow, any suggestions/ideas are much appreciated. Thanks

Hi, I've been surfing this forum for a week or so trying to ingest all the info I can. Great site! Lots of reading here for a newbie like myself. I'm starting out with my first tank which I got from my son who had it in his basement gathering dust. It's a 22 gal, came with a Fluval 140 system and aerator pump plus a bunch of decorative rocks and white gravel which I promptly packed away as I want to try for a natural look. Anyhow..thanks for the site and all the informative posts. I've got the water in and cycling now while I read up on plants, fish, balances, tests, etc etc etc. It really is overwhelming...but fun!