You know, I wondered how they kept those alive in those plastic cylinders. I assumed it was the magic gel packed around the roots. There's a sucker born every minute, huh?

I found an excellent fish store over the weekend, I think I'm going to start shopping there instead of Petsmart. Not as convenient, since Petsmart is within walking distance of home, but likely to be much more helpful (and trustworthy).

Am I making this harder by trying to do plants AND a new tank at the same time? Should I focus on stabilizing the tank first, then move into plants? I HATE plastic plants. This is my first tank in 20 years, and I vowed to use live plants.

Not at all. Continue with the live plants and dump the plastic ones.

Well, I did the same thing you are, and had some bad results.

I started a 55g planted aquarium back in December. The tank had nothing but water, substrate, and normal equipment (no CO2) for the first few weeks. Then I moved a couple sword plants and 2 young plecos from another tank. A few weeks later, I ordered and planted a "plant package" from an online retailer. Another week went by and I added 6 diamond tetras. All of my tests were showing 0 on ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates throughout this period.

Then came the long-hair algae. So I completely removed those plants and left the DIY CO2, 2wpg lighting, and long photoperiod - BIG mistake. Within 2 weeks, I had the darkest micro algae bloom you've ever seen! This lasted for about 6 weeks, and after going through 2 micron cartridges, a box of Algone, and adding nitrate media to the Fluval, the water is crystal clear and tests are showing 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5ppm nitrates.

Now, keep in mind that the cycling method I used is supposedly a "silent cycle" using plants to take in the nitrogen compounds. Only now do I realize that the plants were soaking up the ammonia, leaving nothing for the nitrosonomas to feed on and only the nitrobacters were producing nitrates, which plants do not absorb very easily. So my theory of a silent cycle using plants is bunk, unless you want to deal with algae for 2 months.

My suggestion is to start with a few stem plants (wisteria, ludwigia, etc), but keep the plant load and photoperiod low (or just use <= 1wpg lighting). Start stocking with your selected fish until the nitrogen cycle is complete and you start seeing nitrates near 10-20ppm. Then start considering your plants.

If you want el naturale, you may need to stick to "easy to grow" plants, if your bioload is low. When you start seeing algae, you either do not have enough nutrients (N compounds or CO2) or too much light. Too much light >1-2wpg or long photoperiods will require some CO2.

I'm no expert, but I do have 1 tank that did the same thing as yours, only after I removed CO2, and another that started out much like yours. Luckily, I've only lost 1 fish during this cycle.

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Aquaholic since 9/2009, and I don't plan on going to AA!

Please take my last post as a lesson learned: do not change too many variables at the same time.

tracy: I'm still thinking pH shift would be the cause of the sudden deaths. Try testing pH multiple times one day (as time permits, of course). See if anything pops up there.

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Aquaholic since 9/2009, and I don't plan on going to AA!

The problem with the silica that I've read about isn't when it touches your skin, rather, its when it gets into your lungs via respiration. Hence a big difference there when concern is soaked sand or dry sand that you can inhale.

Just one more thing. The acclimation method I've used, per my LFS, is this:

• Dim the room lights and turn off the aquarium lights before floating the bag.
• After 15 minutes of floating, pour 1 cup of tank water in the bag (room lights can also be raised. (Place a little food in the bag during acclimation.)
• Pour another cup of water into the bag every 5-10 minutes until the bag is 3/4 full.
• Net fish into aquarium, discard water in bag.
• Turn aquarium lights back on.

Using this method I have not lost a fish within 2 months, well past their 14-day guarantee.

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Aquaholic since 9/2009, and I don't plan on going to AA!

Anyway I see what you mean though about if we can swim in it why cant fish...
Must have been contaminated.

That's pretty much what I do, with the exception of the lights, I don't turn off the lights. To my knowledge, I've never killed (now, or even years back) due to improper acclimation.

Thanks for the advice, on this and on the plants/CO2. For now, I'm going to just stay the course. I'll watch these plants that I have, looking for signs that they're dying. I'll probably pick up two more fish on Friday, couple of cory's or loaches, something for the bottom.

I believe I have a positive test for nitrates!

Sounds and looks like things are getting better.

But...I know..there's always a but isn't there....I would definately go ahead and pull the ribbon plant (green and white stripes) out of the tank. It will make a nice potted plant though.

Looks to me that your nitrate level is somewhat safe (for now) and a good sign of bacterial colonization. Just stay on top of your water changes!

__________________
Aquaholic since 9/2009, and I don't plan on going to AA!

I pulled all of those Petsmart plants out of the tank today, replaced them with plants from a real fish store. Two clumps of baby tears, two clumps of dwarf hairgrass, a single rose sword, and 10 "red" something-or-other (lost the tag). I like this SO much better.

I also added some new residents - a golden dojo loach, and a school of 5 neon tetras. It was so hard to not buy more!!!

Photos in the photo gallery...

I came accross this searching the net for dwarf baby tears. I would like to know how your baby tears (HC) are doing? They are green and spreading? Are they still there?

Now for my two cents:

I think this was just a case of over control. 3 day water changes for an extended period of time could be unhealthy if you are unsure of your water quality and depending on technique of the change. Here are a number of things I think it could have been.

• Your tank was just slow cycling.
• Your pH was so high ammonia NH3-N toxicity was a killer
• Your tank temp was maybe too high adding to ammonia toxicity.
• Possibly something added to the tank to give you poor ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate readings? Did you use anything besides water and dechlorinator on the water at any time?
• Your test kit didn't work properly (that you never really got nitrite readings is confusing to me)
• Doing too many water changes too fast with improper temp or closely matching pH, KH, co2, Cloramine or Cl .....
• Playground Sand had contaminate in it. Like anti-sick chems or some other who knows what. I'm assuming this was brand new sand? You can even bleach it first before washing it multiple times.
• Very unlikely, but the sand contained some kind of reactive buffer that changed your pH every time you did a water change

That you got hair algae makes me think you were over feeding a bit. Did you feed them a lot every day during cycle? Your food may have contained a bit of phosphates and since your bio wasn't established you might have had a phos spike causing hair algae and some blue green algae. A simple water change, less feeding, less light TIME and more nitrates would have cleared hair and blue green without chems over a short period of time. If it was real bad then a tank blackout may have been considered.

Anyway hope it's going well and your fish are happy. Most important you are happy with your fishies.

Funny you should ask. All of the plants are thriving, except the baby tears. Initially, I planted them in clumps, tearing pieces off of the mass that I purchased. My dojo loach kept digging them up, preventing them from taking root. Some of the clumps "melted", turning brown and wilting to nothing. After fighting that battle for three weeks, I further broke down the clumps, almost down to the bare roots, These I planted fairly deep in the sand. They're no longer getting dug up, but I think my lighting is insufficient. Only the baby tears that are directly below the light are growing, those farther away, in the corners and along the edges of the tank, aren't doing well at all.

Baby Tears require high light to really grow.

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55gallon
Light - 6500K CFL, 23wattsx5 5hr/day
Substrate - Red Mexican Clay, Sphagnum Peat moss, Eco-Complete
Misc- Pressurized CO2, EI Dose KNO3, KH2PO4, CSM-B
Plants -Limnophila Aromatica, Stargrass, Dwarf Hair Grass, Christmas Moss, Baby Tears (HM), Dwarf Baby Tears(HC), Rotala Rotundifolia, Ludwigia Glandulosa, Riccia Fluitans

That is some good info, thanks guys. I have my baby tears in a 20 long also, but with two 36 watt Coralife. Seems like enough light. they are starting to spread, but very slowly. These don't normally grow like rockets shoot? I'm injecting Co2 with a pH of about 6.6 - 6.7 and KH of about 2 - 3.5 dKH.