Right now I'm in the middle of doing my first deep cleaning my lil 1.5 gal tank, waiting for some plants I ordered to arrive. Here's some things I've noticed so far:

1. It's good to start cleaning your tank an hour before plants arrive. Less so 2 hours. A horrible idea is starting 3 hours early
2. You will become rather anxious waiting for the mail if you do #1, knowing that there's at least an hour to wait for the mail.
3. just because it's a little tank, does NOT mean it will make a little mess
4. In refrence to #2, the mess a tank makes is proportional to the area you have to clean afterwards
5. Figuring out that you can now vacuum the gravel is great. Literally picking up fine gravel with airline tubing, and getting it stuck halfway is not.
6. What lurks under a non-functional UGF is scary
7. When taking out your internal filter to clean it and rearrange, have water in the tupperware you're using to hold all the wet stuff so it doesn't dry out. This will be important later.
8. It's good to remove all fish from the so they don't have to deal with all the detrus floating around
9. Having to use a net on a betta will make you feel guilty
10. Put all containers with fish into the same tupperware as your filter
11. Guppies will jump out of their containers. Just because they can. Twice.
12. Shrimp jump too, but they prefer landing on the floor
13. Eventually you'll give up trying to keep the guppy in its container, and just let it swim around in the tupperware, after you remove everything else but the fish containers
14. Your cat will decide you are doing something that will involve food for them, and won't leave you alone while you work
15. Don't spend too much time arranging stuff in your tank when you know you have more stuff coming that you'll have to put in there somewhere
16. Make sure not to dislodge the anubias that has spend 2 months attaching to a rock while cleaning it, AFTER removing the rubber band that was holding it on
17. Also be sure not to be too rough on that dwarf lilly you've been growing for 10 months

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Smiled a little...



Started to giggle...




Now laughing a little louder...



Fully laughing out loud and possibly have tears running down face.... (don't worry, no one told me shrimp jump, and I had a few land on the floor too!)


You. Made. My. Day! (Lol, loooveeee yoooouuuu keeehhhhyyy!) Glad you got it all set up again and everyone's doing well! (Now, any list/tips on how to plant Dwar Sag' with no roots?) ;)

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

Oh that's quite easy, you need three arms that are about half the size of a regular arm, a tank big enough you can actually fit said arms into, and a large vocabulary of four letter words.

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

^ hahahaha! I'll bet! Ben makes it sound so easy! "Just cut the roots to 1 inch and plant them." Yeah, not so much! Especially if, during planting, the roots fall off!!! Hahahahah! Then they start to float up to the surface.... so you re-plant, and this up roots 3 other plants, which float to the surface... it's a vicious circle I tell you!

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

lol, could have many such list over the past months. Holly, you complaining?

I have got that covered

Some thoughts to add to the nano tank overhauling...

1. RCS breeding tanks have WAY more shrimp in them than you think they do.
2. Having gravel that is the same color as RCS makes things very fun.
3. Put a strainer in your sink for all the shrimp you miss.

That is all.

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Officially fishless until after the move....tune in later for details!

good post.

And oh so true.

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Not so much complaining as I am cursing your name, lol! (Your plant planting advice is driving me up the wall... but the cycling advice worked, so I guess I can't be too mad at you...) ;)

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981