I am reading a lot on many forums and websites before setting up my planted tank.
It seems to be general practice to first add substrate and do the hard scape.
All clear here, no questions.
But what to do next?
There is a big variety of actions and I am not sure which one would be best for my tank.
Mine will be 110x80x42cm, 50% carpet planted with rock scape + 30% stem plants. Some of the stem plants I like to let emerge.
So when I have the substrate and rocks in (according to my layout) I would have the following options:
- start DSM for the lower plants (carpet). This would allow me to start with a little quantity of plants and to get the carpet more or less full before planting the rest and complete floading
- plant everything and fill up the tank to start the cycle.
- just fill up the tank, let it cycle with the ammonia that is being released by the soil, do some water changes and start planting after about 3 weeks (I read about this method at The Green Machine)
Is there any preference?
It seems to be general practice to first add substrate and do the hard scape.
All clear here, no questions.
But what to do next?
There is a big variety of actions and I am not sure which one would be best for my tank.
Mine will be 110x80x42cm, 50% carpet planted with rock scape + 30% stem plants. Some of the stem plants I like to let emerge.
So when I have the substrate and rocks in (according to my layout) I would have the following options:
- start DSM for the lower plants (carpet). This would allow me to start with a little quantity of plants and to get the carpet more or less full before planting the rest and complete floading
- plant everything and fill up the tank to start the cycle.
- just fill up the tank, let it cycle with the ammonia that is being released by the soil, do some water changes and start planting after about 3 weeks (I read about this method at The Green Machine)
Is there any preference?