My new 4Ft tank

Hey all

Oh yes, I know I suffer from MTS ( this is tank 19)
I am currently busy cleaning the tank, respraying the stand etc, as I bought it from a not so keen aquarist that neglected the tank a bit.

I am planning to make this my community tank, with some low tech , low light plants, Java moss, Java Fern, Amazon swords, those kind of things.
I already soaked my PFP in Chemicult to use at the bottom of the tank, bought enough filter sand to cover it, about 3cm will go on top of the PFP, followed by all the gravel I currently have in my year old 3ft community tank?
The lights I bought is normal T8, two daylight and pink. All of them is 30W each. Will this be enough light for the mentioned plants?

I also have a Eheim 300W heater, and a Dophin C1300 with a flowrate of 1000liter / hour.

If I transfer all my current gravel and water from my year old community tank ( 3ft), and fill it up with fresh treated water (Seachem Prime and heated to 25 degrees). Will the bacteria be enough to keep my fish happy in the bigger tank?

Your input is always appreciated

I will use the

 

to be safe i will still do bigger water changes for 2 weeks. but thats me

 

thanks @Ryno Currently I do 25% WC every week on my 3ft tank, do you think bigger than that might be required?

 

Use the old filter in the new tank also? how many fish you planning to add at once? just watch your amonia levels it would be fine then.

 

to be completely safe also add microbelift for your filter bacteria.

 

@Ryno - this is Bloem, hahaha nobody here stock Microbelift. I normally order Seachem from CT. I do have Seachem Stability that I will use

 

haha i live in potch also no microbelift must get it from JHB or PTA only seachem you get here is excel and paraguard. but that will work fine also.

 

microbelift is very rare to find.
only a few shops stocks them.
as for mail order?
or just get stability
ether way both works?

 

thanks @Ryno and @BBQ - I will use Stability- fortunately I still have a 500ml at home

 

@len.weideman - Hi Len. I pretty much did the same thing with my 100l tank. I took my 30l's water, stuck it in the new 100l and topped up. It was a "60%" water change. I took all the corner filter, submersable filters, gravel etc and placed them in the new tank. I added Nutrafin Cycle, Aqua Safe and Tetra Nitrate Minus as per the bottle instructions. All went well and the only fish I've lost are 3 panda cory's but I think they were "damaged" when I got them.

 

@MarcHawke - Thanks for sharing. I hope everything goes according to plan.
I will afterwards set up the 100liter from scratch a leave it running without fish for a few weeks to cycle it again. And so the madness continues

 

@len.weideman - Now when you say community tank, do you mean a tank large enough to hold your guppy community :bigsmile:. At the rate mine are going I'm going to need a new tank real soon.

 

@MarcHawke --- LOL, well, there will be 3 corys, 2 ancistrus and about 60 male guppies! Hahahahaha. I am trying a nice planted tank, but don't know much about the subject at all. So I will go community tank with some plants

 

@len.weideman - That "community" looks like the racial demographics of this country :laugh:. I hope you have fun with the planted tank. I don't think I can go back to plain tanks, although I'm still new at planted so haven't started fighting dying plants and growing algae etc...

 

We want pics !!!

 

LOL @MarcHawke
@Rickus - Pics will follow shortly. I took off the background the previous owner stuck to the back of the tank, tried to clean the watermarks, vinegar don't get it off. So I tried pH down, even let it sit for 15minutes with pH down, and the marks is still sitting there. So I guess I will have to settle for a background on the back of the tank.
I will take pics as soon as I have the system up and running, tomorrow night of perhaps Wednesday

 

@len.weideman,

That tank wil be perfect for flourite or aquasoil as substrate.

 

@gdt78- The problem is two-fold. Bloem don't have any place that sell it, and it is expensive, and try to add courier costs to that as well!

 

Yeah also would love aquasoil but maybe if it was half the price. Not fond of anything you have to cap witf gravel.

 

len,het jy al daai water merke af gekry?probeer spirits,dit is al waarmee ek my tanks skoon kry en skoon hou!