Hiyas

Right, so I've located a replacement pump from a forum member (yay!), going to look at a light tonight and just have to get another heater (i'm going to run 2 smaller ones), then I'm ready to rock.

What I wanted to know is: Which fish need to go in first and do plants have to go in before everything else?

Shopping list consists of:

Cardinal & Neon Tetras

Zebra, Leopard and Gold Danios

Honey and Pearl Gouramis

Glass Catfish (which will probably be the last as I want to get the setup PERFECT first)

and finally a few Pleco's in various colours.

Anything else? lol. I quite like the mail guppies as well - they're super duper pretty, but we'll see.

Plant wise, I dont know yet - I'll have to go look at stuff and decide.

First things first - good substrate. give your plants a fighting chance

you can do any way you want..add fish frist or plants..you lest need a 40 to 50 ml of sand or gravel if going to be planted..

do your hard scape fisrt add water .add plants...wait a week with at lest three to six fish to cycle the tank..then add more fish or plants ...way you go...

remember to do a 20 to 30 % water change weekly..

as for fish placment with thos fish it does mater which way you add them..they not like ciclids..

Fishnoob

where are you based?

would suggest a three layer approach to your substrate if you are going to plant

some thing like daltons aquatic mix if you can find it...just crumble it across the bottom of teh tank, then about a 10-20 mm layer of sand, then alike depth of fine gravel, put your plants in...a mix of fast and slow growing plants then slowily fill your tank with water.

Let it run for a week then add a few fish each week.

HTH

Nav

I would also not cycle the tank with the tetras - they are not particularly hardy, start with the danios first.

What size is your tank?

Thanks for the replies!

I'm based in Rangiora and I have a 200L tank. Just got a light for it too 2nd hand off a mate, so that will do for a start til I can save up for a fancy pants one