New 75 gal planted tank questions

[promise]

Ok so the stand is built the tank is ready to be moved to the basement (wife doesnt want a large tank upstairs so it goes in my man cave)


i want to start a completely planted aquarium i have all the plants in a 20 gallon just waiting for the move and quarantining as i had some lovely little parasites come in with some java moss i purchased online. they are going through chunks of cucumber in 3 maybe four days.
anyway i digress, the question is do i have to cycle the tank before i put the plants in?? the list of plants has grown since my last post and is as follows

x3 Cryptocoryne Lingua
x9 Echinodorous Amazonicus
x3 Crypto Balansae
x12 bags of Javav Moss
x3 Crypt Wendtii
x1 Aponogetan Natans
x3 Anubius Lanceolota
x1 patch of Peacock Moss

those are the plants to go in, i have the java and peacock attached to some drift wood but will be taking it and attaching to larger pieces of drift wood once they have sun bleached some more to get rid of parasites and disease, they were treated, sanded, boiled.
the anubius is attached to a bag of stones and driftwood which will make the move across and the rest of the plants are planted in the gravel substrate

the Substrate i was told to go with i cant remember the name of but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as i have no idea as this is my first really big Project like this, and i dont wanna mess it up completely so anything else you guys can think of would be great

Thanks
Chris

[Michael Milligan]

You can plant it right away. You can seed your new tank with bacteria from your 20 gallon so that you don't have to cycle the tank. You can use any substrate: sand or gravel.

Fill the tank half-way. Add your substrate and plants. Wood if you have it. Then add the rest of the water. Add the fish too. There. You're off to the races.

[Michael Milligan]

Oh... what "parasites" are you tanking about?

[promise]

Oh... what "parasites" are you tanking about?


Not entirely sure they are little blacky/green specks that seem to go crazy for cucumber floating in the top of the tank

[Lady Hobbs]

If you boiled the wood, it should be clean of anything. Also, I noticed you said the cucumber was gone in about 4 days. You only want to leave it in the tank for 24 hours or less. It will fowl your water if left in too long.

What I do to kill plant parasites is soak them in 2 T of alum per gallon of water overnight. Kills snails and eggs and doesn't hurt plants in the least.

Yes, you can plant immediately.

[promise]

What I do to kill plant parasites is soak them in 2 T of alum per gallon of water overnight. Kills snails and eggs and doesn't hurt plants in the least.


What is Alum?

[promise]

these are the little spotty things that are in the tank

[Lady Hobbs]

What is that! Baby snails or bugs?

Alum is in the spice rack at all grocery stores. $3 for a tiny bottle of it so you may want to grab two of them, if you go that route. Kills bugs, too.

The dose recommended is 1 T. per gallon of water for 2-3 days OR 3 T. per gallon for 3 hours. I took the middle road and used 2 T. per gallon for 24 hours.

At the bottom of this article.
http://www.aquariumplants.com/Articles.asp?ID=111

Did you get those plants from the wild? I would get rid of those things, whatever they are.

[promise]

no i ordered it off line here in canada the moss came from nova scotia, i wouldnt pull from the wild i had a very very bad experience in the uk with that one.
the guy i bought it from is very reputable in NS but i seem to of been given a bad bunch.
also i have 2 clown loach in there is it safe to throw alum in with the little guys in there???

[FishGirl-Seattle]

Yuck - those things look gross! What are they?? I was considering buying plants on line and that cured me totally of the impulse! I would freak if that showed up up in one of my tanks!

Reading the previous posts, I saw where someone said seeding a tank was sufficient for cycling. Not quite! Just seeding a tank does not cycle it. It's an excellent way to start a good cycle, or if you dump A LOT of seed material into the tank it's a great way to really shorten a cycle, but seeding alone does not create an instantaneous population of both kinds of bacteria in your filter media. When you only move the gravel all you are doing is introducing the bacteria to the tank so your new filter has a culture to work with. It is always going to be a function of number of bacteria in the filter (and its ratio of ammonia vs nitrite bacteria) vs. amount of ammonia produced by the fish.

[promise]

i just noticed them walking up the side of the driftwood too, i might have a bigger problem than i first thought, LH im off to buy some Alum right now, the little critters/parasite things dont seem to be affecting the loach…………………... but then i never see them until after dark anyways, will the Alum treatment affect them or can i just salt water dip them and put them in my community tank until i have the thing under control????

[Lady Hobbs]

NO. Do not put alum in your tank. Soak your plants in a rubber tote then rinse them before adding to your tank.

I don't know what in heck those things are but I wouldn't do anything with that tank until those things are gone. Perhaps you could dose the tank with salt. Loaches tolerate that for ick treatments.

Hope someone knows what those things are.

I would also soak that wood in the alum or in a large trash pail with a ton of salt. Household salt is fine for that. I would have to question if they come from that wood. Perhaps boiling it was not enough if they were buried deep inside.

[promise]

Yuck - those things look gross! What are they?? I was considering buying plants on line and that cured me totally of the impulse! I would freak if that showed up up in one of my tanks!


glad this has put you off of buying online lol. i could be wrong and they could just be a bug that is harmless and excellent fish food but i dont really want to take any chances so im gonna see if anyone in the main forum knows what these are and then start a treatment

[Lady Hobbs]

Did you check to see if they were baby snails? Doubt you'd want that many regardless.

[promise]

I just posted the cucumber pic in the general forum hoping somebody has an idea what these things are, if i can add a couple of fish to take care of them then awesome but if not im gonna have to start a treatment.

[promise]

Did you check to see if they were baby snails? Doubt you'd want that many regardless.


i have a tiger snail in there already and it laid a couple of hundred white eggs but i have been told that they will not get past the larval stage as they need brackish water. also they are moving very quickly over the driftwood. really strange little things
if they are then yeah they are gonna be got rid of, i do not want that many.

[promise]

I would also soak that wood in the alum or in a large trash pail with a ton of salt. Household salt is fine for that. I would have to question if they come from that wood. Perhaps boiling it was not enough if they were buried deep inside.


the wood its attached to came from a pet store and has been in there for a long long time, it was only when i put the moss in there that the things started showing up.