I just went to the store. it's not 20/40. It's marked both 12/40 and 16/30 I believe. It's a bit more coarse.

Give a little update. I ended up not using any sand. Tried to planted the tank based off of my 120G design as a test run.


With limited choice of plant locally, it ended up like this.

A close up.


I'm pretty happy with it so far. Just waiting for ammonia to go down. It's been staying at 2.0 for almost a week. No BB seeding yet I'm hopping I'll get some next week.

Bump: Any idea why image is not showing up?

Do you have cycled media you could borrow from a friend or another tank of yours if you have? That would greatly speed up the cycle and get you the bb you need.


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You need to get the image address, not the page address. You can do this by right clicking on the image. Chrome allows you to direct copy the address, but IE and Firefox probably requires going to properties and finding it that way.


Buffering substrates that leach ammonia can cause the cycle to take longer, too.


Might help to try raising the temperature of the tank to 84-86° F.

I gave a sponge and some media to my co-worker a few days ago. I'm going to pick it up next week. I hope the sponge in his tank for a few days is enough to get me a kick start.

It will definitely get you going in the right direction. Will speed up the cycle but how much is hard to say.


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I don't think it's the substrates leaching ammonia. The ammonia stay the same for a few days already. Initially it was very low like 0.5 or so. I added ammonia in there to start the cycle.

I don't have a heater for the tank yet, so, can't really raise the temp. It's around 80°F.

What soil did you go with? Some buffering substrates do leach ammonia and some do not. For example ADA Amazonia does and for a while which is why you need to cycle it for a bit before adding any livestock. Others like Controsoil do not do it all depends on what you have.


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I ended up using Aquasolum. Ammonia hasn't changed since I added them to start the cycle. Both nitrite (0) and nitrate (5) remains since day one. That's why I know it's not cycling and no ammonia leaching from soil.


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Then you need to get ammonia into the tank to help it cycle.

I did add it to 2. Should I add more?


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Anything above 0 is acceptable. The key is never letting the bacteria starve (0)

It's making progress. Ammonia around 1.5, Nitrite 2.0, Nitrate 7.0.
At what point should I do water change?

When nitrates get over 40-80ppm, I'd do a water change. At some point, they can be inhibited as seen in Immortal1's testing of matrix.

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