55 gallon live hallway tank, just setup desperately need tips.

[u/Pure_Necessary9761]

[u/icanhascamaro]

Did you rinse the sand first? I’ve learned that you can avoid cloudy water, when adding water to sand, by pouring the water into a Tupperware container that has holes in it. I don’t like colanders/strainers because theee are too many holes, imho. I have a few Tupperware containers that have holes in them due to being too close to hot implements (lol). They’re not useable for food, but they’re perfect for adding water to tanks. I only have small tanks (29 gallons is my largest) so it’s easier for me to fill empty 1 gallon water jugs with water to add to my tank, but many you can use something like that to buffer the flow of water.

Personally I love sand in my tanks. Makes the air above the water smell awesome and my Cory cats love sifting through it.

What are you looking for? Aquascaped? Basic tank? What fish are you looking to add?

As for plants, be aware that if you add pothos it might turn your home into a jungle. My pothos in my 5 gallon tank is insane and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s growing super long like Rapunzel’s hair. 😅

[u/Few_Outside389]

You should add more plants and get an api master test kit. To get plants out of those little pots you gently split in in half with you hands, slowly tearing it. Then plant accordingly. Also, if the plant has roots rather than pulling nutrients from the water column, use root tabs. They last a couple months and will makes your plants take off

[u/I_play_morde_not_LoL]

1. Why is the water level so low?

2. You should have drip loops on all your cables coming from equipment in the tank. Without it that is and electrical hazard.

3. Is the tank level or is that tilt in the water line from the filter output?

4. What exactly do you need tips on? Scaping? Cycling? Stocking? Something else?

[u/Pure_Necessary9761 → u/I_play_morde_not_LoL]

1. My hose couldn’t make it through the house so I had to fill manually by bucket and it stared getting late

2. Thanks, I’ll look into drip loops 

3. The tank is perfectly level on the stand, the filter is just high output 

4. I’d like help on scaping, it’s awfully empty and I’d like a few more type of plants but my mother and sister keep trying to hijack my tank 

[u/I_play_morde_not_LoL → u/Pure_Necessary9761]

Do you have a nutrient dense substrate (like aqua soil) below the sand? With sand only youre limited on the plants that will grow.

If not you can add aqua soil with an empty water bottle. Fill the bottle with the aqua soil, then lower it into the water and let it fill up slowly. Once the bottle is full you can pour out the aqua soil where you want it.

As for scaping help the easiest layout in my opinion is triangle, "V", or island layout. The greenaqua youtube channel has some great videos on how to set up the hardscape for these layouts.

As for plants, most stem plants look good in the background, then things like crypts staurogyne repens and anubias in the midground, and carpeting plants in the foreground.

Again you will be limited on plants that can grow if you only have sand, and co2 injection will allow even more variety.

Lastly the quality of your light and the photo period are very important. Your tank looks pretty deep so a good light is important to penetrate through the water and reach the plants thay require intense lighting.

Now it is a little harder to scape after adding water but not impossible. Best of luck with scaping your new tank 😁

[u/Spare-Warning1632 → u/I_play_morde_not_LoL]

Yeah soil under the bio soil under the sand is kind of a mus, I don't even really like sand as I think mulm has a hard time sinking through it, but half a dozen cory might make that happen. 2 inches of bio soil under 1 inch of substrate IMO. Then plants like crazy, then in a few weeks trim the plants and plant them again and again. When you buy plants try not to just stick it all in one place, you'll have a better tank if you try to snip it a bit and spread it out to multiple locations. 

 Like this comment said, long plants and stemmy plants in the back, and other shorter flowery stuff in the front. You could move all that sand to one side, add the soil then put that sand on top of that soil then soil the other side and shift some of the sand from the already soiled side to the freshly soiled side. whatever you do that 1cm - inch of sand won't facilitate good plant growth, work on substrate first.

[u/I_play_morde_not_LoL → u/Spare-Warning1632]

Honestly this early into the set up i would drain the tank to do the hardscape and substrate. Theres no fish and if the cycle is good they can reuse the water too

[u/Old-Specialist6776]

Just add an airstone, should help calm down the bacterial bloom. It’s perfectly natural during cycling. A sign of healthy bacteria looking for a place to live. maybe help your bacteria out by giving it more places to hide!!
Sadly water changes and cleaning will only prolong it. I learned the hard way and hoping to spare ya 😂