Hello! I'm starting up this blog post series to document the setup and evolution of our first tank. My partner has never had his very own pet before, so this is an exciting time for the both of us. We are planning on getting a male alien betta, and this is going to be a proud display tank in the living room.
Unfortunately I didn't begin documenting the tank right at the start, like I should have. Hopefully this will still get the point across, and will provide insight into how a tank should be started.
Something you will need to know about the Nitrogen Cycle. I'll let this website explain for now, and a blog post about the Cycle will be added to its own blog post in the future. This is vital to starting and maintaining a tank! We are definitely cycling our tank right now, adding a fish will come later!
A basic need for any tank is a proper stand. Water is surprisingly heavy. A 10 gallon tank, water only, weighs around 83 pounds! You need to make sure whatever you're putting your tank on can handle the weight safely. Furthermore, when you are dealing with bigger tanks, you have to make sure your floor can handle all that weight! Trust me, I've seen photos of floors starting to break. That's definitely not what you want to happen! I bought this one on Amazon and somehow managed to build it entirely on my own. I usually don't assemble anything!
After building the stand, I rinsed the substrate. I used Fluval substrate, the little dark pellets that encourage plant growth and a good environment for shrimp. I have used a similar type of substrate in the past and loved it. I was also really pleased to see that my lid's bulb still worked!
I thought I had rinsed all the substrate thoroughly, but seems like I didn't. After adding water by using the plate trick (put a plate on the bottom of the tank and pour into that instead of the substrate) everything was super dusty.
The stand came with a little cupboard where I put all of my supplies. I later found out most of it was expired and had to be thrown away. It's been six years since I had a tank, and it shows. We had purchased some aquatic plants from Petco, so those had to be put in the water immediately. The dust was starting to settle at last.
After the dust had settled (and unfortunately it's coating everything now) we put in a piece of driftwood. I had also bought this on Amazon and was actually pretty pleased! A couple days in however made it look slimy, with a coat of translucent goo coating the entire thing. I am not an expert on fish. There is still a lot I need to learn. In this situation, I didn't know what to do! Thankfully we all have access to experts on Reddit. I was told this is called biofilm and is completely normal. It will eventually die off and actually aid my cycling. How cool!
This is all the progress that has been made from beginning to today! (September 3, 2024) I will continue to write these logs when changes happen!
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