29 gallon setup project...from scratch

I broke down and bought a disgustingly dirty 29g ex saltwater tank yesterday. It has a Top Fin 20, a hang-on-back heater and coralife 6500K lamp. It included a (badly fitted) two-sided background, originally showing a coral reef, of course, but now turned to show a nice planting scheme.

After giving it a very through cleaning, I have brought it into the living room, where you can see it in front of my first 10g unit. The 29g will become home to the residents of that tank. I will only add to the bloodfin tetras (4 more, making 6) and Von Rio tetras (again, another 4, making 6). That will give 4 corys, 6 zebra danios, 6 Von Rios and 6 bloodfins. I will upgrade the filter to cope with a 40g and might go for an external canister this time around. I don't think the TopFin 20 is likely to do the job effectively. The 10g will become another project, maybe transferring harlequin rasboras from my other home and work tanks to that tank.

I am considering making this 29g a planted sphagnum peat substrate tank (i.e. no sand or gravel). Has anyone tried that before? I will do some research into the idea...may be a non-starter. Let me know why this won't work, if it won't!

Anyway, will show images throughout the process, of course.

Stage by stage photos setting up day 1

Decided to set the new tank up today.

Images are attached for each stage:

1. Clean, bare tank.
2. Added sphagnum peat (dry)
3. Wet and saturate peat by squeezing it in water until it is waterlogged...quick job, takes about 5 minutes. Messy though!
4. Added flourite layer as this will be planted eventually.
5. Added pool filter sand.
6. Added water.
7. Set heater, filter running. Will be clear by tomorrow pretty much.

Looking forward to planting and moving the fish from my 10g tank into this one. I want to match pH and KH first, though. That won't be until next weekend now.

DAVIDFBT said:

Very nice, but how will you get the plants in the substrate? Won't the peat fly out when you try to plant them?

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Only if you put it in dry...it traps air then and is so dry that it just floats straight up. By squeezing water into it (something I discovered quite by accident), it stays put, even if you make a hole in the sand when vacuuming! So far, I have the peat base in 4 of my 5 tanks and have no issues with floating peat. The 5th is a 5 gallon containing a single male betta, which just has a gravel and filter sand mix.

Sarge_857 said:

thats sweet man!

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Cheers!

When you plant into filter sand, you can drag the roots sideways and downward and the sand fills in immediately behind your finger...much easier than planting in gravel.