starting out - do I plant in wet substrate of a full tank

[JCBB]

I'm starting over again having decommissioned my tank a year ago - this time with discus - I have 400lt Rena tank - I'm going to use an under-substrate heating cable, flora base substrate, 2x 2076 Ehiem external filters, a carboplus CO2 system, an Acrcadia luminaire and will be using a combination of RO and conditioned tap water.
I need guidance on how to plant - one piece of advice I've had is to fill the tank to substrate level and plant it - waiting until the plants have established before fully filling the tank - not sure how that would work with long stemmed plants and no filtration - what's the best course of action to have strong well-established plants in place before introduce the fish ?

 

[ceg4048]

Hi,
I can immediately see at least three things that are time wasting items in your plans some of which might cause you grief later on:

1: Underground Cable heater is a waste of time if you think it will do anything other than heat you tank, and for that size tank it may not even do a good job of that.

2. Carbo plus CO2 system is a complete waste of time and will cause you no end to grief getting sufficient CO2 in the tank. I would suggest a gas cylinder system for this size tank.

3. Using RO water serves no purpose unless you have proof of some toxic issues in your tap water, although since you intend to keep discus this might be the only good reason.

As far as planting your tank just plat your scape with the tank dry (or even a moist substrate) being careful to avoid having the plants dry out. You can use a misting bottle to spray water over the plants while you are planting. Then slowly fill the water level to full. Then turn the filters on.

If you are new to planted aquaria i would suggest that you don't even consider adding fish for a few months until you figure out what it is that you are doing. This gives you the freedom to make changes and not have to worry about affecting the fish. It is highly recommended that yo go to the Tutorial section of the forum and read the articles there. Start with Setting up a 'higher' tech planted tank

Cheers,

 

[CeeJay]

Hi

3. Using RO water serves no purpose unless you have proof of some toxic issues in your tap water, although since you intend to keep discus this might be the only good reason.

That said, when I kept discus some 10 years ago I kept them in tap water
Had the fish for about 4 years until the tank was stripped down, and no health problems to report. But that was way back when......

Chris

 

[amy4342]

I also kept Discus in tap water with absolutely no problems up until last year when my gran turned off the heater and filter when I was on holidays. That said, I recently aquired an RO unit and I've noticed a huge difference in the mortality rate in my community tank since I started using it. My LFS are gutted lol.