Have all the equipment and materials you need to complete this project ready, all diy projects complete,(diy CO2 bottle should be pre-built but don't mix up the batch just yet.

To start, you must have the tank on a leveled surface. if it isn't level this may cause leaks later on. Fill it with water, leave it for half and hour and then check for leaks.

Since when I decided to go through with this project, I was dealing with a 2-year old established aquarium with a few plants and fish, it made it a lot trickier. But before i started,I built my Canopy and it was ready for use, purchased a glass canopy,and laterite. I already had the aquarium, the heater and thermometer, filter, and gravel, and could easily mix up a batch for the CO2 generator.So the next time i happened to go to the fish store,(which happened to be on a boxing day sale and has nothing to do with my cheapness)i stcked up on plants.

I have a 10gallon, rectangular, Tupperware container in which i store my aquarium junk/essentials, and two 5gallon plastic buckets for when i do my waterchanges,(one for clean water to go into the tank, one for old aquarium water.)What i did was siphon water into the tupperware container from the surface of the water (wherei wouldn't get fish crap that was burried in the gravel)until it was full which was about half the tank.Then i removed decorations (rocks, slate)and put them away because this tank would be only plants. then i rmoved the plants to the tupperware container. With no obstacles in teh tank, fish were easily netted and placed in the tupperware container aswell. I then siphoned enough water to fill a 5 gallon bucket and siphoned the rest off to be thrown out via bathtub.

the next step was to remove and clean two thirs of the gravel, after all, i wanted to start clean. i left one third in the tank to have a bacterial culture start in the aquarium to avoid going through the nitrogen cycle again.

This is where the people who are starting with a new aquarium can join in. You mix the laterite into the bottom third of teh gravel and make sure that the gravel is level. then you place the remaining two thirds of the gravel ontop of the bottom layer and DON'T MIX THE LAYERS TOGETHER.you should have alayer about 2-3 inches deep in total.

Now you can put the heater and filter and thermometer on the back of the tank now but dont plug them in yet, or you can wait 'til later. Place an inverted saucer, i like to use a styrofoam plate because it floats and will continue to break the water as you pour. You must VERY GENTLY pour the water onto the styrofoam plate SLOWLY from a glass or a small jar. If you pour too forcefully, the water will strongly penetrage the gravel and dislodge particles of laterite which will color the water red and may take a few days to settle. Continue to gently pour onto the saucer until the water level is between 1/2 and 3/4 full.

Now you can begin planting. There are three important things that plants need to grow and consume nutrients that would otherwise be consumed by algae;adequate lighting(see Canopy With Adequate Lighting), Nutrients via gravel/laterite/water, and CO2(see DIY). If any of these are lacking or not completely supplied to the plant, they will not grow as well, use as many nutrients, and may be overtaken by algae. For the plants to win this "war", they need a strong foothold right off the bat. That's why it is imprtant to fully stock your tank with plants from the beggining.

During the nitrogen cycle, there will be an excess of nutrients and you will need as many plants as you can get to consume them. Bunch plants do a good job of this, so does java fern and moss.

After planting is done, fill up the tank and leave about half an inch to a quarter inch between the glass canopy.now you can place the glass canopy on along with the hood and plug in yout equipment. Mix up a CO2 Generator in a bottle batch and add this to the tank. Now you're up and running. After about two weeks, you can start to add algae eating fish like Siamese Algae Eaters, oto cats, and some algae eating shrimp. there are other algae eaters that you can put in your tank, you just have to find out about their needs or ask your Aquarium dealer. Don't feed the fish too much for a week or two, depending on the amount of algae.

Be careful not to stock the tank too heavily, or too quickly. Start to stock the tank with fish other than algae eaters after a month, but again, do this slowly.

That's the end of Setting up the tank,if you have any, Questions, comments or anthing you think should be added to this section or any other, feel free to e-mail me at finhead_69@hotmail.com