I stocked the tank yesterday with fish that my wife will get in her 50 gallon once the 135 is cycled. She picked out 3 pearl danios, 3 zebra danios, 4 leopard danios, 2 black lyre tail mollies, 2 dalmation lyre tail mollies and 4 assorted female platys. When I released the fish it didn't look like I had put any fish in the tank. Who would have thought 18 fish wasn't enough?

I used 2 filter pads from the emperor 400 on the 50 gallon and put them into the emperor 400 on the 135 gallon, some gravel out of the 50 gallon and water from the 50 gallon and the 29 gallon and Cycle. I'm trying to set this tank up as fast as possible so my plecs can live happily. I will slowly introduce the plecs so the bacteria has a chance to keep up with the waste they produce. I still need an emperor 400 and a magnum 350 before all of the plecs can be put into the tank.

I'm actually looking forward to getting rid of some fish, so that my tanks have that sparsly populated look.

I like the idea of plenty of plants, with the odd fish or three drifting here and there. If I want 50 hungry mouths all up against the glass, I've plenty of Aquariums I can visit.

Thats why I got rid of the kribs. My wife likes the fish coming up to her when she looks into the tank.

After putting filter, powerheads and fish in.

Quite a difference with the dust gone.

Do you now give the filters one last rinse, before beginning the Cycle?

Did you wash your gravel beforehand?

I onlt rinse the filter media in tank water that I remove during a water change as to not strip the media of any beneficial bacteria. I washed the sand before putting it in. The gravel is out of my 50 gallon, so I didn't need to wash it. I also wanted what bacteria there was in the gravel to go straight into the 135 gallon.

I was going to get some pics after the DW was in, but the DW shipment got held up. So here are a couple new ones of some of the plants.

If any Cory's end up in there, you can kiss your undulating substrate goodbye ! I did a gravel vac yesterday, in both tanks, lots of mounds everywhere. By this morning, flat as a tack, you could calibrate your laser-level off of it.

What are the plants?

The plecs do a good job of flattening the sand. It's only mounded up where they burrowed to make a cave next to the rock or wood. The plants are jungle vallesneria, anubias barteri round, anubias nana and some java moss. I can't make up my mind if I want a shoal of clown loaches or few nice cory shoals.

I guess with Cory's, you're able to have two or three reasonable groups, of differing variety. And they'll never outgrow the tank.

The Clown Loaches will grow, but they may go well if your Plec's are of a larger breed. So that overall, tank-wise, you've themed with the slightly larger fishes.

I feel that smaller fish do let you push that population / filtration barrier a bit better.

It allows you the variety of species that you may not get with larger specimens.

Exactly.