I didn't ever put an airstone with my plants, just pouring out some old water and adding some new would be fine
Since you won't really get any sensitive plants to keep with Lucky, it should be an okay method

I always had bad luck with heaters... :/ The one I got with the 20 gallon was broken as well... :/

It might warm up once the light is on for longer periods maybe?

Hope the snails wouldn't decide to breed between species... xD

Well the tank currently has no light...... since I won't be having the lid on, because of the external pipe, the lid is at an angle towards the back and well... that just bugs the heck out of me. I kinda prefer it off. I'm thinking maybe just a clip on lamp?
Or is a light really necessary? Unless it happens to be a dark day, this room gets quite a lot of light during the day. I think I can get away without it for now, she hasn't had any man-made light on in the little tank -apart from the bedroom light being on in the evenings- both her and the plant have been doing fine.

I think with the temperature it doesn't help that the weathers been a little chillier lately, so it does get a little cold in here. But Lucky's fine so far, I will be keeping an eye on her in the tank so if things do get below 10 degrees Celsius, I will take action! But I doubt it'll get that bad. The lowest I've ever seen her tank so far is around 14/15 degrees Celsius, plus the larger tank will retain heat a lot better than the little one!  

I'm going to check temperature and PH tomorrow, between the tanks and hopefully should be good to go on the tank move!!

Haha a ramshorn and a bladder snail combined? That would be interesting! Well let's hope with the plants I get at the weekend, I shall win the snail lottery and have some new types to introduce. I wonder if it's possible for snails to inter breed too much?
Also, found another empty shell when cleaning the snails today R.I.P Mr Snail.

She's been doing fine with natural light so far.... But the external pipe lifts up slightly at the back because the intake is literally almost on the floor of the tank, it can't go any lower, and cutting the corner of the lid would make no difference when it's the height causing the issue.

I was thinking about maybe looking for something like this (Link is not visible to guests. Please register to view.)
A clamp on lamp. I could easily fit one or two to the back of the tank without a problem as long as I check the size of the clip and space on the tank above the glass lid.

Yeah I imagine your tank is so big, temperature fluctuations must be a rare thing!
Will have to investigate about snails interbreeding.... Thanks Noss, I am keeping their empty shells in a little box. They are so pretty, I don't really want to throw them away!

Aw I bet she is so happy.

Ah I collect shells too, I have some gorgeous ones I got on holiday 2 years ago. When I was younger and on holiday in the Channel Islands, I once picked up a massive rock, which my Mum told me to put back, I stuck it in my bag, because it was a piece of Jersey for my Dad XD My mum said the customs people were laughing at my bag as it went through x-ray scanner and she didn't realise why until we got home and I still had this massive rock  

I'm very tempted to put some of the shells from the beach in the snails tank! The flat ones anyway, I worry with the curved ones they'd lay a ton of eggs in there, that I couldn't see. Would it be okay to use them?
I doubt anything's still living on it when they were in my room in Devon on a bookshelf for 2 years.

I think I'll leave the gravel in the tights, I kinda want to do something with it.... but I'm not sure what yet. It would be cool to have plants growing out of it, or some moss or something....

Well cycling will be revealed tomorrow. My theory is that because I'm using the same filter and have included the same gravel, it shouldn't really need to cycle, because all the bacteria that were there before are still there.
Everything was 0ppm before I put her in. So will see tomorrow.

I have also noticed when I look through the side of the tank it is a little cloudy, it was like that this morning before I put everything in, debating on whether to just stick the UV on for a while? Would that clear it?
I'm not too bothered, I don't really look through the side of the tank anyway XD

Well hopefully plants at the weekend and then sorting out a light!
Might try and pick up an extra air stone and some silk plants for the snails..... I figure they can make do with an air stone instead of a filter for the time being. I quite like watching them crawl along the surface upside down, so don't want too much surface movement to stop them from doing that.

Oh also, maybe something you guys could help me with, the bar airstone I had in the old tank, is in this one.
But I have also hooked up my Dad's spare air stone, so there are two.

For some reason before, my Dad's wasn't working but the bar air stone was. Now it's the other way around.
My dad's air stone on the left hand side of the tank is working lovely, but my bar airstone is giving off hardly any bubbles at all   The air pump I have claims it can take up to 4 ornaments, so maybe I just need to play with the pressure a little bit more? I'm not sure... the last time I played around with it one would stop and then other would start, finding it hard to get a balance.

Hmmm how could the tank have started cycling before I put anything in there though? It isn't cloudy like it was when the bacteria bloomed in the little tank.

You know it's funny you should say that Nossie, I was thinking about buying some cheap tights, splitting the gravel up smaller and having plants on the little balls. It'd make it easier to move them out the way for cleaning too.

Hmm interesting you had the same issue with the air pump. I might fiddle around with it some more, I like having both in there and was hoping to hook up a third for the snails tank, so will have a bit of a play. I think it's how I have them connected or the size of the air stones themselves. Will have a play tomorrow. Lucky seems to be doing fine though, it is nice to sit back and watch her swim.... swim some more.... swim even more and then turn around and go back the other way

I intend to check the water tomorrow morning, I was a little busier today than expected, but at least with it being a Saturday I can carry out any water changes as needed.

Tanks can cycle without anything in itas mine did.

Yes cycling can be strange.

I'm pretty sure there has to be some kind of waste for the tank to cycle...although having established media and gravel it can go quickly or almost instantly. After all if you leave a gallon of water on the counter it is not going to cycle.

Of course there's waste, if you have live plants for instance, or if you add gravel or water from the old system

My tank had some ammonia showing, never over .5 though, just small hints of it during the first few days, a tiny bit of nitrite (I'm talking another .5) and suddenly there was 5 nitrates after only 10 days Everything will show, but if you use beneficial bacteria and filter media/gravel from an old system, you'll speed it up significantly

It'll only be less effective, and the stresszyme will be getting thicker later. But that usually happens to any beneficial bacteria on bottle anyway

...I still don't understand why you leave the water to sit

Thanks fantailer! She is one lucky fishy!

Nossie; in case you hadn't notice, I'm a crazy cautious person

The idea was to get the temperature to match, with the smaller tank it worked better, because I would prepare the water in the morning and do the change in the evening, so the temperature wouldn't fluctuate. It would only need 2 buckets most, to fill back up.
But changing 50% on the bigger tank, where it needs more 4 - 6 buckets, it's a little crazy to have that many buckets sat around the room all day.

When I did my change earlier the water went down by around 2 degree's celsius, so it's not the end of the world really.
Apart from the filter going weird, the change went rather well!

I got lots of fish nibbles from Lucky, so I'm glad she's doing okay in there

Hey everyone, just a little update, I'll get some pictures when I can, the tanks been re-arranged and I brought a nice amount of Elodea Densa which is currently Lucky's salad bar. I'm hoping that with a large amount, even if she does nibble it, it will grow back before she can eat all of it.

She was quite funny chasing one of the leaves that she bit off just now 

The tank is cycling really oddly, as in, it hasn't really cycled at all I've been testing and changing the water every couple of days, but it's a little weird.... to begin with ammonia was 0.25ppm, nitrites 0ppm and nitrates 0ppm.
The ammonia hasn't gone any higher than 0.25ppm thank goodness and the colour slowly got lighter, but then just went back to 0.25ppm again on Sunday XD So a 50% change on Sunday and I did a 30% change yesterday. I'll do another change tomorrow or Saturday.

The tank's been set up for 3 weeks now, I've been making sure there isn't any debris in the gravel, I gave it a thorough clean after the first week and have been cleaning lightly since -maybe I cleaned it too much or something?-
So far nothing else has really showed up, Nitrites have been 0ppm the entire time and Nitrates has only just started to turn a shade darker than 0ppm -but not dark enough to be 5ppm- So hopefully it'll sort itself out soon!

Lucky has been absolutley fine, she occasionally gasps at the surface like she did in the smaller tank, but I'm not sure if this is frequent enough behaviour to be worried about. As it is sporadically throughout the day, not like she's hanging around constantly at the surface or the outlet 

Oh one other thing, I noticed on my driftwood a sort of.... grey-ish sheen in one or two spots? I'm not sure if this is the lighting in the room? I have checked it over, but it's only visible in water? Not too fussed at the moment, I sometimes wonder if I'm just worrying too much again 
There was some sort of growth on it before, but that was much more noticeable and I made sure to clean that off with lots of scrubbing and boiling water

Anyway hope everything is well with everyone else, I'll get a photo of the re-arranged tank soon 

Thats good news Skwishee and your set up looks great, Lucky looks like he is watching you take the pic.

I have a question about snails, are bladder snails those small black ones? I put some in with Snowie and Bowie the Ryukins, I saw some of the snails for a few days afterwards but it now appears they are either hiding or have been eaten (bugger), yesterday I did find an empty shell, I think the fish must have sucked it right out of there, is that possible? Cheers all > Ron