40 gallon and general questions

Hey all! I am back from the dead

I have been beyond busy, and my tank has been giving me a ton of issues. Turns out despite stirring my sand during weekly WC's, a pocket developed and I got some black sand. My water had been very cloudy for two months! My water params somehow were actually okay though. Towards the end not pristine, but nothing to really freak out about. It got to the point where I got tired of daily WC's not clearing it up so I fridged the axies and tore apart the tank. I kept my filter running in a bucket with an air stone on it and "fed" the bacteria. But out came the sand, the ornament, the river rocks, etc. The tank itself got a good hot rinse, and I wiped down the insides with a wash cloth. So now I am trying barebottom. I really want to plant the tank some, but not sure how I am going to do it. I might try anchoring some java fern to my ornament, and see how it does, since I can't find any reasonable driftwood locally. Currently it is just the tank, the filter, maybe 10 ghost shrimp, and about 8 feeder minnows, along with the axies. I am watching my params like a hawk until my bacteria is back up to full capacity. But man, you guys weren't kidding when you said bare bottom is easy to clean!! I used a mini siphon and got almost every trace of anything off the bottom. <3 I am sold. I'll figure out how to decorate it later. I guess I need to go through the pictures on here of other people's barebottoms. Can someone link me? I am awful at navigating this forum!

Anyways, I found a used 55 with a stand, that also has a 40 gallon.
"I would sell just the 40 gallon with the lid for $50. It is the same size as the 55 gallon only shorter."
It would come with a screen lid, which, is perfect.
[FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]55 Gallon[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]48 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 21
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]40 Long[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Arial, Helvetica]48 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 16 7/8

I'm assuming she meant that the 40 is a 40 long. I wanted a 40 breeder, but, even a 40 long is quite a bit more foot space than the 20 long they are in now. And for it to have a lid makes like so much easier. The whole set up would be $125, which I can't beat. They both have screen lids, so I would have to set up lighting and filtration to use the 55 for fish, but, I like to pick out my own filters anyways.

Does anyone have any experience with a 40 long? Would this be good space for two axolotls? They still have plenty of space in the 20 long, but, I want to move them up anyways. How would three axolotls do in a 40 long? I am hurting for a gold axie!

I will get some pics soon, I'm thinking my leucistic is male, and want some confirmation!
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I would believe you could keep 4 in a 40 long easily. Granted that is my opinion. I think the tank I had raised axol's in in high school was a 30 gal breeder, and we raised roughly 30 eggs into 10 adults, then kept 3 for the tank and traded the rest off to another biology class a couple of cities over. I think the 55 would also be neat if you turned it into a viv right above and had the axol's below.

Whilst I love the idea of having sand, purely from an aesthetic viewpoint, I'm currently barebottom also and loving it (cheeky!) lol. Very easy to clean.

My only puzzle is, as Kenya touched upon, how to go about planting?? At the moment I have some free floating elodea in the top, and a small leafy plant in its own little clay pot, the roots sandwiched in between some sort of sponge that came with it.
Does anybody have any tips on ways to anchor plants? I was thinking of using small clear plastic tubs (the kind you get humous in from the deli) and putting a layer of gravel in for the plants to root, then a small layer of sand so the Axies don't ingest it. Then putting rocks around the tubs...

Anyway. Just wanted to know how other people got around having plants in a barebottom tank. Cheers!!

There are some plants that are already tied to driftwood, rocks or come in terracotta pots. Otherwise, you can always anchor some with a good secure fishing line.

I use the pot method i put river rocks on the bottom and then gravel then more river rocks then i get plants that need no substrate (banana plants,elodea,moss balls,ext.)then i have a pece of drift wood that i tide some java fern and some christmas moss with some fishing line.

I actually cheated ;] I have an ornament that looks like mongrove roots. There are a couple small holes where the "roots" and "vines" and such wrap around and I stuck the roots through one side with a piece of java fern and some other type of fern [forgot!]. So far it's staying. I am looking for good pieces of driftwood and need to pick up fishing line, but maybe my plants will root right to the ornament. Who knows! I ADORE the barebottom already! I feed the ghost shrimp some shrimp pellets, and sometimes frozen brine shrimp, both of which get messy. But after an hour or two I just grab it up with the mini siphon! And I am down to three feeder fish from ten, so my axies are happy too. I'm so glad everything is finally working out how it should. I didn't realize how big they had gotten until I had to move them. I got one of my tank only plastic containers, one of the same ones I put them in when I got them in the mail, and they barely fit! When I first got them they had space to swim around. My little babies are growing up :] And the one I hoped to be female is of course, looking male My other is a little smaller, and it's looking either female or late blooming male. Again, pictures as soon as I can. Maybe I will end up with babies soon enough ;]

My tank is cloudy, once again. >.<

I'll keep my fingers crossed that my tank is just readjusting since it lost a lot of bacteria when the sand came out and the ornament too. It's back in, but lost that nice slimy coat. Blech!

As much as I love daily WC's.