My 240l Planted Tank, Again.

They are beautiful fish @Helen

(This week I'm organising a party for my daughter's 5th birthday at the weekend! The fish are getting a lot of watching to keep me calm!)

  Good Luck!!!

Developments on the plant side. Lotus is looking much better for adding the root tab. So I've dotted another couple around the tank to try and encourage some height.

New plants turned up today - nymphoides hydrophylla 'Taiwan' (thanks for the recommendation @TopCookie ). Because it was a tissue culture, I've put that in the tank. Certainly good value. I didn't expect to get quite so much. If it grows as much as the label says (30cm in 30 days) I will be taking rather a lot out in a couple months time!

Also in my little delivery was some TNC carbon, a cryptocorne wenditii green (apologies for my spelling, it's just gone haywire) and a little pot of java moss. I've decided to quarantine the crypt and moss for a bit longer. And I think I'll let the new plants settle before I try the carbon.

I also got out the junior hacksaw for my coconuts.  One of my existing coconut halves got a doorway cut out of it and I sawed in half the 'new' coconut. Hmm, I left that a bit long and the inside was far from edible. It smells a lot like a strong blue cheese - with a hint of coconut!  It is going to be a good while before that is clean enough to go in my tank.

I'd like to point out that coconut shells are hard. I did wonder whether the £5 for someone else to do the sawing might have been worth it!

The java moss has also been tied to the existing coconut pieces, the caves can soak at the same time as the moss is quarantined. I'm considering leaving the caves in quarantine until the moss has attached itself to the coconut and I can cut off the thread. I didn't find tieing thread round a half coconut very easy. The underside looks a bit like one of those laser rooms you see in films. 😮

Thank you.

I don't suffer from MTS, but an alternative, CTT (chronic tank tinkering). 

It took me nearly 8 years to actually get around to the monumental task of removing more than half the substrate and completely replanting the tank. I also introduced the sand area. Which was a path until the inhabitants had their turn at aquascaping! I did do a thread showing my progress through the substrate removal. I think it is in general fishkeeping chat and called rejuvenating a neglected tank?

The nymphoides has gone on the left hand side with the intention of providing some surface cover there. When I get the ferts right, the Vallis on the right grows up to and along the surface. But I'm not there yet with the new configuration.

The green crypts will go in amongst the other crypts and hopefully break up the brown colour block a bit.

And the rainbowfish are looking better and bluer all the time. It's difficult not to be impatient for them to reach full size. 

Glad to hear that root tabs are having a positive impact on your plants.
I don't have the patience or dexterity to tie plants (especially moss) to anything.
I hope that your new plants do well 

In reality I have too many plants and not enough fish in my tank to have the right amount of CO2. I should use injected gas CO2, but I'm trying to find a lower tech solution. But I have heard lots of bad things about liquid carbon, so having bought I'm hesitating actually adding it. I was going to only add a half dose, but now I'm thinking I might add even less to start with.

I'd rather just buy more fish! But I've set myself quite a specific shopping list and I've got a bit of a stumbling block getting more kuhlis. Because I don't have a quarantine tank at the moment and I've had a bad experience with kuhlis in the past (and white spot), I'm only getting my fish from one shop. So I need to wait for them to get more kuhlis in.

My plan wasn't to continuously use the liquid carbon, but a couple of my plants could do with a boost. Interestingly, one of those plants is the Vallis, so I'm wondering how much of a good idea it is.

So here's a photo of the tank, taken a couple days ago.

Plus, in the following post, a photo (that i think is really exciting) of a new leaf on my lotus that is literally twice as tall as any other and looking like it is still going up. Please excuse the state of the front of the tank, I'm sorting through some algae issues at the moment.

Tank generally, fish and lotus leaf all look fantastic - well done! 

Tank's looking great Helen...  plants all looking suitably lush to me lass... 

I've had, virtually forced upon me, a bit of a re-think about the liquid carbon and just where it sits in that whole balanced nutrition scheme of things...  My current stand point is that a little bit is definitely better than none if you are adding fertilisers...  I'm just keeping the amount down to around one third of the recommended dose at the moment, and the fertilisers down to around half the recommended dose...  Too soon to be objective on how effective this regime is, but will stick to it for the time being and report back again at some point down the line...  Ideally, I'd love to have a situation where no fertilisers and no carbon are necessary, but that hasn't panned out well in my tank and so just that little bit of nutrition now along with a reduced tank lights period...   

EDIT:  I dose the TNC Carbon daily and one hour before the lights come on...