Good Evening all,
Here is a long awaited update on my return to the hobby. Earlier
@jaypeecee you asked what was in the tank so I’ve attached picture that will help.
Starting from the bottom the soil is TMC Nutrasoil in Black, I purchased 5L but I needed at least 9 but I didn’t realise this till I was ready to plant. I have a piece of slate that I used to take the eye of the massive filter box. There is a small piece of slate attached to Azalea Root which in turn holds the plants that are glued to it. Unfortunately I cannot read the lady’s handwriting to list the plants in question but what I think I can read is 1 Octopus, 2 Hypo, 2 Anubias nana, 1 paniflow and 2 lefferi. I made the mistake of not writing it down, when I got back to the LFS I’ll get it re written for me. I perhaps need some more soil or to just move it around to cover some bald areas as I did have a play around with the scape (if you can call it that as I’m not very artistic) before I took the photo. I retro fitted a recommended Aquael LED 10W Plant light to replace my T5 bulb which is better for planted set ups, it was a bit of a task but it’s in and secured and I’m happy with the fit so far, I guess only the plants will tell more.
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@jaypeecee to answer your question) The tap water was treated with API Stress Coat + again this was recommended by my LFS so I’ve put my trust in them for now which is obviously hot topic at the moment regarding chemicals etc and I’m not proficient enough yet to make any decision against my LFS. I was also given API quick start for the filtration bacteria, again I’m just following their lead for now. Staying with API I was given CO
2 booster and Leaf Zone.
I noticed the soil cleared quite quickly which was pleasing and unfortunately I noticed my first issue, obviously this was a gift from my mum and I used the pre supplied heater which was rated at 50W, me being the novice I am noted that the starting water temp was 10
oC and it didn’t improve much over night and did some checking to learn (with another post from
@Sue thank you) that I probably needed 75W Heater and again too late to do anything so I installed my backup/spare/QT heater which is also 50W this morning and it has now stabilised at 27
oC. Ideally I know I need 25-30
oC for the bacteria process, I was aiming for 28
oC.
So that’s about it, on my next visit to my LFS I need some more soil and a 75W heater. Sorry I’ve rambled a bit but I wanted to give a full bodied update. Any comments welcome or PM if you want I’m on here most days. Enjoy the Read and I’ll update each day on water test parameters here.
Simon