# First Planted Tank - 180L



## Nubias (14 Jul 2018)

Plants arrived yesterday so today was the day.

Tank: Juwel Rio 180 - 100x41x50
Lighting: Standard Juwel Rio
Filter: Standard Bioflow Internal
Media: 2L of Seachem Matrix, foams and wool
Substrate: ADA Power Sand Special, ADA Amazonia and Sand
Hardscape: Driftwood and Bluestone (Type of basalt)
Plants include;
Anubias nana
Trident Java Fern
Narrow Leaf Java Fern
Spiky Moss

Micranthemum Monte Carlo
Staurogyne repens
Blyxa japonica

Hygrophila polysperma
Hygrophila lancea (sp. Araguaia)
Bacopa monnieri
Syngonanthus sp. Belem
Rotala sp. Green
Rotala sp. Colorata

Didn’t quite get the layout of stems how I wanted, the thought process was for a mixed jungle look. Will see what grows, what doesn’t, what does well and alter as necessary.

Will update as I cycle over the next few weeks, hopefully cloudy water clears up over night, running some extra filter wool in the top of the internal. Driftwood still being weighted down also hopefully can remove those rocks in a week or two.


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## tam (14 Jul 2018)

Wow, that's your first go? Looks great. I think trying a few things and seeing what works for your tank is a good way to go. Sometimes there seems very little logic and some people will struggle with a plant others find easy or a 'difficult' plant grows really well. Plus easier to decide what you really like once you see it growing it person.


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## Nubias (15 Jul 2018)

Thanks,

Cloudy still today but plants a looking a bit more perky. Did some testing also which may still be a bit off as I only dosed with prime to dechlorinate yesterday. I also decided to use stability for the first week to help assist in building beneficial bacteria.

PH: 6.4
Ammonia: 2ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10-20ppm

Wasn’t expecting nitrate to show up yet but putting it down to the use of seachem prime and stability either that or I messed up testing (also a first time).

I’ve kept fish before but never really tested anything more than PH. Never had a proper planted tank with the exception of a bit of Java moss and a bunch of whatever random stem plants looked good at the time. That was almost 20 years ago though.


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## tam (15 Jul 2018)

It might be your tap water has some nitrate in it to start with. I haven't used it myself but I think I recall it usually being 4 weeks or so for the substrate to stop leaching ammonia. If you search back through the forum I'm sure someone will have discussed it


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## Nubias (15 Jul 2018)

Thanks Tam,

Might test the tap water tomorrow to see


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## Marc Davis (16 Jul 2018)

Really nice go.

Love everything, but I think you should invest in some seiryu stone. Keep everything the same and just swap the rocks. Will add so much more to the layout. 

Yes, it will make a mess of the sand a little, but you can do one rock at a time and run a net through the sand to pick up the aqua soil after. This is just my opinion of course.


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## Nubias (17 Jul 2018)

Day 4

PH: 6
Ammonia: 4ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 40ppm

30% water change following testing

Aqua soil seems to be doing its thing with low ph and ammonia levels, still showing nitrates with 0 nitrite. Tested tap water also and it has 0 nitrate showing.

Any other reason I’m  getting nitrate readings this early? Shook the test bottle for a long time so pretty sure I’m testing right.


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## ian_m (17 Jul 2018)

Nitrate (and other tests) are easily interfered with by other substances in the tank. Dechlorinator is one of them that can lead to false readings high for nitrate and low for ammonia, possibly. Chlorine in tap water can lead to test kits reading zero. So much so you should pretty well ignore any results and just get on a leave tank for 8-12 weeks to do its "cycling" by itself and everything will be fine, no test kits required.

Please read this and put test kit in the bin.
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/what-about-test-kits.52487/


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## Nubias (19 Jul 2018)

Thanks for that interesting read I definitely agree with some of it.

Tank is starting to clear up though not yet completely, assuming bacteria bloom is the cause as I would of thought any cloudiness from substrate would have cleared by now.


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## ian_m (19 Jul 2018)

Nubias said:


> Tank is starting to clear up though not yet completely, assuming bacteria bloom is the cause as I would of thought any cloudiness from substrate would have cleared by now.


Purigen and/or Clarity will greatly help.

https://www.seachem.com/purigen.php

https://www.seachem.com/clarity.php

I have a bag of Purigen in one of my filters and if I do major plant fiddling that clouds the water I use Clarity to clear the water. Both work wonderfully well, albeit not cheap.


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## Nubias (23 Jul 2018)

Thanks may get some to give it a go before I add fish. Day 10 now, no nitrites yet ammonia is still steady at 2-4ppm.

Plants looking stable so far, hygrophila polysperma starting to take off. Little bit of algae growth on anubias and Java fern which I’ll start to keep an eye on.


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## Nubias (28 Jul 2018)

Still cycling, at the end of week 2 no nitrites showing yet. All other levels still consistent, testing ammonia and nitrite daily.

PH 6 ( tap water is only 6.6-6.8)
Ammonia 2ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 10-20ppm ( only tested a couple of times)
Temp 26-27c

Added a surface skimmer to up the flow a bit which has helped a lot along with keeping the surface nice and clear.

Some algae signs, little bit of BBA on Java fern and anubias (assuming imported) some signs of green/brown string/thread along with light green fuzz on some plant leaves. Assuming the tank is just doing it’s thing until things balance out. Trying not to panic anyway


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

ian_m said:


> Nitrate (and other tests) are easily interfered with by other substances in the tank. Dechlorinator is one of them that can lead to false readings high for nitrate and low for ammonia, possibly. Chlorine in tap water can lead to test kits reading zero. So much so you should pretty well ignore any results



This continues to confuse me - it’s easily done to run successful aquaria with nary a test kit in sight BUT what are these interfering compounds you are so emphatic about ... can you provide details please

My understanding - from a chemistry/biochemistry background & having run many many assays for various compounds (as a means of enzyme mechanism analyses) - the specific chemistries chosen for the hobbyist kits are quite resilient & refractive to commonly occurring compounds in most tap/aquarium water (even when dosing EI - unless my comprehension of that is much awry ... certainly a possibility as it’s been years since I read Sears & Conlin & Tom Barr et al reports  )
Not that substance interference cannot happen, but it is an unlikely event (or relatively easily compensated)

As an example 
Hach Salicylate Method for NItrogen, Ammonia 


(Ignore the specific methodology as this is for a particular Hach Instrument, but salicylate based N chemistry remains the same whether an aquarium marketed test kit, or waste water management etc)


Tab down to page 350 for a table of *Interfering Substances *
Calcium greater than 1000mg/l as CaCO3
Magnesium greater than 6000mg/l as CaCO3
Sulfate greater than 300mg/l as SO4 (-2)
Phosphate greater than 100mg/l as PO4 (-3)
Nitrite greater than 12mg/l as NO3-
Nitrate greater than 100mg/l as NO3-
Sulfide (hmmm are fish still alive )
etc


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

Nubias said:


> Assuming the tank is just doing it’s thing until things balance out. Trying not to panic anyway


Did I miss your water change schedule?

Aside note - if tapwater is very soft, be wary of such flocculating agents such as Seachem Clarity 

Seachem FAQ


> Since soft water tends to have low alkalinity and little buffering capacity, it is possible that adding certain products to a tank with soft water could cause the pH to drop. In most cases, this is not an issue, but with soft and already unbuffered/ lightly buffered water, it could cause a shift in pH. In systems with low buffering capacity or soft water, it is best to use a lower 1/4 to 1/2 dose of many additives and test the impact or outcome before using the full dosage.



My pH dropped to less than 4, almost instantly
My livestock all died (slightly less instantly)


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

Nubias said:


> Added a surface skimmer to up the flow a bit which has helped a lot along with keeping the surface nice and clear.


I finally set up my Eheim skimmer after nearly 2 years of owning it 
I try to remember to turn it off when CO2 is off, my crazy vaillanti insist upon leaping in sometime during the night &  never fare so well upon release (if the skimmer’s been running     )
Shrimp will also sometimes get very cozy in there - found a group of 10 once 

If you watch the Filipe Oliveira videos, he uses the Eheim skimmer to direct CO2 (intank diffusor)

Tank looks awesome & well done using local stone 

I’ve some aquarium grey stone (ADA, Tropica) & it’s grand, but almost a little boring when every tank has grey stone 
My local collectable stone is B.I.G - I did have some fantastic bluestone from a landscape yard that I’d split & smoothed away sharp edges (had fish that startled rather dramatically) ... except someone stole it while I was moving  truly bizarre (it was in the laneway unaccompanied for 10-20 minutes) - it was less work to buy some stone at the shop to replace it


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## Nubias (28 Jul 2018)

Thanks Alto,

Currently doing 30-40% water changes every 3rd day approx.

I probably should have done some more frequently in the first week in hindsight.

Thanks for the tip about soft water and clarity.


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

It’s not just Clarity 
Be cautious with any additives 
Formalin (& a few other meds) can be more “active” in soft water (though most aquarium marketed meds are so underdosed it’s irrelevant) 
Always ask about formulation - I should have re Clarity ... but that came the next day


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## alto (28 Jul 2018)

Daily water change & algae removal will help - if you can manage 
Python type system is well worth the investment though I went years with multiple tanks before finding one half price & finally purchasing 

Kicked myself a long ways over that one (the delay that is)


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## Barbara Turner (28 Jul 2018)

Looking at the photo's you have gone for the wise decision to cycle the tank fish free.
Have you added to anything to provide you with a source of ammonia? (fish food a piece of dead shrimp/fish, or liquid ammonia)

You should see the various spikes of first ammonia and then nitrite finally nitrate.

There is a good guide here, only thing I wouldn't recommend is adding any fish or inverts till the tank is fully cycled.
https://tropica.com/en/guide/care/tropica-app/

I suspect the cloudy water is coming from your sand, did you wash it first?  If not it will settle over time as you do your regular water changes.


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## Nubias (28 Jul 2018)

Yeah I have ADA Amazonia behind the rocks for the back half of the tank. Has been releasing 2-4ppm since the first day, have noticed it dropping towards 1-2 ppm in the last few days so have been dosing Dr Tims ammonia to up the levels. Just haven’t seen nitrite yet.


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## TBRO (28 Jul 2018)

Looking really nice! UK stone choice is a bit limited but you’ve some nice ones.

I bet Icelandic aquascapers have some great rocks to collect! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Barbara Turner (28 Jul 2018)

Cool, sounds like you have it all in hand. Only real way to speed it up is get hold of some used filter media. It will get there soon enough. 

Next one to worry about  / research will be brown algae / diatoms.


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## Nubias (3 Aug 2018)

Day 21

Still no nitrites registering, wondering if the low ph is stalling things. Ammonia 1-2ppm and nitrate 5-10ppm. I am away for a week so hopefully around day 30 should see some progress and maybe time for a first trim. Also added hydrocotyle tripartita under left hand wood.


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## Edvet (4 Aug 2018)

Just a quick remark, watch out with your flow. You can't "bounce "flow of each other, let the flow of your filter and  skimmer enhance each other.


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## Nubias (4 Aug 2018)

Thanks Ed,

That was the intention with placement there, the stock internal angles towards the front so was trying for a little boost to get a clockwise circulation whilst keeping surface clean. It’s on its lowest flow setting, in hindsight flow is hard to control with that internal but I kind of new that already when I bought the tank.


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## Barbara Turner (4 Aug 2018)

I doubt your anywhere near the recommended 10x tank volume through the filter per hour. 
I can see what your trying to do bouncing the flow off the front glass, setting up two circulation patterns the main one on the left, a smaller in the right front corner. 

You can see where your dead spots are where all the muck builds up. 

If it works for you great, if you start having problems I would swap the output on the filter to something straight and bring the skimmer to the front.  Trying to setup a big  anticlockwise  loop.


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## SolarPear (4 Aug 2018)

Nubias said:


> Thanks Ed,
> 
> That was the intention with placement there, the stock internal angles towards the front so was trying for a little boost to get a clockwise circulation whilst keeping surface clean. It’s on its lowest flow setting, in hindsight flow is hard to control with that internal but I kind of new that already when I bought the tank.



Hi Nubias

I was thinking about purchasing that surface skimmer. Whats your review on it thus far and is it noisy?


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## Nubias (4 Aug 2018)

Thanks Barbara,

Was also planning on upgrading the internal pump to the 1000lph version to increase turn over. Still doesn’t get me anywhere near 10x but maybe a worthwhile cheap upgrade.

Solar Pear,

The skimmer is probably one of the best bang for buck aquarium hardware items out there. I decided there was probably a reason it was used in a lot of the Green Aqua show tanks along with a lot at my local stores. On its lowest flow setting it’s very quiet. Makes a little bit of noise if you have it set on max as it sucks a bit of air also and puts out micro bubbles also.

Keeps surface nice and clean too


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## Nubias (16 Aug 2018)

Waterchange day, still waiting for cycle to finish Ammonia at .5ppm now at week 5 Nitrites have never shown but producing nitrate.

Starting to get a few snails that have some from some plants. I think I have identified them correctly as tadpole snails..... hmmmmm


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## dw1305 (16 Aug 2018)

Hi all,





Nubias said:


> Has been releasing 2-4ppm since the first day, have noticed it dropping towards 1-2 ppm in the last few days so have been dosing Dr Tims ammonia to up the levels.





Barbara Turner said:


> Have you added to anything to provide you with a source of ammonia? (fish food a piece of dead shrimp/fish, or liquid ammonia)
> 
> You should see the various spikes of first ammonia and then nitrite finally nitrate.
> 
> ...


 I also like to have fully matured tanks before I add any livestock, but you don't actually ever need to add any ammonia to a planted tank. 

If you have a tank without plants you need the filter to be "cycled", because you are reliant on it for nitrification, but if you have plant/microbe filtration you don't have a single point of failure (the filter) and you have much greater biological filtration capacity. Basically as the plants grow in they produce an environment that nurtures a diverse and resilient microbial community. 

It is a long thread, but <"Bacteria/biological starters"> covers this subject in some detail. The main reason we know more is that new techniques for identifying nitrifying organisms (RNA and DNA analysis) has shown that the microbial communities you get under high ammonia loading are very different from the the ones you get in aquarium biofilters, and that Archaea are much more important than we realized.

There is a good/Blog article at AquariumKids <"Archaea in Aquaria: Tiny Organisms, Huge Discovery">.

You can see Dr Tim Hovanec's more recent comments in this aricle <"Bacteria Revealed">.

cheers Darrel


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## Barbara Turner (16 Aug 2018)

Hi Darrell 
I've just read through the links, makes a interesting read, I can't see where you get the conclusion. 

Plants aren't going to provide a source of ammonia, be great if they did save a fortune on EI chemicals. 



dw1305 said:


> you don't actually ever need to add any ammonia to a planted tank.



To perform his second tests to evaluate cycling he actually doses the tanks with ammonium chloride 

"tanks dosed with ammonium chloride"

I think most the people on here know that products that claim to improve cycle time have very marginal benefits, I read somewhere the gel products are the best of a bad bunch. 

The bacteria Nitrospira that we all need in our tank is found through out our tanks.


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## dw1305 (16 Aug 2018)

Hi all, 





Barbara Turner said:


> Plants aren't going to provide a source of ammonia, be great if they did save a fortune on EI chemicals.


Yes that is really the point, plants deplete ammonia and you don't need to add ammonia to cycle the tank, because you are never solely reliant on the microbial filtration in the filter, and you will never again have ammonia levels anything like as high as the amount you've added. 

Low ammonia loadings encourage the formation of a diverse microbial assemblage, and it is this diversity that produces a resilient and flexible response to fluctuating nutrient levels, basically you haven't put all your eggs in one basket. There are links to some references in this thread <"Siporax vs.......">.





Barbara Turner said:


> To perform his second tests to evaluate cycling he actually doses the tanks with ammonium chloride


 Yes these aren't planted tanks, so are reliant on microbial filtration, he talks about planted tanks in this article, <"Aquatic plants......"> it is from 1997, so that it pre-dates the use of DNA libraries.  

The prime metric in nitrification isn't actually the ammonia concentration, it is the dissolved oxygen level. As you have water with greater amounts of organic pollution its Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) increases, BOD values range from clean water at below 5 mg/l dissolved oxygen up to about 600 mg/L in raw sewage. Water is fully saturated with oxygen at about 10 mg/L, so you can see that you would need to continually add oxygen for nitrification to occur. Sewage works do this via the <"Activated Sludge"> process (below).



 
Photo by John Rostron, CC BY-SA 2.0, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14228830>

<"Plant/microbe filtration"> is much more effective than microbe only filtration, and can deal with huge bioloads. The plants take up all forms of fixed nitrogen (including ammonia), are net oxygen producers and provide a much larger area for nitrification to occur in the substrate.

cheers Darrel


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## Grant Binnie (18 Aug 2018)

Really good looking tank. Great use of rocks and wood. This has made me even more keen to get my tank and start aquascaping. Good work!


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## Nubias (26 Aug 2018)

So cycle completed around day 40. Today I picked up a couple of full size bunches of hygrophila and what was sold as narrow ludwigia (however I think it’s actually repens or a cross with repens? Thoughts?) as I wanted instant height towards the right hand side of the tank. Also school of black neons added and some  Caridina Longirostris.

Plan for panda corydoras for bottom level, what other livestock should I look at? Prefer a deeper body tetra or other South American fish.


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (27 Aug 2018)

Not sure of your water hardness but some deep bodied tetra include; lemon, x-ray, rosy, red/black phantom, flame, diamond, serpae tetra. You have essentially black and white fish so far so you need to decide if you want to continue that theme or not. You should think about the upper level too, maybe hatchetfish or pencil fish. Maybe also a dwarf cichlid as a centrepiece fish if your going South American. Also maybe otos for algae/diatom control?


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## Barbara Turner (27 Aug 2018)

Don't be into much of a rush to add fish too fast, or you will still get some nasty spikes in ammonia. 
Nerite Snails are also effective for reducing algae. 

If you decide to add cherry shrimps they do a great job at cleaning but it does limit what you can add fish wise. 

I recently added 8 dwarf neon rainbow fish and have been very impressed.


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## Nubias (13 Sep 2018)

Update,

Bit of a trim last week, added a larger anubias and changed to Aquascaper complete fertilizer daily dosing 4mm. Rotala is responding really well to the aquascaper fertz.

Still battling algae, have covered about 30% of both led tubes so may increase to 40-50% if things don’t improve soon. Ended up splitting some flexi conduit 3 pieces 90mm long at various points along each tube. Mainly green thread/hair type but have some bba appearing too. Photos don’t do the algae justice lol.

Also added diamond tetras and some cherry shrimp.


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## Barbara Turner (13 Sep 2018)

Floating plants like duck weed are the other easy way to cut down light. Can just be a bit of a pain to get rid of. 

 I found filling a stringe with seachem flourish and spraying the algae that I couldn't clean off pretty effective. Once dead the shrimps do a pretty good job of cleaning it off.  

Keep up the battle, as the plants get larger and better established it gets easier.


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## Nubias (23 Sep 2018)

Bit of a trim and tidy up, algae control getting easier with less light.


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## alto (23 Sep 2018)

Tank looks pretty awesome 

Aren’t photos grand 
- no visible algae


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (23 Sep 2018)

Looks like James Findley style


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## Nubias (23 Sep 2018)

Haha I wish Matt, it’s all good until you zoom alto


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## Lee iley (23 Sep 2018)

Very nice looking tank I like the lay out.


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## Nubias (14 Oct 2018)

Tank at 3 months today, so much settled and stable than a month ago. Fish are happy plants are doing ok and algae growth under better control thanks to the advice to block some light. Just have a small amount of BBA to spot treat.

Excuse the angle I was trying to stop reflections.


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## J@mes (14 Oct 2018)

That growth looks lush


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## Nubias (6 Feb 2019)

Update photo, thinking of changing some of the stems soon to mix it up. Been trying to get this one back on track, missed maintenance and inconsistent maintenance has led to some BBA and othe algae issues.


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## Marc Davis (6 Feb 2019)

Looks great. Get a single SAE. Will eat through BBA in no time and keep it away.


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## Nubias (13 Mar 2019)

Slight rescape, pulled out driftwood and massive trim. This tank will be broken down soon so just trying to bring plants back to good health.


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