Tank has now been planted for 18 days.
Cycle is now complete and I have suffered from various types of algae, but I am hoping that things are now in hand with the help of the ottos, SAE's and amanos which all seem to have done a stirling job. Yes, I do already have shrimp escapees in the weirs and the sump, as predicted!
As yet, I have not yet braved another water change and I know that I am now overdue, so will tackle this over the next couple of days.
Lighting has been 4 x 80W t5's for 6 hours from the start and growth has been great with many plants, but not that great with others, especially the Staurogyne, Hydrocotyle verticillata, Eleocharis parvula and the Christmas moss. This has all suddenly picked up within the last week and I think this might be due to the fact that I have started to dose easycarbo. The Shinnersia rivularis "Weiss-Grun" has also started to look a little yellow and this has now greened up as well and I think this is also due to the easycarbo. This leads me to think that my CO2 distribution is still not yet up to scratch, so I have tweaked that up another knotch also. (Hair algae - is this due to poor CO2 distribution, as I still have a few threads here and there?). I have also noticed that the Nesaea crassicaulis and Ludwigia glandulosa appear rather elongated, so I am again assuming that this is due to lack of CO2 as is he fact that I seem unable to get the glosso to grow neatly against or within the substrate. It sends out runners and these have roots, but just sit on top of the substrate, rather than get a grip within it, or am I just being impatient here?
I am keen to address the CO2 issue (if I have one?), but I don't think ramming even more mist in there alone is going to do the trick, so I would ideally like to make a DIY CO2 reactor that would fully dissolve the gas before it gets into the tank. I have plenty of room in the sump to do this and I would like to use a 10" water filter housing and pump to do so; I would be very interested to hear from others that have made a success of this, or another type of DIY reactor for a large volume of water.
Dosing ferts has remained the same since day 1 and I am now thinking that I might need to increase this and would again appreciate any advice on this.
For now, here are (quite a few!) pictures to show progress so far ......