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Absolute Beginner’s Descent into Madness with a Superfish Scaper 90L

Poppins

Member
Joined
14 Oct 2023
Messages
43
Location
London
Hello there.

So I was already into the second or third week of having a planted tank that I came across this forum, or rather, that I realised this same forum was frequently popping up whenever I wanted to figure something out. And it was perhaps a week after that when I found the journals page and thought I might like to start a journal. It was a bit too late at that point of course, and it took me a while to actually get around to it, so it’s a bit retrospective (I am now about 6 weeks in), a bit sketchy, and I didn’t take particularly helpful photos along the way. But still, hopefully better than nothing.

I should warn the faint of heart that I’ll talk about water testing a lot here. I know that a lot of users of this forum consider them inaccurate and pointless. Well, partly I was testing a lot at the start because at that point nothing I read had suggested otherwise. But also, for me as a complete beginner I still feel they are “good enough” to spot various trends and issues I might not otherwise have discovered (until it was too late anyway). I accept that they are flawed, and that using your eyes, nose and common sense is often more helpful, but until you get your eyes and nose tuned in with experience, these are not that much use either (and sadly, in my case, common sense may never come).

So, with that trigger warning out of the way, the story is ready to begin. Are you sitting comfortably? I mean it, there are a lot of words coming up, and the occasional badly taken iphone photo.

The Cast :

The Chief Technical Officer - never had any fish, was always jealous of their cousin’s fish tank as a kid (a “Japanese Fighting Fish” as it was known then, and some neon tetras). Prone to over-researching/over-thinking every decision, either beforehand (invariably leading to Analysis Paralysis), or afterwards (invariably leading to Buyer’s Remorse). Often somehow manages to achieve both with the same decision.

The Creative Director - had a goldfish in a bowl as a student, insists it was fine and healthy for years “until some builders knocked it over and killed it”. Has strong aesthetic principles leading to the rejection of pretty much any fish tank you’ll find in a store (the tank itself that is, not the contents).

The Client - Loves Octonauts and Steve Backshall, so his ideal aquarium inhabitant would probably be a hammerhead shark. Perhaps with some effort I could talk him down to a sting ray. Loves nature in theory, but has the patience of a small child, because, well …

Prologue

A couple of months ago, The Creative Director announced to The Chief Technical Officer that she’d like to get The Client a goldfish (in a traditional bowl/small tank) for his sixth birthday. “I’m not sure that’s considered fair on the goldfish these days” said The Chief Technical Officer “Let me just do some research”.

FADE TO BLACK

Caption : “A week later”

Day B minus 2:

The Chief Technical Officer (aka “I”, for it is me) is in the Morden branch of Maidenhead Aquatics two days before the birthday to choose between a Superfish Scaper 60 and an Aquamanta Nano 60 for a planted tropical community tank. Both have the clean hoodless design stipulated by the Creative Director (aka “my wife”, for it is she), I was quite keen on a tank with a lid (because, you know, evaporation, jumping fish, dust, dropping the TV remote in the tank, possible future cat, potential labyrinth fish with cold noggins, and other imagined disasters) so was leaning towards the AquaNano which has a glass lid (and filter/etc neatly hidden behind black glass in the back). However, the big heavy single piece of glass for a lid seemed like an invitation to disaster, and the clearer/whiter glass of the Superfish Scaper was much more appealing. “Oh well, I guess we can just avoid fish that jump” I naively thought (turns out, whenever you try and look it up, that is basically ALL OF THEM). Also, “oh look, there’s a Superfish Scaper 90 which will just fit into the space. “It’s going to sound like sales talk, but you should always go for as big a tank as possible” said the helpful sales person. Of course, they would say that, but, it turns out, so does everyone else. After some calls home to double check the measurements of the dedicated location, and some anxious to-ing and fro-ing (it was going to be a very tight fit, not so much for the tank as for the light, but I figured I could replace it or somehow lower it if needed), went for the 90L.

The tank comes with a strong LED light, a big HOB filter (Superfish Hang on Filter 200), a foam base, some backing material, some Flora Grow Plant Fertilizer and FloraGrow Carbon “CO2 Alternative”, so just need a few bits and bobs “This won’t cost much” I think “Ho, Ho, Ho” laughs the experienced fish keeper.

Heater : Aqua Eco 100 - Went for covered glass because I am a klutz. Actually ended up accidentally picking a slightly underpowered heater for the tank size, as picked it out when thinking of the 60L and forgot to reconsider after upsizing, so will probably need to upgrade (or add additional heater) before winter sets in. Also, I note the instructions say it is designed to operate at a room temperature of 20 degrees, and may not work properly below that ... mate, if I kept my sitting room at a constant 20 degrees I probably wouldn't need a bloody tank heater!

Additional filter : Aqua internal filter 100. Got an internal filter, not because I wanted to massively over-filter the tank, but because I thought the HOB wouldn’t fit in the space the tank was going into. Seems a pretty decent filter, downside is it is replaceable cartridges, but you can very easily open the cartridge and clean the foam and replace the carbon/etc balls (or remove and replace with ceramic/etc if I don’t feel the need for chemical filtration.

Substrate : “I need a substrate for planting” I told the salesperson, “Well, you can either do it the simple way with a single layer, or the slightly more complicated way with different layers” “The easy way of course!” I said, because sometimes, in the heat of the moment, I forget that I will later obsess over whether “easy” necessarily means “best”. So they grabbed me two 5L bags of Colombo Flora Base Pro. I have a number of regrets over this choice which I’ll come back to in a later post, but without getting too far ahead of myself, I can safely say that one big regret is that I didn’t think to ask the price … £40 a bag ... two bags … yowch!

CO2 : Not gonna go down that road. Slow and low is good enough for me.

Also got a starter pack with dechlorinator, “bacteria in a bottle” (did this actually do anything, I'll never know), and some flake food. A net, and gravel vac, also a nitrite test kit to establish when the tank was cycled (with that sentence I have probably lost 80% of my audience here, but hey, don’t hate me, I hadn’t discovered UKAPS yet!)

Noticed afterwards that a lot of the products I was advised to get were "Aqua" which appears to be MA's own brand. Funny that.

Finally, the beginnings of “the fun stuff”. A couple of Cyperus helferi (because I like the look of it), a bunch of Limnophila heterophylla (because the salesperson said it was easy to grow and propagate) and a single solitary bit of Pistia statiotes (dwarf water lettuce) “You'll only need one” said the salesperson “yeah, right” I think to myself.

So, after quite-some-more-money-than-I-had-anticipated, a sloooow taxi ride from Morden home and a carefully co-ordinated child distraction technique (aka Nintendo Switch). We had the beginnings of a surprise tank ready to go hidden away in a spare room (the tank amazingly intact despite what felt like 200 hundred speed bumps on the way). Now we just needed to figure out what to put in it.
 
Day B minus 1

Here, time for a guilty confession. Despite nearly everyone advising against it these days, I opted for fish-in-cycling. As previously mentioned, the tank (and fish) were to be a birthday present, and, while personally I could have happily adopted the policy of “start with a garden, and then introduce the animals”, The Creative Director felt an empty fish tank would have made for a lousy present. In retrospect, I probably could have argued it from a delayed gratification / good things come to those who wait / appreciate nature / learning responsibility angle, but hey, it was a 6th birthday … so quite possibly it would have led to tears. Not as many tears as being presented with a tank of dead or dying fish of course, so I proceeded with caution, but still, in retrospect I wish we had gone for the patience, patience, patience approach. Bottom line is - it was better than getting a goldfish in a bowl, but that’s a pretty low bar.

So, the day before “the big reveal” my wife and I ventured to our LFS, I was prepared to bluff my way past the scandalous fish in cycling bit, but it turns out that was actually their advised method anyway. “Just be sure to keep an eye on Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate levels, and keep changing water as needed” … so, another test kit then, this time for all three nasties (as well as pH, KH and GH).

Also bought some … ermmm … “that bit of wood” and a couple of “that plant there”, as well as “that moss on that bit of wood” (don't worry, there will be pictures later). You might think that with my obsessive researching/overthinking I might be good at getting names and noting them down. You’d be wrong. I mean, I’ll ask all sorts of questions in the shop “is it easy to look after, does it need CO2, will it leach tannins, etc” maybe even “what’s it called” (to be fair, they didn’t always know the answer to this one, I think the plants were a bit more of an after thought in this particular shop), but then once I’ve established it’s probably suitable for the tank, I’ll immediately forget the name, so I’ll have no way of looking additional questions up. I only know the names of the plants I bought the day before because I kept the Aquafleur tags that Maindenhead Aquatics helpfully kept in the pots. This approach (combined with “that looks nice, is it easy to grow” is how we managed to buy another couple of bunches of Limnophila heterophylla despite having just bought some the day before (or maybe it was Limnophila sessiliflora this time, according to Google, “Limnophila sessiliflora has sessile flowers and divided upper aerial leaves, while L. heterophylla has pedicellate flowers and undivided upper aerial leaves” oooookaaaayy … I’ll come back to that when I have either flowers or aerial leaves … or have a clue what pedicellate means)

Last but not least, some fish. After a lot of “oooh, aaaah ... oh, it gets too big/jumps/is not for beginners” we settled on some generic assorted male guppies. This enabled us to get fish that all looked different from one another for interest/variety, but would provide a suitable shoal of the same species to keep each other company.

So, once home and with the fish acclimated into a temporary bucket tank hidden away in the spare room, and an excited last-day-of-being-a-five-year-old asleep, we are finally ready to do a clandestine set up our first ever fish tank.

Did we think to do a nice raking of substrate from from to back? No.

Did we realise that the stem plants should probably be separated from their little weighted bunches and planted individually? No.

Did we realise we should remove the rock wool from those plants which came in it? No

Did we realise how bloody hard it would be to plant stem plants in an incredibly loose and light clay ball substrate? No.

Did I realise I realise how hard it would be to maintain a planted tank when there is a shelf above it obscuring about half of the top of the tank? No

Do I have regrets? Of course, always.

Did we get there in the end? Yes. Come midnight I was finally able to get to bed with a tank with some water, some plants, and some fish in it, reasonably secure that they would all still be alive in the morning.

Did I spend the next month obsessively reading and watching stuff on the internet and convincing myself I had done absolutely everything wrong? Naturally.
 
Act 1 - The Beginning (I have a feeling I will be “beginning” for a very long time)

Day 1 :

Ok, point of order, we have gone from “B minus 1” to “Day 1” without a Day 0. This may bug you, it would definitely bug me. But we’re all just going to have to cope, I am sure I am guilty of far worse crimes (probably). In my defence I have gone from a countdown to the birthday, to a count of days the tank has been set up … so perhaps this should even be Day 2 as it was set up the night before (on Day B minus 1), but I think if I tried to pull that kind of s**t you’d have a fair reason to evict me from the forum permanently.

So, how did that birthday reveal go? We wrapped up the pot of fish food as a “clue”. Inevitably, this led to confusion, which promptly led (immediately after cries of “no, no, don’t open it the lid!”) to smelly fish food flakes being spilled all over our bed (fish-keeping disaster #1 in a series of, no doubt, many).

The Client was very pleased, but almost immediately followed up with “why are they so small, are they going to get any bigger?” “ermmmm …”

To be fair, at this point there was plenty of empty space in the tank. Here’s a picture on day 1:

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Not much to look at is it, stick with me, it gets better.

Water’s a little cloudy, presumably from the substrate (it said not to wash it on the pack) as it’s perhaps a bit too quick for a bacterial bloom, this cleared up within a day. It’s funny looking back how I (and visitors) thought this was a nicely planted natural looking tank. I guess when you are all more familiar with gravel and plastic plants, then any bit of natural decor looks an improvement, no matter how small.

The wood floated (of course) so I weighed it down with some sample bits of slate we had lying round for a couple of weeks until it sank. Then hid these behind that “bit of wood with some moss on it” (Java moss? Christmas moss? Cameo appearance from a bit of Monte Carlo tucked away behind it).

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Mad scaping skills there, bet you’re all jealous.

One of the mystery plants, I think a Rotala, had already made a break for the surface (or at least it did after I decided it should probably come out of its weighted bundle), though I then read that it’s actually good/fine to just let this float for a while until it sends out some roots, then plant it. So that’s what I did. Pretty soon half the leaves melted.

Pink zombie lower leaves (photo taken a few days later, hence the clearer water):

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A rubbish picture of the healthier tops I happen to have on my phone, god knows what I was actually trying to photograph here :

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I don’t think it was a change of environment from LFS, as they didn’t use high light or CO2, it had more likely just come into the shop from either an emmersed or higher tech environment. It is faring ok now, but was almost an iridescent pink to start with, and now (weeks later) is more green with a hint of red. It presumably would be red in a high tech environment but a mystery where the bright pink came from, perhaps it was red leaves on the cusp of melting.
 
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Day 4 :

Nothing major to report, just happened to have a couple of pictures on this day. The water has cleared up and I have a new found respect for the photography skills of people on this forum (never mind their plant/fish keeping skills).

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Over the first couple of weeks I have to do a lot of water changes to keep the ammonia down (daily 25% - 50% to begin with) whilst the bacteria and plants get going. I suspect that more of this ammonia is coming from the substrate (and perhaps the melting plants) than from the fish themselves. I may possibly be over feeding a little, but from the start I have been pretty wary and cautious of this as a potential problem, so probably feeding a lot less than the average beginner. Fish are all doing well, I don’t really know them well enough to say if they are “thriving”, but with all these water changes I’m sure I am shortening the useful life of the substrate, so that’s yet another con for the fish-in-cycling, what’s good for the fish is not good for the plants.

Ok, so probably a good time to go into that “substrate regret” mentioned in the first post. Other than the cost, my two concerns are :

a) the difficulty planting stuff into it. It is super light, and obviously rather coarse, it seems very very hard to plant into. Or maybe all substrates are, and I am just comparing my meagre planting skills to all those whizzy aquascapers on youtube. Either way, I am constantly cursing it every time I plant something into it (or, just as often, replant an escapee). Stems I can kind of handle now, I just drag the bottoms all the way to bottom with tweezers, this may mean the bottom rots a little as the substrate is about 6-7 cm deep. The Monte Carlo became a colony of floating plants in my tank, and I got rid of it after a couple of weeks.

b) the effect on water chemistry. Didn’t spot on the bag before buying “maintains a pH of 6.0 in the water”, and indeed, my water tests were consistently pH <6.4 (the lowest reading on my test strips) now, this may be great for plant growth, but it is probably not great for the fish. It also means (thanks to London's Finest Liquid Rock out of the tap) that I get a big pH swing if I do a big water change. Also, as for the seemingly sensible beginner advice of “buy fish or plants that work for your water parameters, rather than chasing correct water parameters for fish that aren’t suited to your water” well, that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I have hard water with a high pH coming out of the tap, eventually, the substrate will run out of its pH lowering voodoo powers, but in the meantime, I have low pH water with a low KH (carbonate rapidly knocked out by the pH) but high GH. So what kind of inhabitants do I go for next? Or do I just wait (could be several months), until the substrate stops messing with my pH and KH? (at which point all my plants may start dying!)

So, while I’m sure it is doing great stuff for the plants (and they are mostly growing pretty well), I wish I had instead gone for a sand-capped low organics soil substrate with water column dosing (and perhaps occasional root tabs). But these are all concepts I learned about afterwards. Oh well.

Speaking of funky chemistry. Gave the tank a few tentative squirts of the “CO2 Alternative” (came free with the tank) in the early days, but the stark warnings about being toxic and corrosive on the side of the bottle weren’t very reassuring. Neither was the statement "Harmful to aquatic life with long term effects". Looked up what glutaraldehyde (named on the bottle) actually was and how it was supposed to work. Decided against it. If anyone less squeamish wants an almost full bottle of it and can pick it up from Leytonstone, be my guest.

Oh, and my son has already lost interest in feeding the fish. I guess they’re mine now then. This was kind of inevitable, and it was perhaps a bit too much too soon … water changes and underwater pruning are tall orders for a 6 year old (the former would be easier if it wasn't for the hardwood floor and countertops massively raising the stress levels, and the latter would be easier if it wasn't for the bloody shelf above the tank) so it was hard to get him fully involved from the start. I don’t really mind, clearly I got hooked myself along the way. If this little glass box of water, plants, fish, joy and wonder is my responsibility now then it is a responsibility I am happy to take on. Oh, and my wife now agrees that a nice planted tank with a few small fish in it is much more appealing than tank with a single larger fish, and the few plants that a goldfish won't destroy, in it. So, over all a win.
 
Day 8 :

Limnophilas are doing well, have probably already cut and replanted a few tops. Mystery melting red stem plant is still in recovery mode.

Another trip to the LFS to buy some plants which I failed to properly record (though I have a bit of a better sense of what’s what now).

IMG_7633.jpeg



Added a couple of pots of Anubus Nana (petite, I think/hope) and a thin leaved java fern. Also another mystery stem plant, perhaps Altermanthera rosaefolia? It grows on a strong upright stem, so frequently stands proud of the surface, I will probably allow it to become emergent in the long term, but for now I am busy cutting it down when it gets tall in order to propagate it. They all had to sit in their pots for a while before I could plant them.

Notice in the substrate on the right mystery plant number 3 (a red lotus? a red lilly? a red lotus lilly?) from first trip to LFS all I know is that it will get a lot bigger (wife saw a fully grown one in the shop and fell in love with it), though it is taking its sweet time over it. No sign of a bulb though, so does that rule out a lotus?

Also notice on the right the clump of Monte Carlo holding onto the wood for dear life. It wasn't much longer for this world at this point.

Finally notice in the background some Elodea (I think) I got in MA at the very start but forgot to mention.

Some time around here I decided that manually switching the lights on and off was not particularly reliable (and anyway, I had read at this point that intensity matters too) so ordered an S2Pro controller for the light. Great little bit of kit and well worth the cost. I’ve set it up with a midday siesta, the jury seems pretty out on whether this is actually at all effective for enhancing CO2/photosynthesis in a low tech tank, but I like to have the light on in the morning and in the evening, so it works out well from that point of view.
 
Day 18 :

Bought a floating corral for the water lettuce, mainly to keep a chunk away from the outflow of the filters (note, the yellow bits are on the original bit of plant I purchased, the new growth is all pretty green for now):

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Out of one, comes many (I think there is some tucked away in a corner out of view at this point too). Turns out the sales person was right.

Speaking of filters, this is an exemplar of the “Descent into madness” part of the process for me. I have spent a huge amount of time and energy over the past month worrying (ie. overthinking) about many things with regards to the tank, and a big chunk of that is endlessly worrying about position, angle and flow with the filters.

Let’s start with the HOB, this obviously can’t be angled, but can be slid back and forth a bit along the side (putting it on the back wouldn’t really be practical/possible due to the shelf) and the flow rate can be opened up/closed down. Unfortunately, pretty much anything other than the lowest flow and it blasts the substrate up from the bottom and makes a crater on the bottom of the tank. It also blasts mystery plant number 3 (the red lilly/lotus/thing) which often seems to be hanging on for dear life. So really there’s only one option here, but that doesn’t stop me fretting about it.

Onto the internal filter. This has a spray bar, initially I had the spray bar above the water level (the instructions aren’t very clear, but in one part it seems as if this is mandatory for the filter) if I aim it across the tank I get splashes onto the shelf above (not a good idea, unless I fancy a mould farm), if I aim it straight down I’m not sure I’ll get much circulation, I end up aiming it at the side, not least because it is quieter that way.

After a few days I have confidence (from looking at pretty much every other set up) that I can safely submerge the spray bar. Then I spend the coming weeks anxiously making adjustments to the angle as I worry about new things.

"Oh no, with too much surface disturbance all the CO2 needed for the plants will diffuse out of the water, so I must minimise it"

"Oh wait, that may not be true, maximise it again"

“Oh no, guppies don’t like strong currents (according to Google), so I must baffle it/turn it down”

“Oh no, I’ve noticed guppies at the top of the tank, they must all be suffocating, so I must turn it back up and aim it at the surface” (turns out they just go the surface when I approach the tank as they are expecting food).

“Oh no, plants require good circulation, so I must aim it to get best circulation around the tank”

“Oh no, the plants right by the outflow are getting BBA on the bits in the strongest jet, so I must baffle it again”

“oh no, oh no, oh wait, oh no…”

I now have it mostly horizontal, but angled slightly up to maximise surface disturbance (without breaking the surface so as to reduce evaporation), the odd tip of a plant in its path gets BBA growing on it, but I just pick it off every now and then.

Phew. It is probably wrong in some ways and right in others, it probably always will be. I just have to make a decision and stick with it. One day maybe.
 
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Wonderful reading @Poppins you have a great ability to paint pictures with words.
Thanks @John q hopefully that makes up for my inability to take a decent photo 😆 (I do intend to get the "proper" camera out at some point, though I think I gave away my macro lenses)
 
Day 19 :

Finally get around to attaching the anubias and java fern to the driftwood and some new hardscape. Some “Seiryu or landscaping stone” from LFS.

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Is it really Seiryu though? I’d never heard of it, and when I later looked it up it seemed unlikely it would actually be authentic Seiryu stone. But seeing as I’d not been in search of it, it doesn’t bother me if it is just something similar (and it wasn't particularly expensive). I like how it looks which is the main thing ... or is it?

“Will it affect the water chemistry?” I asked, “Nope” said they. Ho ho ho.

I noticed the pH rise from my usual 6-6.5 region to about 7.5 over the next couple of days, triggering another day or two of worrying again that I had done everything wrong and was going to kill my plants and/or fish. I was on the verge of ripping all the plants back off the rocks (and probably having to buy new java fern and anubias to attach to more inert rocks) when the pH came back down again (I realise now it probably just went up because I did a a couple of big water changes after all that planting stirred up the substrate, it did seem to rise steadily over a couple of days, but that could have just been inherent inaccuracy in the testing).

Once the pH came back down I of course remembered that I wasn't particularly happy with it being that low in the first place. Oh well.
 
Day 20 :

A couple of weeks in I started noticing some hitchhikers (I had previously spotted a translucent disc of little blobs on the leaf of mystery plant number three the Red Tiger Lotus (thanks again @GHNelson !) before this, and thought “hmmm … I wonder if those are snail eggs”. After spotting the hitchhikers the disc had turned into an empty ring. "Yup, those were snail eggs then"

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I squished the first couple, but then thought maybe I should look them up and see what they were exactly. I had probably watched or read something by this stage saying not all snails are bad.

I found a “snail identification forum” and funnily enough, pretty much every post was asking to identify these same ones:

Bladder snails.

At this point I was increasingly noticing green algae forming on the sides of the tank, the heater, and elsewhere, and was beginning to have to do regular scrape downs. So decided I would make peace with the molluscs.

They have done a good job. Apart from the aforementioned occasional strands of BBA in the area getting directly blasted by the filter output, the tank is pretty much clean of algae now. The population is steadily rising, so it will be of interest to see if I eventually get the out of control hundreds strong snail swarms. I guess if I do I will just try and keep their numbers down with food traps (and more cautious fish feeding).
 
Just wanted to say as a fellow overthinking newbie I enjoyed the read! 😀

"But wait, there's more!"

Day 23 :

A very bad photo of some kind of critter in the roots of the water lettuce. In case you were wondering, that blob in the centre near the top. I only took it to try and get a closer look, it didn't really work, but the photo on my phone reminds me of "where I was when ..."

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So, I have been going down the “non sterile” road of tank keeping. It was too late for a proper dirty substrate, but I added teaspoon of garden soil here, a pint of rainwater there, a pile of autumn leaves in the corner. Thanks to various buckets, tubs and abandoned bath/sandpit toys left in the garden (not left with any particular intention, some had been there for months with leaf litter a plenty), I had several litres of “assorted micro life” in a variety of environments from “tannins town” to “green water glade”. I tentatively started off by harvesting some mosquito larvae and feeding them to the guppies (“Yum, yum, yum” they said “Die mosquito, die!” I said back).

The hope was to establish a wide diversity of microflora and microfauna in the tank, and to establish a bit of an ecosystem, even if not exactly “closed” because I am having to provide some inputs (ie food) and deal with some outputs (ie water changes). I was doing this not because I thought it meant I could get away with no cleaning or water changes, but because an ecosystem, or just a slice of nature, is much more interesting and beautiful to me than a sterile glass box with some plants and fish in it. I also hoped, and believed based on lots of reading (albeit perhaps self-selected reading), that the more diverse the life in the tank, the more resilient it would be.

So anyway, alongside the mosquito larvae in those buckets I found some cyclops (could tell by their skipping gait), some very thin worms (detritus worms?), some slightly less thin red worms (do we get freshwater bloodworms in the UK?). I cautiously added these to the tank. Some (eg. the thin red worms) got gobbled up before they even hit the substrate. Others seemed to survive. After a few days the anxious thoughts of “I have quite probably filled the tank with parasites and pathogens” passed, and I noticed this little critter clinging to the roots of the water lettuce. It hung around, occasionally crawling very slowly, for a couple of days before vanishing, assumedly eaten by a fish. Meanwhile, the Ammonia had finally bottomed out, nitrites had bottomed out, nitrates were keeping well under tolerances with a weekly water change. “It’s alive, It’s alive!” I thought to myself “I have created an ecosystem, a whole world, I am like a God!”.

This is called hubris.

And this is called foreshadowing.
 
Day 28 :

Well hello there …

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Looks like I have some brown/leopard ramshorn snails as well.

So, at least two species of snails, probably separate inoculations judging by the times of their appearance, from a mere couple of trips to the LFS. I pity those who try and keep their tanks snail free!
 
Day 29 :

Remember my infusoria inoculations, my ecosystem dreams, my little eden. Well, those microfauna weren’t feeding the fish, they were feeding these …

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Dun dun deerrrrrr!

I mean, yes, hydra are fascinating and cool, and well, yes, they are part of an ecosystem, they’re just not the ecosystem I wanted. After spotting and immediately identifying my first one (thanks to the excellent thread : Bugs you might encounter in your aquarium) I’d spot more, and more.

There are at least three in this photo

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If I took a photo of anything in the tank I’d notice them photobombing in the background, waiting to strike.

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Did I introduce them with my naive attempts at playing God, or did I just provide some plant-smuggled hitchhikers with an all you can eat buffet leading to a population boom? Who knows. One thing’s for sure, the little specks and spots of microfauna I was proud of have had a population crash. Hopefully the hydra population will follow, and things will get back into balance, that’s kind of the point I guess.
 
Nice one , madenhead aquatics morden are my local shop aswell ,i dont buy plants off them though, its because of them i have bladder snails infestation in my small tank , pets at home sell tropica plants mostly easy ones , i go to the newmalden branch but i think Wimbledon branch have them too.
 
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