Since the new plants went in I've had a few minor issues. A greasy film appeared on the surface. Not very much at all, but as
@ceg4048 tells us, it's a sure sign plants are in distress.
There are a couple of possible causes. I had much reduced filter flow for a couple of days, down from 75% to 25% of maximum flow (the Eheim 2180 has a flow indicator built in). I think I had an airlock in one of the two inlets. Also, the rubbery outlet connector inside the filter was over ten years old, and not in good shape. I replaced that with a new one (better design) and the seal to the impeller housing now seems much better, which can only help with flow capacity.
But also, the plants I introduced had a certain amount of damaged growth, and I think I was a bit overcautious cutting them back - I left some leaves on that were dying, that I should have removed. Most likely, a combination of these two factors (reduced flow and damaged plants) caused the oily film.
The frogbit promptly showed signs of distress including some dieback and green hair algae in the roots of some of the most mature clumps (which I binned, of course).
I found a few strands of GHA elsewhere, and the odd bit of black staghorn algae, all removed by hand.
Despite all this, once corrections were made, the new plants started growing strongly, especially echinodorus Marble Queen, which had had the most damaged foliage to begin with. I'm still removing damaged frogbit, but I'm sure that's just damage already done and only now becoming apparent. It'll bounce back I'm sure. Here it is right now. You can see it's still quite a mess.
I'm doing a 50% waterchange every other day, to keep the scum to a minimum. Right now, I reckon it's the damaged frogbit causing the film.
The Micranthemum Tweediei Monte Carlo has had another trim. I read somewhere you should be bold, and trim it as soon as it's looking perfect, to stop it becoming too thick and getting dieback at the base, so that's what I'm doing. Really impressed with what a compact, dense carpet it is forming, with just a gentle press down after the trim to keep it tight. Great little plant!
And I've been surprised by Anubias barteri nana 'Pinto' which, despite having to compete with an aggressive clump of Hygrophila pinnatifida (and enduring that first major algae attack), seems to be doing really well and producing some very pale new leaves. Be interesting to see how it progresses with so little chlorophyll in those new, near-white leaves. The H. pinnatifida is being kept at bay, rest assured.
I've also put in new inlets and spraybar, the Eheim installation sets 1 & 2, which are great quality, and should make cleaning tubes and repriming the filter even easier. Coarse sponges are now on the inlets, in preparation for the addition of cherry shrimp.
And (controversially) I've added a decorative feature - a terracotta urn from Amtra. I'm not at all sure about this, but we'll see how I like it over time.
I also have an Amtra Jaguar skull. That will ONLY be going in the tank when we have small people visiting, just for fun!
Here's the tank as it is right now.