Ive been playing with a few ideas, I thought I would write them out in the journal to get it all sorted in my head.
Being the last bit of equipment I need, the CO2 reactor is estimated to arrive around feb 10. This is an aliexpress estimate, so means it can arrive around then, arrive 6-12 months later, not arrive at all, or arrive and turn out to be a pair of sunglasses. But like a physics problem, lets assume friction = 0 and that it arrives around that time.
The tank probably wont be optimally stable by then, but then again theres not a lot of things in life that is optimal so thats just gonna be how it is
😉
A few weeks ago I noticed how much the banked sand had slid down and settled at the front of the tank, no doubt this process was accelerated by the digging activity of the fishsticks. The sliding of the sand planted a seed of annoyance within me, which was watered further by
@erwin123 and
@plantnoobdude having fun experiments with lean dosing and rich substrate without me
So I started thinking what if I redid my substrate a bit, and I could go for Tropica soil in mesh bags in the bottom, and then cap it with a decent layer of sand, which I would spruce up a little bit by adding some percentages of the larger grain sizes.
In addition to my current 0.1-0.5mm there is available 0.3-0.8, 0.7-1.2, and 2.0-3.5mm.
Whenever I see someone's tank has mixed sizes of sand and gravel I always think it looks really nice and natural, so maybe I should just dive in and go for it..
Having some rich substrate in the bottom should make it more probable with success on lean dosing.
Having a few issues with OCD, I immediately figured that I will need to calculate the exact percentages to add of the different sizes, probably in a sort of exponential way, to make the result look the most natural. Yes, I can also see the wonderful irony in that line of thought
I have also been thinking of going for a slightly less steep slope, to make it a bit easier for the sand to stay in place. 0.1-0.5 is about as fine as you will get for aquariums, and it moves very easily. When I set up the tank I went for a slope that banked up to 1/3 of the tank height, this was in hindsight totally outrageous and looked very strange without equally dramatic hardscape to go along with. Needless to say its not banked up to 1/3 any more. I shuffled it back a bit when I was getting the gunk out yesterday, so we will see how it does in a slightly more moderate slope and no "help" levelling from the fish.
I kinda want to keep the main basis of the sand the 0.1-0.5 size, mostly to spite people who say plants dont grow in it.
I think there is something wrong with my personality, because as soon as someone says you cant do something, my response is immediately:
"OH YEAH?! ..We'll see about that!"
I just cant help it.
But I definitely want to do CO2 + inert substrate for a while first, based on the same contrarian principles mentioned above. Im thinking to make things simple I will just go full EI when I turn on the CO2, otherwise im going to have to play whack-a-mole with deficiencies for ages and the fun of doing that has somewhat fizzled out.
Another unrelated idea that has been swirling around in that noggin of mine is gradually increasing my GH to see if it helps my shrimp tolerate large waterchanges better..
Lots of things to try in the future! Im excited
