As usual the fast-follow post with words ends up being several weeks later. At which point all the photos are out of date. Hey ho.
For the obsessives amongst you (and yes, I'm definitely one of them), here are the gory details:
Substrate: Tropica Aquasoil, a bit of JBL Manado in the corner, and some arbitrary aquarium sand from some corner of the interweb
Water: 80% Rainwater / 20% Tapwater. Works out as about GH 5 and KH 4.
Ferts regime: Loosely based on one of the many from Vin Kutty's Rotala Kill Tank thread. A low-N version of EI with a bit of Urea thrown in, dosed at 30% as this is low-tech. Micros are APFUK with extra EDDHA FE (the micros are used across all my tanks, and the biggest is all tap water and PH 8+). Yeah I know that's pretty vague. I'll do a proper post dedicated to this either here or on the lean dosing thread. I'm still working out what my destination ferts are - there are some interesting suggestions knocking around, so this is going to change.
Lighting: Two dirt cheap lights from ebay, of which one has about 20% of its LEDs covered with little red stickers, as it felt too bright. At some point I'll upgrade these....
Filter: Tetra EX1200 plus. Nominally 1200LPH, so plenty for this 70L tank, but in practice I suspect not remotely close to that. Connected to metal Lily pipes which look beautiful but are puzzling me at the moment. More on that in a bit.
Livestock: just spare snails and cherry shrimp in there who are doing a not-quite-good-enough cleanup job. I'm interested in people's opinion on fish. More on that in a bit too.
Hardscape: Frodostone, Carboniferous Limestone from Cheddar Gorge, and about 10 pieces of wood from Aquarium Gardens, the Abyss warehouse in Stockport, and Ali Express. In case you are wondering my younger son started at Manchester Uni last September, and I have worked out a route between there and Cambridge that conveniently happens to pass the Abyss warehouse. My daughter is a couple of years off Uni, so I'm keenly researching what ones are near Horizon Aquatics and Scaped Nature. I need to make sure she makes a choice that will set
me her up for life.
Plants (the good bit): these break into two lots: The ones I bunged in to give a bit of mass to kick the tank off that are all off-cuts from other tanks and will likely not be permanent, and the ones that will be there long term:
Bunged in:
AR Mini, Crypt Wendtii brown, Heteranthera zosterifolia (Star Grass), Hygrophila Siamensis 53B, Potamogeton Gayi (slender pondweed), Limnophila sessiliflora (Asian Marshweed).
Long term:
Floaters - Limnobium Laevigatum (Amazon Frogbit), Pistia Stratiotes (water lettuce)
Anubias Nana Pinto
Anubias Nana Pangolina
Aponogeton Madagascariensis (Madagascar Lace Plant)
Bucephelandra Pygmea "Bukit Kelam"
Bucephelandra Mercedes
Bucephelandra Green Jade
Bolbitis heteroclita difformis
Cryptocoryne Flamingo
Cryptocoryne Parva
Eriocaulon Cinereum
Helanthium Bolivianum "Chain Sword"
Helanthium tenellum 'Green' (pygmy chain sword)
Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Brazilian Pennywort)
Hydrocotyle Tripartitia Japan (Three-part pennywort)
Microsorum Pteropus (Java Fern)
Nymphaea micrantha
Pogostemon Helferi
Taxyphyllum Barbieri (Java Moss)
Vesicularia Ferriei ('Weeping' Moss )
And at some point in the future once I've sorted the ferts out some Ammania and some Rotala will go in. And anything else that piques my interest.
Here are some of them.
Water Lily
Anubias Pangolino and Bolbitis
H. Leucocephela
Buce Bukit Kelam
Ericaulon Cinereum, This is my wild card plant. It shouldn't really survive, but if it does it will look awesome!
An arty frogbit shot just for the hell of it
Side tank shot showing the Crypt. Flamingo, Crypt Parva, the Madagascar lace plant, and the crazy growth that the dwarf chain sword has put on. The Madagascar lace plant was growing nice small leaves for a month or so in the potting shed / quarantine tank, and then I planted it here and it's gone bonkers with these huge leaves - it's putting out about one a week. I've also been snipping a leaf off the Lily every week as well. This is supposed to be a low tech slow growth tank dammit. Why won't these plants behave?
And finally the latest FTS with enthusiastic chain swords and the usual complementary reflections.
Will look brilliant when grown in
Thanks - fingers crossed!
Cheers,
Simon