Interesting stuff everyone.
Ok, an update from me, yesterday, I spent a few hours cleaning and making changes. I have replaced the inlet pipe with the surface skimmer and glass inflow that sits nice and close to the substrate to at least help with the ongoing filtration and a better chance at picking up detritus from the area of most accumulation and now sits at the front of the tank moving the outflow to the back. I've cleaned the pre-filter which was needing another clean for sure and inside the canister. Most weren't too bad but the most accumulation was actually on the bottom foam.
Knowing how much detritus I was removing each session I decided to take everything out including uprooting all my plants so I could see all the detritus on the soil and that I could agitate the soil to release more of it initially into the water column then to settle on the top of the substrate vacuuming it out with the hose. I did this at least 3 times. At the same time, I decided to reduce the soil level and have less of an incline mainly to increase the water column amount and to give stem plants at the back more room to grow. A little way in after the aquascape was going I sort of regretted making the soil so deep so I took that opportunity to try something new. I bought a small wire brush to remove as much of the algae from the rocks as possible. At the moment, the water is looking super clean and clear, There's a possibility that I got used to seeing the water less than clean but in my eyes actually looked clean but really it could have been better, like something I got used to and forgetting what really clean water looks like. After maintenance, it did look clean but perhaps not as clean as it could be but not knowing how clean it can really look, it didn't occur to me (I hope you get what I mean lol).
Anyhow, I'm happy with my progress, the next steps that I can think of are...
1, Perhaps taking up those old roots.
2, Re-arranging the hardscape to a better position.
3, Re-planting
4, Good filter maintenance, pre-filter once a week, canister once a month (looking at the tank now, I don't think it's going to need a more intense regime than that, it's looking a lot cleaner)
4a, To decide on the current maintenance regime and water change schedule.
5, Checking the nitrate levels, (any other levels to check?)
6, Keeping an eye on the plants to see what effect my efforts will have on them.
7, Think about a sparing amount of root tabs.
Again thanks to everyone for your support, I really was close to letting all this beat me and you saved me, I may get an interview for a trainee train driver in the future, and one of the questions that may get asked is, tell us a time you solved a difficult problem and this could be a great answer as problems ain't that difficult to overcome at my current work. Anyway, I digress. Hopefully tomorrow I can get more done.
What size hose do you think would be good for smaller aquariums? Less than 5cm in diameter?
