Another update, again pictures (and editing) aren’t too great as I am still stuck using my camera phone! Tank will have been filled 3 weeks come Sunday and the growth from all the plants is fantastic! Added a few more stem plants in favor of the hair grass that was in there initially which have quite a bit of growing out to do yet. I also added some red crystal shrimp and assassin snails.
Plants are:
Hemianthus callitrichoides
Pogostemon helferi
Micranthemum umbrosum
Micranthemum micranthemoides
Rotala wallichii
Plants are pearling VERY heavily within 30 mins of the light coming on.
For those who want to know my daily dosing regime:
3ppm NO3
0.15ppm PO4
0.5ml JBL Ferropol
1 Drop JBL Ferropol 24
1ml Easycarbo
The NPK is a bit on the lean side, I was dosing 5-6ppm NO3 and 0.5ppm PO4 every other day but I have reduced it slightly and upped the dosing to daily as I was getting a fair bit of algae growth and I am still wary dosing NPK in excess in a nano tank.
50% RO water change every Sunday.
DIY CO2 (2x 2L bottles of yeast and sugar.) direct into filter intake with near 100% dissolution rate/occasional misting via plastic lilly. Air pump to filter outlet on timer that goes on when the lights go off and turns off about 1 hour before lights on
External fluvial 103 approx 400LPH with mature Ehiem substrat pro as media (no sponges or floss)
No heating yet, will add one when I introduce fish, heater cable maintains at about 20c
1x 24w T5 Arcadia plant pro + 24w 6700k Hagen Day glo for photography only. Light is currently suspended 5cm from water surface but can be raised/lowered on the chain for increasing/decreasing intensity or for maintenance as required.
I would really like to get pressurised CO2 and glass/acrylic lilly pipes on here but at the moment I cant afford it.