Saturday dawned overcast and cold but, nothing daunted, I girded up my loins and set off to collect my plants, ready to finally set up my tank. The thirty miles to beautiful downtown Croydon passed in moments as I took in a couple of podcasts from BBC's History of the World in a Hundred Objects - dead cultural, me...
I arrived outside Living Waters and wondered whether to park there. For the uninitiated, the outside of the emporium could easily be mistaken for a sex shop or, ahem, what I am given to understand that a sex shop looks like.
Once inside, however, the true wonderful nature is revealed. Or at least it is after about five minutes, which is the time it takes the condensation on my glasses to disappear.
A number of carefully maintained and presented tanks greet the visitor and I usually spend the acclimatization time gazing through crystal clear waters at their contents. Care has to be exercised however. At the far end of this part of the shop is a very large floor-based tank set out for cichlids, but they shield a dark secret... In its depths lurk two monsters, two prehistoric forbears of the humble catfish, who gaze hungrily through their glazed prison walls, and I swear one of them licks his lips as I slide nervously past their domain.
By this time, I am ready to take delivery, but the festering volcanic ash has delayed more than half of my order.
But no matter, I am given excellent advice as to how to plant what is available, and given suggestions about substitutes while awaiting the orignal selections.
After a very pleasant hour or so, I am speeding homewards, having slipped past Stadtler and Waldorf sitting at the bottom of their lair, their expressions showing eternal patience and limitless hunger...
Home again, and I've drained the tank down to an inch or so above the substrate. In the meantime, I've mastered my fears about the dreaded CO2 cylinder, bolted on the (second) AZOO regulator, walked outside, removed the safety pin and squeezed (my eyes closed) and then, heart beating quickly, the handle. Not even a pfftt, if you know what I mean! I even wondered if I had done it properly but the gauges were registering.
Now, dear reader, you will have realised by now that the word that frequently comes to mind when describing my technical abilities is - numpty. :? So when confronted with readings which did not seem to match those that others on the forum have shared, I was a tad concerned. Like how do you vary the pressure? Other regulators seem to have a knob to turn the outlet pressure down - apart from the fine tap regulating the flow, I can see nothing that I can use.
I had cut the Eheim tubing and fixed my snappy little inline diffuser in place, dithered about which way round a non-return valve should be installed, and linked the piping to my FE. I have retained all the green tubing, deciding not to replace it with some clear stuff I ordered from AE. I may yet use that, but not until I lash out on some glassware or I find some other clear alternatives to the current spray bar and inlet. The clear tubing is less thick that Eheim's and I fear it may kink more easily.
At last I could get on with the planting! Those wonderful people at PlantedBox had kindly lent me some tools while they awaited new stocks of their nice aquascaping kit, and I set to with a will. Placing some cyperus helferi was pretty easy, I coped reasonably well with some rotalas, blyxas, downoi, and some eleocharis parvula, but fiddling about with some HC was a trial. It hasn't got any roots
and I was at a loss as to how to get it to stay in the substrate. Burying it seemed to be the somewhat drastic solution, leaving just a few leaflets above the surface to mark the resting place.
Here's a 'how goes it':
and here's the situation so far:
Only a couple of floaters...
I took the rotalas mainly to try to bulk up the biomass, while I await the remainder of my order. Consequently, it is rather lop-sided but I hope to rectify that soon.
Here's another piccie showing off my main investment at AE:
No, I don't meant the wallpaper, its the silvery thingy on top. Very smart, to my mind, but I'm not averse to experimenting in the future with the lamps inside. Two of them are pink, and I will reserve judgement until I can see their effect on fully grown plants and fish.
So, eventually refilling and throwing the switch left me somewhat taken aback - it all seemed to work! That doesn't usually happen to me
but the Co2 is coming through the spraybar in a lovely fine mist and flow seems good to my untrained eyes. I hate the appearance of the spraybar, but it does seem to do what it says on the tin.
I'm only using one half of the lighting for about 6 hours in the evening, and I'm dosing Brighty K and Easy Carbo daily as recommended by TGM Graeme, the fountain of all knowledge.
Thanks for looking at this. I really enjoyed my first experience of planting, and although it's nothing special to look at now, i have hopes for it. I haven't updated for some time, I'm afraid, but would appreciate any comments/tips about further fleshing out the 'scape.