Fluval Roma 240 first attempt at planted tank

[SteveMid]

Hi everyone,
First planted tank after getting back into the hobby after 35 years. It’s been a very steep learning curve but a few months in and plants established well. I managed to control quite a few algae problems at the start with combination of switching to co2 injection, floating plants, thriving colony of amanos and some nerite snails.
Only regret has been my choice of substrate - it was inexperience on my part - but will learn for my next one.
I’m looking for recommendations of what other fish (single type) to add to my shoal of 14 neon tetras. I want ones that won’t attack the shrimp, etc. but be quite striking in appearance.

 

[bazz]

Black Neons?

 

[Karmicnull]

You may be regretting the substrate choice, but the planting on the gravel is really lovely. Beats the pants off bare soil IMO.

 

[SteveMid]

Black Neons?

They look nice fish - will check them out. I presume they are the same sort of size. Are they as easy to keep as the neons?

 

[bazz]

They may get a couple of mm bigger, and I would have to say they are one of easiest/best fish I've kept in the past.

 

[SteveMid]

Where has the time gone?! I had fully intended to update this at fairly regular intervals. Almost two years later my tank is still flourishing and got to point where I don’t have to rely so much on the fast growing stem plants and floating plants to keep things stable (although I think dialling down the lighting intensity helped). Reading the various threads on here has been so much help. Maybe the tank is still quite overgrown for some peoples liking but I do prefer the natural look. I had the odd algae issue along the way but learnt so much overcoming these inevitable occurrences (again ukaps so helpful). One plant I have really struggled to maintain however is my Alternanthere reinecki “mini” and “pink” stem. The leaves seem to get holes in them and not sure if my Amano shrimps are eating them but I just can’t get it established. I eventually went for the addition of some Serpae tetra and love these fish (even managed to breed a small additional shoal as a side project 😀). See updated pic.

 

[SteveMid]

just a little update. Still happy with how things go with this tank. All plants and inhabitants perfectly healthy. Only thing that is bugging me is over the last couple of weeks a surface film keeps appearing in between water changes. I have never experienced this before. The only thing that has changed recently is that I have added quite few more serpae tetra that I bred a month or so ago so assume it’s related somehow to increased bio load. What sort of things can I do to stop this happening?

 

[Hufsa]

Such cute serpae babies!! 😍🥰

 

[Liam]

The tank and filters will probably catch up with the extra load. You can increase surface agitation so it gets mixed up in the water and into the filters, you could add a surface skimmer or an old method use paper towel, put the paper flat on the water and it will take the film with it when removed, I used to use an airline tube held at the surface and suck the film off during water changes.
The serpae look great.

 

[SteveMid]

Thanks @Liam for the advice 👍 will try these and hopefully things settle down

 

[SteveMid]

Surface film now under control with a bit more surface agitation and time, thanks @Liam for advice. Plant growth seemed to be getting a bit stunted so started dosing micros a month ago for the first time. This has definitely improved things. Just over 3 years old now this set up.