Well it’s been a while since I have posted an update. The tank has been running for two and a half weeks now.
Overall I think things are going well, plants are all growing, I pruned quite hard a week ago, damm they grow fast. Cutting grass underwater was an interesting experience, collecting the grass was a nightmare, maybe I need some sort of vacuum cleaner (suggestions)
The shrimps (11 of them) seem happy, they spent a few days huddled in a corner, now they are all over the place, ive also seen an epidemic of snails, should I be concerned ?
So im doing regular bi weekly 25% water changes (im getting quite slick at these), and this week I cleaned out a filter, just washed the debris out of the sponges etc using tank water and was going to this on alternate filters fortnightly ?
So some filter advice appreciated: The FX5 has three baskets
So starting at the bottom and moving up
Hagen A1445 Activated Carbon Fluva
Hagen A1470 Fluval Pre- Filter Media
Hagen Fluval Biomax
Polishing Pad
I can rinse the Carbon pad and Polishing pad fortnightly, how often should I replace the various media (not forgetting I have two filters so it won’t all be done at once)
The Algae is growing well ?., from what ive read I should not worry to much about it, I did manually remove some on the last water change and I have adjusted my CO2 on \ off and Lights On off they are now set to
CO2 – Comes on at 16.00 and goes off at 22.00
Lights – Come on at 18.00 and go off at Midnight (previously they were on for some 12 hours
So im hoping to see a reduction in algae growth over the next week or so
I have finally invested in a camera a : Samsung NV4 (8.2mega pixels) it takes quite nice pictures, you can really see the algae
Regards to all
John
Algae growing well
General pic still looks quite empty of plants but in comparison to two weeks ago its growing well