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New in Cornwall

KernowEquestrian

Seedling
Joined
27 Jun 2021
Messages
5
Location
Cornwall
Hi folks, joined up to ask some tedious questions about lighting but sure I'm going to be around for a bit - I'm entirely reinvigorated in the hobby after a bit of a break and looking forward to making this new set up my best tank yet. Based in Cornwall and would be very interested to hear from other Cornish folk who've managed to find accessible sources of CO2 cylinders. Currently running a second hand Juwel, don't know the make but it's a footprint of 120x40cm and substrate-to-surface depth is 44cm. Sold as 240L but by my measurements the effective volume is 200-210L.

Currently planted with a few swords, crypts and water lettuce picked up from the LFS (yep, I know, I'm ashamed of myself too), as well as the surviving anubias and crypts from my old tank - unsure if they'll survive, they had a brief but strong bath of hypochlorite before moving over, the old tank fell victim to a major cyanobacteria bloom. Yes, before anyone says it, I have taken action against the factors that I believe caused the cyano: I've reduced lighting and feeding, am working on introducing pressurised CO2, and have significantly upgraded my filtration. I believe the original cause was my switch last autumn from HOB w/ noodles, carbon and coarse/fine sponge, to an internal coarse sponge filter - what was I thinking? Now running a canister rated for tanks up to 360L with bio, carbon, multiple sponges and a UV bulb. I'm not just praying on a new tank helping me escape the cyano, the tank upgrade was well past due anyway, and getting a tank with sensible proportions that fills the space in the room properly has relit my passion for the thing - so long as that continues, I'm confident that everything will remain healthy. More than anything, I got lazy and struggled to maintain interest after a few losses, to my great regret and shame.

Current plans vis-a-vis plants are to in the immediate term add a couple of varieties of vallis around the back corners along with more anubias all over the driftwood scape, then once I have CO2 in and am happy with my lighting situation (currently running the light that was sold with the tank but I'll be making a post on that in a moment) I'd probably intend to stick in a load of hairgrass in the centre foreground and crypts around the middle and sides, then start experimenting with different stem plants. I know that's all bog standard stuff, but I don't need this tank to be groundbreaking, I just want it to be healthy and alive.

Looking forward to sharing my progress with you all!
 
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