Gio's Planted tank journey

Thanks will look into these - I see bolbitis is quite a large genus - are you referring to a specific species or just the group itself? (I have so much to learn!)

 

I love how this is progressing. With regards to the super glue, would it not be possible to use a small paint brush to smear? That should stop the paper towel from possibly getting stuck

 

Love it @Gio

The scape looks great
@A new day's idea of throwing a little soil over the glue is great

 

Yep, these are all along the lines of what I was thinking and yes my memory was more visual then accurate, I was referring to black neon tetra
I think the nano fish would bring a good sense of scale to the setup. And a combination of the selection above (which is wider than I was considering) could look great

Not sold on snails though as I've only read about them being hard to control as they start to multiply?

I'm having a pretty torrid time sourcing plants from online stores, do you find that in shop stock is generally better than the online view?
Even moss is marked as out of stock on most online stores!

 

@Gio nerite snails don't reproduce in fresh water. You could also go for apple snails they lay eggs on the cover and can be easily removed before they hatch.

 

Lol no man I had apples for 2 years and the didn't get as big as a R5 coin. And a single clutch of eggs gave me more than 200 babies. Took them all to a pet store and got 6 Malawi's in return

 

The layout looks promising, can't wait to see the planted results

 

First collection of stems, crypts and moss arrived today.
Will probably leave the planting to the weekend

 

Managed to make some progress on the weekend.

Added a combination of Moss, ended up with a bit of it floating away once I filled with water and quite a few white glue spots, hopefully it'll get covered up with new growth.

I also ended up with a few more crypts than anticipated. I've added some to the foreground which depending on how they turn out (or if the even survive) might be removed later.

I've added Ludwigia repens and sp. rubin to the back with some mermaid weed and Limnophila aromatica I've also included some Hygrophila polysperma on the side. To be fair this is a bit of trial and error so I'll see what I like and what I don't as well as what survives or not

I have hooked up the co2 to the diffuser which seems to be working well. As well as added two 10w led floods to try get some light towards the back. All lighting and co2 is on a 6hr timer. And I'm doing about 25% daily water changes this week.

I still need to get a carpet stared in the foreground and some rhizome type plants for the mid-ground and on the hardscape.




Admittedly I'm doing a lot of guesswork with the plants so it'll be interesting to see what stays!

 

I've spotted a hitch-hiker, my initial thought it to remove it, would that be the correct thing to do?