Nano New Year Build!

I bought a demo regulator recently and I assumed that the seal was already in place. The fire extinguisher scared the hell out of me when I opened it the first time and it basically opened full throttle.

 

Yes it's still got the washer on the connection and a spare one on the tag

 

Haha, I'll be double checking that when I finally get my hands on a canister

 

My fees were a flat 15% of the order total, which of course is customs VAT and there was no duty on any of the items. Lekker. Now I wait...

 

All the progress @LilMissMurder has been making, has inspired a monthly update pic.

Not a drastic change from a month ago, but the tank is ticking along well. All I've done since last month is a couple water changes and added some osmocote root tabs. Hopefully those will get my crypts growing wild

Considering my CUC consists only of my army of blue dreams and some "pest" snails, there is hardly any algae bar a couple of the rocks directly under the light.

No further progress in the CO2 department. My regulator is still sitting cozy in the cupboard waiting for me to purchase the rest of his mates

 

It looks fantastic and I'm super jelly of those anubias.

Funny you should mention that, I sit with CO2 hose and diffusers and drop checkers for days - and enough CO2 to put out a refinery fire in Russia, but no regulator...

 

The anubias are absolutely loving the new set up. Think they've each put out at least 2 new leaves in the 2 months they've been in this tank. Took them a year to do that in the old tank. So much for being "low light" plants

 

Haha !

I'll give you my reg if you set up a split line from your house to mine

 

Funny you should mention that too - with a heat gun and a bit of a stretch it might be doable. I bought CO2 hose from Temu, but thought I was buying 3x 1m items. Turns out it was 3x 4.8m items and I sit with nearly 15m of the stuff.



But all is not lost, if you send me the branch name of your local P.O. you can have a bag for mahala. I certainly won't ever get to using it all.

 

So are you happy with your temu purchases?

 

VERY. Ferinstance I bought my lily pipes for R201 for the pair, and they are beautifully made. Everything is cheap as chips and I don't even browse takealot anymore. The only downside is the long shipping time but if I can cultivate the patience to grow anubias I can wait for goodies.

 

Time for the monthly update. The tank is ticking along really nicely. Noticing a decline in algae levels as the plants are really starting to set in now. Cardinals, shrimp and pygmy Cory's are all happy as can be.

Really getting the itch to add CO2, but we'll see.

 

It's been a while since I last updated. Some good news and bad news with regards to the tank. I'll start with the good news

I surprised myself with a nice from me to me CO2 system for my birthday 2 weeks back. Went through to Art of Aqua and got the cylinder, bubble counter, tubing and diffuser to go with the reg I had. Super happy I finally pulled the trigger!

 

Now for the bad news, more of a learning curve than anything else.

You can't scape a tank with a low tech system in mind and then add CO2 at a later stage. In the week and a half that the CO2 has been running, the plants grow habits have (unsurprising) changed. I just wasn't expecting this large of a change unfortunately.

The planting density that make the tank look lush and full without CO2 is now a bit of a disaster. Everything is growing sideways and putting out tons of shoots which is great but it just looks like a royal mess.

Here's a pic of the week and a half of growth since adding it

 

I'll leave it for the rest of the month, and then take some final pics to enter for the SAAC.

Once I've got my entry in, I'm really keen to take this scape apart and set one up for next year's competition. I'm looking forward to having the luxury of CO2 from the start and being able to plant the tank around that

 

Nooooo don't take it apart It's too pretty. Rather get another tank!

 

The temptation is real lol! Especially with all the trimming I've been doing