Getting there!

I went on a week of vacation on Madeira island, and after coming back I noticed that my Rotala Macrandra stalks were turning from red to black as they were simply rotting. I needed to make some emergency adjustments and couldn't leave it as it was, as it would only deteriorate more. So I pulled out all the Rotalas, cut out the black leaves, and clipped the stalks above the rotten parts. I've replanted them spread out across the tank as I thought it would be a good idea to change the plant location as it clearly was unhappy with the previous spot. I did clean the filter pump also, be mindful about this and remember to always clean it in the water taken from the tank as otherwise you will flush out all of the beneficial bacteria that are living there.

I did my first measurements of the water parameters and noted the following values:

• NO3 75/100
• NH3 0
• pH 7,4
• PO 0
• NO2 1,5
• KH 4
• GH 8
• Fe 0,1
• CO2 5

So it was obvious that I still needed to wait some time as my NO2 and NO3 were still out of acceptable bounds. Now it is all about waiting, hopefully, the nitrogen cycle will close itself in a week or two 🙏

Nitrogen cycle 🧑‍🔬🧪

 

Aquarium nitrogen cycle

For any new aquarium, it is essential to establish a healthy running nitrogen cycle, what is that you may ask yourself but maybe before answering that let's start somewhere else. 

Let's start with ammonia, you may have heard of this substance, the name stands for an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3 which is toxic for most living organisms including us humans. So the ammonia in aquariums comes mostly from fish food, fish droppings, and organic waste(dead plant parts) and is deadly to any life form like fish, crustaceans, and others. So to get rid of that we need to introduce some solutions, which are the Nitrosonomas bacteria. These little fellows will digest our ammonia and as a result leave us with nitrites(NO2), which is not really an ideal situation yet as the nitrites are also toxic to living beings. So now we have to get rid of nitrites, to do that we hire another gang of bacteria called Nitrobacter bacteria, and those guys will do the trick and digest nitrites to nitrates which are much less dangerous to fish and all other possible inhabitants of the tank. On the other hand, they are even required by plants for growth in some minor amounts. For any new tank in which you want to introduce fish or real plants, you have to establish this cycle first before introducing any living being. To do first buy some good bacteria starter(I recommend "Microbe-Lift Bacterial Aquarium Balancer"), then you can start your tank with plants only or no plants and add fish food as a starter and food for the bacteria. After setting the whole thing up add the bacteria starter you got and follow the instructions, try to avoid water changes as you will flush part of the bacteria along each of those(later on when the bacteria life is established and well running you can change water according to specific needs). The balancing of the tank's nitrogen cycle takes between 4 to 8 weeks depending on the tank size and many other specific circumstances like light, temperature, water flow, and more... Hope that some new persons read this and it will help him/her to understand the whole concept of the aquariums nitrogen cycle and ideally prevents some people from buying animals to quickly and unintentionaly doing them harm.

Now it is clear... 👀👀👀

Finally, the dust settled, and the water got a lot clearer so at last I could see my creation as a whole. It wasn't perfect I could see at least a couple of fixes that I want to implement quickly such as some alignment on the soil as it got displaced when I was filling in the water. I also needed to remove some weeds that fell off and started swimming around the tank. 

So as you can see I've put all of the Rotalas on the left side behind this smaller stone(which I will regret later) in a straight line one to each other. Eleocharis was put all over the tank, mainly in the front and between those two big stones I've got, and a couple of chunks in the back and below the heater and filter. The Creeping moss is mainly placed on the rock in front and the driftwood is the domain of the Christmas moss. Now start the waiting time as we need to stabilize the nitrogen cycle which I will describe in the next post!