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!

The D-Day 🏁🎯🚀

 

It took me at least several hours to put all the plants in the tank, and I've learned some things along the way. When I was checking how to place the plants properly some people were using a hand sprinkler which I also went for, it was helpful as I got everything in the tank super humid which helped get the plants in place however I didn't know at the time that upon filling almost half of my plants will choose the more active way of living and start to swim around the tank 🙈

I've decided to put the Rotala Macrandra behind the stone on the left side of the tank, I thought it would nicely fit in the scape, and supplement the rock a bit with its vibrant red color. Eleocharis sp.mini was selected as a grass/floor plant and was supposed to spread throughout the tank to take over the ground at some point and look more like a grassy carpet rather than disconnected groups of weeds. In the end, we got the mosses that I picked for the tank, on the driftwood I added mostly Christmas moss as I thought it would give it a nice tree look when it spreads out. The creeping moss was added mostly on the small rock placed in front of the tank, however, I used some small chunks on the tree also as I've run out of the Christmas moss.
After putting in the missing water the tank got pretty foggy so I could not wait for the next day to see how it looked in much clearer water...

It's time for plan-ting 📋🌱

Rotala Macrandra

Saturday was a busy day, where should I start? 🤔 After some earlier research I had an idea on the direction I want to go with my tank, as you've seen in the previous post I did some visualization of how I'd place the rock and the driftwood in there. All in all, I've changed it slightly during all this, as I've decided to put the rock that was in front a bit deeper in the substratum so the whole set would look steeper from front to back. I've also glued the driftwood to the rock itself, when setting such things up please remember to check that the glue can be used in tanks and won't affect the water in the future such as cyanoacrylate glue.

Eleocharis sp. mini

As for the plants I didn't want to go overboard with the variety so I was really trying to keep myself in check with this, so I went with Rotala Macrandra which is a bit taller plant and has a red tint/color, the next one that I went with was a plant from which I wanted to grow my tanks carpet/grass sort of thing and it was Eleocharis sp. Mini, and as the last addition I had two types of mosses Vesicularia montagnei popullary referred to as Christmas moss, and Vesicularia sp. known as Creeping moss. So finally with all the plants, equipment, tools it was time to put it all together...

Friday = Funday 😁

It is funny how the time slooooooows when you are waiting for something, I think there has to be a dirrect correlation there, the more you're pumped and eager  for something the slower you get to that thing 🤔 Whole week I was waiting for this day, ok maybe a bit more for Saturday as I'm going to buy some plants but Friday was good enough. As soon as I wrapped my work, I closed my business laptop and've put on sneakers, coat, hat and went out to buy some rocks, sticks and soil just so I could play around with the tank setup and think through exactly how I'm going to set it up.

I went to a shoping center a bit further which took me some time(city traffic 💔), but on the other hand there was a very helpfull seller at the shop. He advised me and talked me into selecting active soil instead of going with sand, gravel or some other more standard/natural solutions, as he explained these type of soils tend to lower pH and soften water hardness, which is beneficial for tanks holding shrimps. On top of that I've also bought some stones and two wooden branches.

After coming home I've immediately put the soil in the tank and started paying around with the rocks and wood, this took couple hours after which I was pretty satisfied with the end result. I thought that the scape was pretty dynamic, and I've also wanted to make sure that the scape's curvature will suit the spot where I wanted to place the tank.

Christmas came earlier!

 

Ding, dong I hear the doorbell and quickly go from my room to the entrance which is just couple steps away from my room. As I've expected it is my local delivery guy with a big cardboard that has my name on top of it, I start smirking instantly and keep it up while signing the confirmation of the delivery :D

I tear up the additonal packing layer, and see my brand new nano aquarium set, I check the contents and feel relieved when I see that the glass is undamaged, pheeeew! All other stuff is also there I can see my brand new filter, heater and the lamp, I'm delighted and put all of this stuff on the floor in my room and start reading manuals. Being quite honest the manual/guides whatever you would like to call them were really vague and not so helpfull after all... Anyway I've got all of the 'hard' equipement, so now was the time for a trip to a Aquaristic shop for substratum(soil), plants, and some other gear that will be necessary for this whole operation.

Time to make a choice!

So I started reading about different aquariums, required equipment, fishes and all other things(at least that's what I thought 😂), and what is recomennded for begginers like me. After delving deeper into the subject I started looking at so called Nano aquariums, which qucikly caught my attention. Most of those tank were holding only plants, some also along the flora had some very nice looking shrimps 🦐

The only doubt that I had at that moment was if I will be able to keep this tiny tank stable(reffering to water parameteres which we will discuss in the future), because as I've read online the smaller tank the bigger struggle with maintaing those.

So I've started looking into those tanks, and tought that I should go with a complete set which will make it easier for me in the beggining. I've decided to start with a 30l tank, along with a 50W led lamp, 50W Heater and 100 L/h filter which were all part of the set that I've picked. I've order it, and now it turned to a game of patience, as this whole aquaristic endevour of mine as I'm about to learn...

Once I had a dream...

Since my early childhood something always called me to the water, regardless if it was swimming, sailing, fishing I had to have some body of water near me. When I was attending primary school one friend of mine(Robert) had an aquarium at his house, to be precise his dad had id, it just happend so that he lived there. Every time when I was visiting his place I was spending countles minutes glued to the glass. That aquarium seem gigantic to me at the time, I can only assume it was between 120/150 liters. There were some plants and decorations but the main point were definetelly the fishes held there. At that point I've already knew that I will start my own aquarium one day.

Shortly after the New Year with encouragment from my girlfriend Jagoda I've decided that the time has come, and it is now when I should start this journey as we moved to a new flat and had some spare room on a cabinet standing in the biggest room. At this time I've decided to make some deeper research about this New World that I'm coming into, so it begun...