1st day of planting, october 6th
2 bundles of anacharis, 2 bundles of water westeria, 2 bundles of Rotala Magenta, Anubis, 2 java ferns, 1 amazon sword, and 1/4 of the top of the tank with Frogbit.
I used an 1 1/2" or so of Miracle grow organic potting soil and sifted out the large wood chunks (not a fun job lol) and capped it with about 1/4" of black aquarium sand.
Starting from day 1 thru day 4 I had .25 of ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 nitrate, PH of 6.0
On day 5 I added 3 Cardinal tetras, figuring the low PH would benefit them. 1 didn't even make it the first night, 2nd one died 2 days later. I've read they are very difficult to keep for the first week or 2. The 3rd one is still healthy and bright red and blue in my tank. He was very lonely and would stare at his reflection in the mirror for hours. So that day I went out and got him some company and put 6 glowlight tetras in the tank. He would swim and chase around all day with them. Kept checking the tank, and parameters the same for a week. Happened to stop by the local petco on day 10 and found a really nice crowntail Betta and couldn't leave him there. I spent almost 3 hours acclimating him to the tank due to the low PH. He seems like a real mean aggressive fish, he swims around in the plants, and sneaks up on my tetras.
Here's some pics of him, maybe you guys can tell me what his coloring is?
On day 11 I lose one of my glowlight, I'm assuming stress from the crowntail. All the rest seemed fine so I left them alone. Morning of day 12 I'm down another glowlight, can't find a body anywhere. I'm wondering if my Betta had himself a nice live snack. Idk how he'd fit a glowlight in his mouth thou?
Today was day 14, parameters are ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, PH 6.0. I have since added some driftwood that the crowntail promptly made into his sleeping spot. I didnt think to take a pic of the 2 weeks of growth before I trimmed it, but you can see the difference.
As you can see I removed my Ludwigia, it was melting badly from lack of light I think, my anacharis had completely taken over that side of the tank. The Frogbit covered 85% of the surface until I took around 30% out this morning. The water wisteria is about the breach the surface of the water, the anubis and amazon sword are healthy and growing slow like I was hoping for. For whatever reason my java ferns aren't doing well. And will probably be replaced with some new babies from the soriority tank. I've been keeping this tank at 80 degrees since setup to increase bacteria growth, but it has not affected my anacharis, the stuff just explodes in the low PH tank. I wanted to use it to get the tank going because of the good luck I've had with it, but want to replace it with Vals, and water sprite some time soon. Since setup I've also added a 2nd fluval 13 watt CFL light to the top and I'm hoping to grown Micro sword carpet plant with it. That is being delivered tomorrow morning so we will see.
Let me know what you think, and let me know about the crowntail. He is still unnamed because if my tetras keep disappearing he will be returned for a less aggressive fish lol
