Stock Show, Cold Weather, and Micro-Nutrients

My plants survived!  The java moss and ocelot sword are still looking under the weather, but are steadily improving with some pruning and the addition of my high output lighting system!  That and the addition of substrate fertilizer pellets and some liquid micro-nutrients.  The cabomba caroliniana I ordered came with two cuttings already sprouting florets on the top!  The tallest two cuttings in the back-center of the tank are starting some dense new growth on the top.  

Just added my first batch of fish and critters on Sunday.  Five White-finned Rosy Tetras (Hyphessobrycon bentosi) and six Ghost Shrimp (Palaemonetes sp.) are the newest inhabitants of the tank.  Mr. Pleco enjoys chasing around the ghost shrimp in his spare time from nibbling the algae off the driftwood and the ghost shrimp enjoy using the filter flow to navigate around the tank.  About the only time you see one of them is when they are catching the "express" around the front of the tank!  One of these times, I'll get a vid of them floating by.  The tetras are adjusting well and were coaxed into eating bloodworms on their very first day in the tank.  I have to use the brine shrimp net from my bloodworms to feed flakes as well, dipping the net of flakes in the tank and letting the current catch it and take it to the little ones.  One I get some more aggressive feeders in there, I may just be able to surface feed.  Until then, these shy babies need a little bit of TLC.

Levels in the tank are still doing well. Ammonia, Nitrates, and Nitrites are still at 0ppm, though I should expect all of those levels to fluctuate slightly before the week is out after the addition of fish, but I am almost sure that the tank was more than cycled out before I started adding the tetras.  Perseus did himself a good job  getting things ready for the new inhabitants!  Now he has been demoted again to the bowl.  He is not thrilled.  I need to do a water change tomorrow to start edging the pH back down to appropriate levels.  Currently testing at 7.6 because I keep adding tap along with the RO water to buffer the tank, but I need to add less tap and more RO to get where I need to go here.  Aiming for a balmy 6.5 pH.

Other things I am using in my tank for the plants and fish:

API Amazon Extract 

A blackwater-ish extract that softens water, adds humic acids and tannins to the water to simulate amazonian waters.

Flourite Liquid Supplement

In addition to using their substrate, I am using their liquid fertilizer as well.  MUCH more bang to the buck than other liquid supplements since one cup-full will treat up to 60 gallons.

Complete Substrate Fertilizer Pellets

From aquariumplants.com, these puppies are compact nuggets of great nutrients for the plants to help them grow from the bottom up!  They even sell a handy-dandy home-made applicator for the pellets!

The National Western Stock Show kicks off Thursday and MAN is it going to be a chilly year for it.  We have had trouble getting much out of the upper 30's the past week, with New Years Eve being the coldest at about 19 for the high temp.  Needless to say, we did NOT take out the carriage ponies.  They stayed nestled in their barn at home.  We will however be out this weekend, banking on the stock show to buffer the post-Christmas "dead season".   

Once I get time to upload photos of the new plants and critters, I will post for your enjoyment. 

-Bri