New tank journal

Well, it's been a long day but mostly a good one.

I got the tank broken down, packed up and back home. A few hours later, the fish were in and things seem pretty good. I lost one molly during the transition. Poor girl was just sitting on the bottom, breathing rapidly and not moving for a few hours before finally giving up. But I also got a surprise... inside of the shipwreck decoration was a 3" bristle nose pleco. I don't know much about these guys (never owned a pleco before) so I'll have to do some research. So the current stock list is 2 brown kuhli loaches, 2 panda cories, 1 bristlenose pleco, 3 neon tetras, 1 molly, 1 glass catfish. These guys all seem to be pretty active and happy. I'm probably going to stick with this stock until after the wedding/honeymoon.

I ended up getting a bag of Eco-complete for the substrate. What can I say... it's tried and true and I got the bag for a good price. I put in the spiderwood that I got, but after 2 days of soaking it still doesn't want to stay down. Luckily it's big enough to come right near the glass at a couple of points so I used a couple of mag-floats to hold it down. Should be interesting to see how that goes. Anyone know how long it will be until this stays down on its own?

I also got a bunch of java ferns, a couple of anubias and some crypts to start off the plants. I haven't really settled on a layout yet. That will come over the next few days or so.

I also ended up digging my old Eheim Ecco 2232 out of the attic and tested it out. I was shocked that after several years in storage it seems to be in perfect working order, so I'll probably get rid of the Aquaclear filter and put that on there to seed the BB colony. Hopefully in the next month or so I'll be able to get rid of the crappy HOB that came with the tank and just stick with the canister.

Turns out I'm still rubbish at taking pics of fish, but here's a full tank shot to get the ball rolling. It's not much to look at yet, but after 6ish years of not having a tank, it's a good start.

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Oh yeah... the little tiki guy was a gift from my Mother... I'd feel bad not putting it in there...
 
Looks great :)
 
After a little futzing with the plants:

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That looks awesome :)
 
Plant buying is an addiction like none other, I seem to end up with far more new plants then I ever anticipate haha. Just brought home another amazon sword today.
 
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Well, I came home today to a floating neon an an ammonia reading of .25. I was afraid of a mini cycle and it looks like that's exactly what I've got. Looks like it's water changes for me! Hopefully it won't take long to get the cycle back to good.
 
The ammonia is down a little bit, but it's not zero... So more water changes and another dose of prime. I got testing the eheim canister a bit more and it turns out it's leaking a bit between the body and the lid, so I ordered a new o-ring. Baby steps...

At least everyone's still active and seem happy.
 
Sorry to hear you got a spike. Hopefully this clears up quick :)
 
Thanks. Luckily it's a small one and the tank is lightly stocked. I'm pretty confident that it will clear up in a few days at most. I couldn't find a Nitrite test locally, so that will arrive tomorrow and I can know better exactly where it's at.
 
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