Consigliere

I've been getting ready for the arrival of a 250G tall tank which I'm planning to use for some discus, schooling fish, and plants.

In the meantime I have a 70G tank that I am using to test all the different systems I am going to put into the tank - UV sterilizer, CO2 diffuser, drip system etc. To get the plants going well, and decide on some species with first hand experience, I got a whole wack of plants from the forums and planted the tank. Added a cleaner crew and a school of raspboras to go with some rosy barbs I had been keeping for the last 2 years from the remnants of a once mighty low light low tech tank with bronze crypts and java fern.

Fish list as far as I can remember is:

4 peppered cories
2 panda cories
2 bronze cories
5 ottos
3 siamese algae eaters
3 flying fox
1 BN pleco
1 golden pleco
8 harlequin rasboras
4 rosy barbs
3 american flag fish
3 currently unknown hitch-hiker fry

Some specs and what not:

Volume: 70G

2 HOB filters, UV powerhead w/ DIY spraybar

5x DIY CO2 diffused through powerheads or filters 24hr + 1/2 BPS pressurized CO2 on for 10hr

160W T5HO with split Giesmann midday/aquaflora + Tek reflectors on for 10hr

Zebra rock + driftwood hardscape

Two layer substrate with PFS on top with root tabs seperated from bottom layer of mulm+gravel+sand + root tab by window screen.

Plant Gro NPK, Plant Gro Iron, Flourish and Flourish Tabs for ferts

Here's the tank 9 days into first big planting:



and after first trim:



Got a bit of green algae spots on the front glass and had a decent size Anubias Nana rhizome melt away for unknown reasons but the stems are growing well, and the rest of the crypts, swords, foreground and mosses are pearling after 3-4hrs of lights on so things seem to be growing well. Hopefully stays this way...

Critique and comments welcome.