Ooh tank diary!

I'm going to do I diary of my new Elite 60L tank which is currently in the process of cycling, the tank it self was a steal being on £50 for a heater, filter, bacteria bottle, water conditioner bottle, tropical aquarium food, a decoration and of course a tank with hood light... and a cardboard box.
The tank is mounted on a victorian oak and iron sewing machine stand which i had to remove the heavy victorian sewing machine from, and is decorated with lava stone, slate and sand.
this is the tank before decoration was added (i hadn't decided what to decorate with yet) note the plant pots which are now caves concieled by plants and lavastone.

Oh no! i put the same pic up twice! oh well

this is the tank now

thank you  tiphat

A noticeable change in the size of every plant in the tank today one allmost piercing the surface of the water, hopefully I won't have the same case I had in another tank where i managed to put some 'nice' looking plants in and since that day have been pruning madly to actually see my fish! And to think the guy who was serving me when i was buying the equipment for my new tank told me a should have plant food! the last think i need is plant food to help them grow they're doing fine by themselves and because I have lava rock everytime a piece of my grass plant (pictured above) breaks off and gets caught in the holes it roots it's self to it and starts growing again  :o but i guess having green fingers is better than having fingers that kill everything or no fingers for that matter 

just decided to snap a few shots of what i was talking about, you can see the rooted grassy plant on the lava stone and the growth of one of the main plants in the tank, aswell as another shot because i like taking pictures  ;D also thank you to sting rays4 for the compliment about the set up of my tank  O0 I hope to read of more progress on your tank shed soon 

thats odd lol! It's been growing just fine and routed itself up too! are you sure it isn't a similar species suibted for aquatics (it's one of my favorite plants in the tank  )

well, like allways everything was going peachy untill I had an admiring inspection of the tank first a saw a little snail - aaaww (oh goody another snail problem) I also took a close look at my corner plant that Tony_Ra has told me is a house hold plant I, knowing nothuing about plants have no idea theres a picture of it down there\/. now what really worried me was what i'm going to talk about next, as I followed my new found snail buddy across the tank with my eyes i observed him slithering up onto the heater, up and up he went and soon he was on the part of the heater where it changes from the glass to rubber seal to plastic. Oh no! that looks bad is the cencored version of what went through my mind, What it is I have no idea what it is but it can't be good fluffy white blobs stuck to the heater, they look like spider eggs or something but they don't look good, is this a problem with the heater leaking (as it's on therubber seal) or a side affect off a cycling tank, i've never seen this before and can't find it anywhere else on the tank. 

thankyou  O0

after my previous hickup the tank is now stocked (not fully of course) at the moment i have 6 neon tetras and 2 redclaw crabs (which i recently found out prefer slightly brackish water but can live in both fresh and salt) I'm allso gaining more tank projects as I go along I just aquired a 108L or around 24G tank - all it cost me was a bouque of flowers, what a deal!- which is currently full of untreated tap water and stones, It is an old tank to say the least but shows no signs of warping or leakage.
the following is needed:
A full bar light set (including wires and fittings)
A filter
A heater
50ml of tetra aqua start, oh wait I allready have that i'm just too lazy to put it in at the moment
pictures of both the Elite with fish and this new tank coming soon 

here are the promised pics of the stocked tank and the new (in need of serious work) tank.
the images below show:
1 redclaw crab
1 neon tetra
2 glass catfish
one open lid with bodged lights (don't worry i will be fitting them crrectl;y just wanted to see them in place)
and the front of my big old new tank

Ok so, today I was outside in the sun with a powerdrill punching holes it the lid of my newest fish tank (which is a 25 gallon jewel btw) why you say? because I hate my tank? no. I was installing the lights  And because i'm safety obsessed I refuse to let them run untill I get a piece of perspex - to stop parts falling into the water - from B&Q, this is silly because I spent a good few hours bolting things in place and modifying this lid to fit 2 fillament lamps instead of one (so i could have a flora-glo lamp and a power-glo lamp in the same tank) so the chances of anything falling in are low but as i said i'm a safety freak and therefore will not be satisfied untill there is a nice thick barrier separating the electricals from the water. but thats not the point, the point is I have done it! but i can't show you... due to a lack of digital camera sorry.

Bear in mind that more light = more plant growth, which strips nutrients (and the minimal natural CO2) out of the water very quickly.  Get much beyond 1.5 watts per US gallon and CO2, alongside possibly dosing nitrate, pottasium and phosphate (alongside a decent 'normal' fertiliser such as Tropica Plant Nutrition for traces) can become essential to prevent the tank becoming an algae magnet and prevents the plants developing deficiencies.  2 watts per gallon or higher and CO2 and decent fertilising (as above) really is a requirement.

This is a good read for high light tanks:

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/EI.htm

My tank is currently running on a fluval 130L tank filter with a valve that allows me to alter the amount of natural air (30% CO[sub]2[/sub]) that enters the tank, yes, I plan on having this tank highly plant as I want to go for that matted with planting look along the bottom of the tank, For this I decided to purchase a flora-glo filament (emits light closer to the UV end of the spectrum which plants prefer), I was aware however that the light given of by the flora-glo alone is not enough to illuminate such a tank so I needed another light I was recomended the power-glo by the shop keeper but i think i may have been better of with the sun-glo instead.

Natural air won't pass much if any CO2 into the water as far as I am aware hence the need to add it specifically.  The atmosphere is 0.035% CO2 (according to wikipedia) so you'll not get much of that entering the tank water.  It certainly isn't 30% CO2.