I passed on the Balloon Rams. I bought two GBRs from another store that I am more comfortable with (there are two particular stores here that I really like). They are also much more forthcoming with their own water parameters, to the extent of testing it in front of me, so I can see haw far off it is from mine. I took your advice on the rams to the extreme, trying to make it is small a jump as possible on top of slowly acclimating them. They've been here two days, all good so far, even in a tank with a few critters that need to be evicted. It's a 1.1 (I'm 90% sure anyways).
I also picked up a beautiful "Colombian" zebra pleco (L129). So that gives me two plecos in this tank along with the long finned albino BNP, after moving the rhino out to my other tank. That was a complete mistake. Not a good fish for a planted tank, lol. This zebra though, is awesome. I'll get a pic at some point. S/he still hides a lot.
I'll get a few better pics at some point. I may have overdone the plants. I don't want to have to deal with adding Co2. But, I may have more plants than I can sustain otherwise. On the flipside, this is one of the nicest aquariums I have ever set up. I'm going to reduce the surface disruption to try to reduce gas exchange, see if that helps. I'm also getting a few more tests (Iron & Phosphates) to see if I am dosing enough for the plants. I don't want to overdo it. And the strangest thing I have EVER had happen with an aquarium. I may be having a problem actually keeping my nitrates over 10ppm. As in, the plants may actually be nitrogen deprived. I've spent my entire aquarium life trying to reduce nitrates, now I am liberally dumping food in the tank trying to get them up, lol! Seriously, I am almost to the point of just dumping NLS pellets in there after dark.
I'll get a few pics or a video soon. Any tips on helping a planted tank and staying "low tech"?
