Day 19, "Metaphor": As usual, diatoms.

Here's a quick update on the tank :)

As expected, diatoms started building up and covering most of the glass, rocks, leaves and soil surface so I make sure to keep up with water changes every 3 days. Latest tests show a much lower ammonia levels and nitrate is building up.

Ammonia: 0.5 ppm
Nitrite: 0.0 ppm
Nitrate: 5.0 ppm








There had been noticeable growth on all  plants and most of them have established already, specially alternanthera reineckii mini which has very visible roots in the soil. New leaf nodes are present as well.



Blyxa japonica has a lot of new leaves but the older ones are melting so I trimmed it. Monte carlo and HC had a few trims as well. Plants are pearling actively specially after the latest trim and water changes.

Although the brazilian pennywort grows nicely, It does not seem to fit in the scape. It looks out of place so I plan on replacing them with pearl weed.















New Equipment - Ocean Free Surface Skimmer
As advised by a fellow hobbyist, I installed a surface skimmer. It's an Ocean Free brand that looks like Eheim 350 Surface Skimmer, but a lot cheaper and in my opinion looks nicer. It's performance is great so far and has kept the water surface clean all the time. Its water pump also add water flow allowing me to remove the wave maker.

CO2 Drop Checker Issue Is still a mystery
I mentioned about my issue with the drop checker last week that the liquid indicator turns clear in a few days. I pulled it out of the tank and have it exposed in the air hoping that its color will turn blue. It did not, so I can conclude that the loss of color is not due to too much CO2. so i'm down with two possible cause and what should I do to confirm this:
1. liquid indicator is expired or defective - I will try another brand or stock
2. Drop checker has a leak, mixing aquarium water onto the liquid indicator - I installed the checker back into the tank with fresh indicator and solution. I also installed another checker that is known good (from my other tank) and place it beside the other one in the same tank. I will observe both their indicator's color in the next few days.

Bugs
I noticed some small and very fast crawling bugs lurking around the glass. I cannot identify them as they are too tiny. Unfortunately I don't have a good camera powerful enough to take a good picture of them. Anyways, I'll ignore them for now and I expect them to be handled by the fishes (specially SAE's) once they are introduced in the tank. That will be next week, hopefully when ammonia is gone.