Day 9, "Metaphor": It's up and running!

It's finally up and running for more than a week now. Plants have been placed just a few days ago. It's looking good and my family is so happy with it. Folks who have seen the pictures gave positive feedback as well.
Although it took me a while to setup, the experience was such a great feeling. Now it's time to enjoy it and let it grow.

As for the plants, I'm still planning to add more. I really want to put staurogyne repens but my stock is not very healthy right now. As for where I want to place it, probably in the corner where the brazilian pennywort is located at the moment.
I also want to add more hydrocotyle tripartita. I love this plant despite that fact that it gave me headache in my previous tank. I hope that it does well in here though.

I summarized the details of this tank if anyone who is interested to know.

Materials:
ADA Amazonia Aquasoil, 9L
Dragon Stones, 13kg

Equipment:
Eheim Classic 2215
ISTA CO2 Reactor
3L Iron CO2 Cylinder
Dual Gauge Solenoid Type Regulator
Crystal Glass, Low-Iron, 6mm, 60x30x36cm Tank
HOPAR 4x24W T5HO Light Fixture with 6500K, 7500K, and 12000K Bulbs (only 3 bulbs used)
ANS Glass CO2 Drop Checker Set

Plants:
Hemianthus "Monte Carlo"
Hemianthus Callitrichoides "Cuba"
Hydrocotyle Tripartita "Japanese Pennywort"
Hydrocotyle Leucocephala "Brazilian Pennywort"
Blyxa Japonica

Water Parameters (14-Feb-2015):
PH: 6.0 pH
Nitrate: 0.0 ppm
Nitrite: 0.0 ppm
Ammonia: 2.0 ppm
Phosphate: 0.0 ppm
General Hardness: 3 dGH

The setting up was not as smooth as everyone thought it would. Below are the current issues I need to resolve.


CO2 drop checker liquid indicator turning transaperent
I noticed during the last water change that the liquid indicator of CO2 drop checker turned transparent. I thought it just got contaminated due to the activities I've been doing in the tank since it's setup so I decided to just replace it. It was fine the next day but since then it turned transparent again and have no idea why this is happening right now.

Although this drop checker is new to me, I already had it installed for several weeks when I started cycling and testing the tank and it was fine all along. Could this be caused by a leak? I remember a week ago when I saw it sitting on the rock because it fell off from the glass due unsecured placement. But if this is the case, the crack should be very visible but I don't notice anything with it visually. In any case,

I will observe this. If I have to buy a second one which I will be using on another tank I'm planning to setup, then I will do so.

Ammonia is very high right now (2ppm)
I expect this. ADA soil will leak ammonia in the water column in it's early phase. What I need to do is to keep up with water changes regularly until the biological filter develop and stabilize the nitrate content in the water column. I'm surprised though, that it's at 2 ppm right now as I never seen a tank with that high ammonia levels. But this is the first time that I used an ADA soil so I guess it's good to know.

Wavemaker is blowing water too strong
This is the weakest wavemaker that I could find, yet it's still strong enough to mess up the soil mound in the opposite corner of the tank. I should have resolved this way before I placed the plants in the tank but now it's too late. At the moment it's turned off until I figure out a way to solve this. The left corner has a pretty stagnant water flow right now.

Need to install a surface skimmer
This is the one equipment I have yet to use in my previous tank. I believe this will help a lot as I noticed the constant build-up of debris in the water surface and can really prevent light to reach the plants. I'm leaning towards getting the Eheim surface skimmer. My concern is it's size. Will it fit into the right corner of the tank and replace the wavemaker? How strong is it's motor? Is it strong enough to cause water agitation on the left corner of the tank but not enough to mess up the soil mound?