I know itās been a long while since I have updated anything here.
As I have mentioned life has gotten busier this last year. Not in a bad way just a lot going on. So the tank has been on the back burner and not getting a lot of attention.
Things are still going well, just not really focused on or have time to create anything inspiring. So for now itās been pretty much a farm tank and everything just tossed in wherever I can find a place to put it.
Got rid of some light hogs and fast growers like Pantanal. Still have some Cuba in there but itās not super happy probably wants more light. Still have a couple of stems of Myrio Roraima but just enough to keep it going. Same for Cabomba Furcata. A big bush of that takes a lot of care with all the aerial roots it produces. So for now itās a short foreground plant waiting to be called back up to the big leagues. In general keeping mostly smaller groups and trying to make trimming less intense.
On another note the Barclaya has come back again and is throwing some nice bright red leaves. With time it will fill in nicely again. Same plant I have had for over a decade. Just comes and goes when it wants to.
Have been running a lot lower light about 80 PAR for 8 hours with a two hour burst of about 180 PAR. Seems to work well with most plants, but some donāt like it as much as solid high light. Growth overall is much slower, which is a good thing right now.
Dosing is the still the pretty much the same. Front end loading 25:10:30 to my stored RO water. Water change once a week along with light surface vacuuming. That has pretty much been the same for quite a few years now.
So the tank has been pretty the same like this for quite a while. All in all when you walk up it still looks pretty good. For people who have never seen a planted tank they are very impressed. But for me I see a complete mess!!!
Once summer is over will try to give the tank more attention and get more serious. I will say my grandson absolutely loves the tank and is fascinated by the movement and color of the Rainbowfish. So that has been a lot of fun.
Anyway just thought itās been too long overdue since I checked in. I hope everyone is doing well and I have been following quite a few threads. I am really pleased with what a great group of people we have attracted here and the collective knowledge is amazing.
Iāll be focusing more on the tank this fall and will try to whip it into better shape and follow up as things progress.
