Aquarium’s kickoff
While Ana was enjoying her business trip in New York, I was thinking of what stones to use in the aquarium. In that week, I was in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm so I went to see stones in the Bečva river. Searching for them at the riverside with snow and cold was not very pleasant experience. I found sandstones there but they were not very nice even after washing.
On the way home on 16/11, a day before the national holiday, I passed in the fishkeeping store Sklorex in Brno. I decided to buy the Dragon Stone kind of stones in there. At the same time, I bought other equipment for the tank – long tweezer to place the plants, tests, fertilizer and the following plants: Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica', Staurogyne repens, Echinodorus uruguayensis 'Osiris', Echinodorus grisebachii 'Amazonicus', Echinodorus 'Tropica', Vallisneria spiralis, Vallisneria americana var. biwaensis, Anubias barteri var. nana and Vesicularia dubyana. I also bought more sand.
At home, I put the plants into an old 25-liter tank overnight. I removed the inappropriate stones and sand from the new aquarium. I may use them sometimes if I want to make a marine aquarium. Then I added the recently bought sand. That night, I filled an old 70-liter tank to let the water sit until the following day.
In the morning, I start arranging again. I used the new Dragon Stones. I also had some stones from the Dyje river which I had picked up when I was walking Lancelot near the Viennese bridge. These stones passed the vinegar test. I started filling the water and placing the plants from the smallest to the biggest. I shortened their roots before. The long tweezer is an excellent tool for placing the plants. There was already 70 liters of water in the aquarium. I didn’t add the Vallisnerias yet because they are long. I let sit other 70 liters of water to continue in the afternoon. Then I added the Vallisnerias too. I buried some Tetra PlantaStart fertilizer tablets into the sand close to the roots of the cryptocoryne and echinodorus. In total, I put 150 liters of water into the tank.
Having completed the filter, I turned on the heater and the pump. They run on grid voltage of 230 V AC and it isrecommended not to put hands in the water when they are on. Fortunately, the standards for the electrical installations in the Czech Republic are very strict (maybe the strictest in the world) thus our flat is already equipped with the residual current device. In other words – if the electrical current didn’t return in the same way, the device would cut off the power. Well, I can keep calm.
To speed up the bacterial culture creation process, I utilized the Rataj Bactoesex medium. The advantage of this product is that along the bacterial culture it also contains substances that serve to feed the bacteria converting nitrite (NO2) into nitrate (NO3). After its dissolution in water it produces fog. But until the following day the water is crystal clear. In the other case the bacteria reproduction in the aquarium would take weeks.
At the end, I measured the alkalinity of water using the Karbon test: 7.5 to 8.0. I measured the PH of water using the Akvin test: 7.5. The matching PH value for the above-measured alkalinity is 6.8 – 7.0. Therefore, I added a little bit of the Acidon to cut down the PH. I also applied liquid CO2. For the moment, I didn’t use fertilizer. Now I will leave the tank without fish for several days. I will keep the light on only for 6 hours a day.
