Cleaned out and tested my mates tropical fish tank light. These are really nice. You can adjust blue / white proportions of lights.

The log and is in and the Anubias are moved onto it. Looks OK I reckon. The tank was looking barron after all the Giant Ambulias died (how?!) and the amazon sword is entirely gone so I put some fake plants in. If those fake plants die then I know I should definitely stop.

This is what the tank looks like now. Unfortunately the Guppies did not like their environment at all and carked it. The Tetras and Rainbow Shark are doing well. On Sunday we went out again, this time to another shop to get some more fish for the kids. We ended up with a Scissor Tail, More Tetras, An Albino Rainbow Shark and also two Coloured Widows - one blue and one pink. Kel also talked me into getting a bridge. Since the last lot of plants died, I got some more. I got some Ambulia and some Anubias. The Amazon sword is still there in the back, but it's not looking great.

The fishless cycle has now happened and the Nitrite and Amonia levels have bottomed out. This means that the bacteria has been established in the filter media which take care of the Nitrogen cycle for us and make sure our water doesn't get toxic. The kids got some guppies. Kel got a rainbow shark and I got myself some tetras.

Unfortunately it looks like the plants hate the new tank =) I suspect it's because the is no food for them (as I am doing a fishless cycle). There is no phosphate in the water. The rest of the level (ph, amonia, nitrate, nitrite).

Finally all the gear I've been collecting for the tank has been combined. The kids and Kel are away, so this is a suprise for them. We were given this 2ft tank maybe 2-3 years ago. It came with a hang on back filter and some pretty ordinary looking gravel substrate. The gravel substrate looked like maybe 3 generations worth with no replacement =) There was a lower layer of darker small river pebble type substrate, then ther were day-glo coloured pebbles, then on the top layer some generic fine pebbles.

I decided on the larger 5-6mm gravel with some fine black gravel for  a little path and a "Volcano". I plumbed the air with two valves and a tee so you can independantly control the volume of the bubbles in both air stones. The little house came with the tank, as did the volcanic rock.

The plant on the left is Ambulia and the one on the right is an Amazon Sword.