Over a month since I set up this 11g tank; how well did I do?
Since last post I made, I redistributed some of the H. tenellum to more patchy areas, and as seen here, add an Anubias congensis attached to the right driftwood.
The bacopas and H. tenellum have already picked up pace and is growing robustly.
Current inhabitants at the time of writing this are three platies, a single amano and single cherry shrimp.
Also to note about the biofilm slime on the driftwood; I decided to keep it as both a food source for the shrimp and also as a “living fossil” that resembles microbial mats seen in Precambrian Earth (for the paleontology and geology nerds like me)
There was another cherry and a goldback neo and another amano but they died. Turns out the water was too soft and since then, have boosted the KH and GH to 80-90 PPM (GH) and no further shrimp losses.
There was also another platy but it died a few weeks ago as it suffered a gill injury from going into the gap between the glass and pump which I have sealed off since then with sponge tied to the pump however this was an isolated incident.
Overall, despite these losses nitrite and ammonia are nonexistent and nitrate is at a healthy level.
Reposted here as nobody answered my previous post