Dr A

Picked up 2 otos and 2 more corydoras in the weekend - tank is now full. I can only get my otos to eat cucumber and alage in the tank however - they aren't interested in JBL pelco wafers...

So your heating via pumping the water through warm compost? Do you have a backup?

Is the day/night transition automatic or do you have to manually lower it?

The ole' Almond Leaf thing seems to be useful, if not for white spot at least for their over-all health.

Sounds like they could use.....

Preformed a rescape last night. There's something to be said about having all* your plants attached to driftwood when it comes to re-deploying things. Gone for more of an island style layout, with plans for more crypts and dwarf sag around too, i'll get some fert balls in there I think. I just wish my little ember tetras wouldn't swim into the java fern (windelov, it's making heaps of babies out of the tendrils of the plants) and get themselves "stuck" by freezing.

Of course, but you can run it year round and not worry about pollutants like the OP was concerned about.

If it was just a case of having hard water wouldn't a grunty (RO/ RO+DI) filter do the trick?

Yeah I've now done that - it does have a spray bar. It's one of these guys. I'll see how I go with that for now. Stocking plans are still to add a few 2 more cories. I'd like to get some ottos but I'm iffy on that. Happy to take suggestions (27L tank w/ 9 Ember Tetras and 2 Pygmy Cories atm).

Eeek, Tank has been going well (still no CO2), found all the fist gasping at the surface this morning though. Since swapping to a canister filter I've lost any surface agitation so I think that may be the issue. Did a big water change and I've hooked up a power-head w/ airline to blow air through the water. May well get another timer and an air pump. Everything going well otherwise though...

Yeah or poor from a lower depth. It's probably not the end of the world if you do disturb the substrate though is it? Maybe not the whole thing but if the top cm or so gets ruffled around I cant see it doing much harm. Do you have anything below the gravel (dirt etc)? Can ruin your aquascape though I suppose.

If you're lazy you should look into permaculture (ie, systems based) - You've got more than enough land to be self sufficient on.

Yeah, to clarify, even in ideal circumstances, any tree grown from an avo stone isn't likely to fruit well - similar to most commercial apple verities.

I'll give it a hoon, the filters flow created it initially.

Dinner time.

Man, your physics teacher is doing a pretty good job showing you applied economics. Wish I could trick people into doing work for me.

Did you grow the avo from a stone? If I recall correctly it probably won't fruit well/at all. Perhaps worth it just for kicks however.

Righto, so I picked up another 5 ember tetras and 2 pygmy cory cats. Total stocking now of 9 Embers and 2 Corys. Tank is ~30L Tank is more or less fully stocked now, the Embers are completely different fish, although my original 4 are much darker coloured and seemingly more dominant. Was planning on 5 pygmy Cory's, I'll see how I go for that, pending on how quickly waste products rise in the tank. Not too fused about the lack of CO2 at the moment. Very tempted to get this (with some sort of gate/ball valve and something to filter the inlet), and maybe a in-line heater/DIY build. The stand lends it's self very well to making a nano sump, but I think doing it safely could be more effort than it's worth. TL:DR, my hallway now has a low maintenance planted-ish with heaps of movement. Mission more or less achieved I think.

Crikey they didn't last long.

More importantly, solid beard.

Oh dear, just came home from work to find one almost dead (not swimming), one missing and the other two fine. Checked water params and they're all good (PH of ~6 though, lots of driftwood in the tank). Nitrite & Nitrate @ 0. The tank had previously concluded a fish less cycle so I doubt it's going through a mini cycle. My run of luck with fish continues!

Damn near impossible to get a good photo off my phone, and dragging the ole' camera out is such a PITA. Anyway, the little embers are a step down in intelligence from my fighter - they won't pick up food off the ground at all, and they get very scared when they loose sight of the school, freaking out and either freezing or going completely bonkers and getting stuck in pretty derpy places. I can see food on the substrate being an issue. I'm going to try vac some up tonight, but with just a sand substrate I don't know how well that'll work... some sort of bottom feeders are going to be a necessity. Will oto's eat leftovers off the substrate, or would pygmy corys be better? I'm thinking 10 embers and 5 or so tiny corys would be fully stocked for this tank.

Absolutely - that's pretty much what I had in mind - everything else in this tank is very mono-thematic, I think a big school of just one sort of fish would be quite cool. Perhaps a few ottos or small (panda?) cory cats to clean up any leftovers.

Stocked with 5x Ember Tetras as of today. They've settled in well I think. Tank is everything I wanted it to be (low maintenance), and the fish aren't shy which is good for a walkway. Need to decide what I want to do with the rest of the stocking, I'll let these guys settle in and build up the biological filtration in the meantime though.

Bugger the catfish, why not the swans/geese/ducks ?