Day 1 - Setup!

Initial Hardware:

• Fluval Roma 125 Aquarium (80cm x 35cm x 45cm) (£110 from LFS)
  
• Fluval Tronic 150W Heater
• 2x 24" 20W T8 lighting tubes
• Fluval 205 External Filter (£54 new from ebay)
  
• Fine natural gravel
• Three chunks of bogwood
  

I removed the filter which came with the tank, an internal Fluval U3.

I added a DIY co2 system, basically following this article. The output of the yeast based co2 is going into the filter intake of the Fluval 205. I've used two 2ltr bottles to boost co2 output. The cost of this was almost nothing, about 60p for some yeast :) although I spent a few pounds on airline and fixings to hold the airline in the tank.

Initial Plants
I ordered my plants from Plants Alive. Here's what I ordered

• 10x Vallisneria Torta
• 5x Microsorium Pteropus (Java Fern)
• Vesicularis Dubyana (Java Moss)
• Salvinia Auriculata
• 5x Echinodorus Tenellus
• 100x bargain surplus plants (lucky dip)

Total cost £23.40 (delivered to my door).

I carefully selected 22 plants for my order but then at the last second I added in that random selection of 100 plants too spice things up a bit. :-)

The aquarium has pretty low lighting, only 1.2W per gallon. I'll be trying to rectify that in the coming weeks by modifying the hood to add more lights.

Aquarium Birth
Connected everything up and threw in the plants, here's what we have on day 1.



Not all of these plants are going to stay in here. For one thing I don't even like some of them, so they'll be going. I'm pretty sure some will die off because they don't like the conditions. For the moment though I'll be leaving them all in there, I'm pretty interested to see how they get on with the additional co2.

I also dosed with 5ml of Flora Grow to help the plants along.