It's taken a while, but at last we're getting somewhere! I set up my new aquarium at the start of December and it lay barren and empty whilst I waited patiently for the nitrogen cycle to get going. Water samples were taken daily until at last the ammonia reading peaked followed shortly after by a nitrite spike. It wasn't long before both cleared and I was ready to begin stocking.
After copious research and a number of visits to a local tropical fish specialist I decided to go with barbs. So far the tank holds eight green barbs, six golden tiger barbs (orange and white striped), six golden barbs and two dwarf otocinclus.
The planting has started to bed in too, though I've had to remove the dwarf hair-grass. Having carefully teased open several pots of the darned stuff to break into smaller plantlets it repaid me by acting as a brown hair-algae magnet. It's been rooted out now, though doubtless tiny remnants will resurface from time-to-time like random green vestigial nasal hair!
