Picked up an electrical useage meter. Planning to try on weekend and see how bad it is. See if any real high useage pieces of equipment.
This should tell me once and all how much power I use (after which I shall ignore it). I’m hoping it’s not much. Be useful for the rest of the house as well I hope.
One more week of work and the gravel comes out week after. Stem plants are mostly floating around ok.
Toying with the old idea of eventually just a thin layer of gravel for looks. Java fern at front. Maybe some big driftwood pieces in centre with anubias. Bolbitis up the back. Keep the CO2 going but low ferts. No stem plants so low maintenance. Probably no aponogeton or crypts (crypts tempting but unlikely to have deep enough substrate).
Get it all stable (so after shifting houses) and then into discus. And maybe kuhli loaches on bottom. Not really sure what clean up crews work with discus?
Yes, stick with some sort of cichlid and these are the dream.
The cories sound nice. Maybe some oto’s for algae or some sort of algae cleaner?