A random post, just to try out Android voice recognition on my mobile :)

This is something of an experiment. I'm dictating this to my phone, and it has nothing to do with sailing. Instead, this is all about my newest fish tank.

120 litres, it's set up as a tropical planted tank and, about 40 days in, seems to be doing quite well. It's my first foray into using CO2 to suppliment the plants. I'd originally intended to set up a DIY yeast / sugar arrangement, but buying an off-the-shelf JBL ProFlora CO2 kit pretty much came to the cost of a decent diffuser.

It doesn't use compressed gas, but instead uses the same idea as a DIY setup, and produces CO2 by fermentation. You buy the charges at about £7.50 and they're supposed to last 40 days.

The first charge worked really well, and there was a noticable improvement in the growth and health of the plants. About 40 days later however, it was running out so I brought another charge and refreshed it. Replacement charge didn't work well at all, and we barely got 1 bubble every 11 seconds after about a week, which was about a fifth of the original output.

So I gave up on that one, washed out the canister, and replaced it with two cups of sugar and teaspoon of the Wife's "Easy Bake" yeast (I asked first)

Six hours later, and it's bubbling away like bubbles are going out of fashion.

The catch will be in how long it lasts. I'll count it a win if we get a week or two. Sugar and yeast are quite cheap, especially compared to the commercial ProFlora bio charges.

Current population of this tank:

Four white cloud mountain minnows and an unspecified amount of their fry.

Five red platies; one male and four females.

Three assassin snails.

Twelve amano shrimp.