On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:24:27 +1000, "swarvegorilla"
wrote:

You have the right plan with the water changes
keep them small and regular
stability is the key here

Yes. Stability and KISS are my goals. Otherwise there's a lot of
room for me to screw up.

I'd probably say your shrimp will be the 'canarys' as it were
start losing them or rams and you have to look at your regime

The shrimp always seem to be hiding or blending in so they're hard to
tell. (The angels try to eat them if they are too bold). Actually I
don't have the rams yet. I'm not going to get any until I've made up
my mind about things.

otherwise keep up the good work hey
Are your lights powerful enough for the plants to take advantage of the
extra co2?

I *think* it's borderline. Right now I have 2x 65watt compact
fluorescent = 2.36 w/g. Basically I'm just trying to get information
and formulate plans for future changes. I was more serious about high
light + CO2 in the past, but shelved the idea because it was taking
too much time adjusting the water chemistry to support it on a running
tank and it looked like I was going to have to raise the pH too high
to get kH right with the approach I was using.

My plants aren't ideal, but things are improving. I'd like to see
them even better, and try things like riccia, but I'm not sure doing a
lot of regular gardening is really for me. The reality is, for my
lifestyle, I probably *should* be focusing on a stable low light tank.
My main concerns are always the fish, and limiting my time doing
maintenance. They've got me busy with all their fry. Frankly it's
already much too much.

Thanks to you and Bill for your input.