An excellent blunt reply, thanks AC, makes it nice and clear 
Well it seems I've already wandered too far down this road then - lol
For the past couple of months I have been fishless cycling my tank, (and I now realise I should also have been looking into the planted side of things).
Then once the really cold weather had passed I placed the order for my fish, and figured why not add some plants. Got a little carried away on the phone, and now have a fair few, (but not a lot) of plants arriving this week.
I think, (perhaps like most uneducated in the ways of planted aquariums), I thought I'd be able to just does something simple & concentrated and all would be well, but now I see thats not the case.
- Adding the compost is going to disturb things too much for the fish arriving this week, and certainly wouldn't have time to be washed and dried in time.
- It seems Easy Carb is going to be an expensive ongoing cost and one best avoided.
- Pressurised Co2 would be expensive to get setup, and would involve me removing the bubble wall I have fitted in the tank
- Liquid ferts are going to be expensive, but this can be partially avoided by using powders.
So I now see that I have plants arriving, and don't really have the background preparation for them.
Based on this I think my path forward is going to be to obviously put these plants into the tank, use my JBL clay balls at the roots for some substrate nutrients, find the best / cheapest way to fertalise the water column (I'm guessing using powders but have not had a chance to LOOK at that yet), and pretty much just see what works and what doesn't for me.
At least now I am aware of what to look out for in the plants, and hopefully recognise that if some of the plants die off, why they died off, ie. what was missing from the tank.
Who knows, I might get lucky, I'm not expecting amazing growth, or super-lush plants under the circumstances, but will be happy if I can make them survive. Then perhaps when I have some money saved I can look at this again, and redo the tank if I choose, either buying more / new plants, or just moving these ones if they lived
Thanks for all the help you have all provided thus far
To Be Continued...
Well it seems I've already wandered too far down this road then - lol
For the past couple of months I have been fishless cycling my tank, (and I now realise I should also have been looking into the planted side of things).
Then once the really cold weather had passed I placed the order for my fish, and figured why not add some plants. Got a little carried away on the phone, and now have a fair few, (but not a lot) of plants arriving this week.
I think, (perhaps like most uneducated in the ways of planted aquariums), I thought I'd be able to just does something simple & concentrated and all would be well, but now I see thats not the case.
- Adding the compost is going to disturb things too much for the fish arriving this week, and certainly wouldn't have time to be washed and dried in time.
- It seems Easy Carb is going to be an expensive ongoing cost and one best avoided.
- Pressurised Co2 would be expensive to get setup, and would involve me removing the bubble wall I have fitted in the tank
- Liquid ferts are going to be expensive, but this can be partially avoided by using powders.
So I now see that I have plants arriving, and don't really have the background preparation for them.
Based on this I think my path forward is going to be to obviously put these plants into the tank, use my JBL clay balls at the roots for some substrate nutrients, find the best / cheapest way to fertalise the water column (I'm guessing using powders but have not had a chance to LOOK at that yet), and pretty much just see what works and what doesn't for me.
At least now I am aware of what to look out for in the plants, and hopefully recognise that if some of the plants die off, why they died off, ie. what was missing from the tank.
Who knows, I might get lucky, I'm not expecting amazing growth, or super-lush plants under the circumstances, but will be happy if I can make them survive. Then perhaps when I have some money saved I can look at this again, and redo the tank if I choose, either buying more / new plants, or just moving these ones if they lived
Thanks for all the help you have all provided thus far
To Be Continued...
