"64.8L Passionately Curious": Planting in Progress

The most important day finally comes. Nerves of steel. No back down. :)

I purchased some 1-2 Grow! Tropica plants from Green Chapter and spent the whole night setting up the tank. It took about 5-6 hours to finish all of the work since this is my first time hands-on. Hopefully, next time, if any, it would be faster. :) 

The photos below describe the process to set up the tank.

5 pots of 1-2 Grow! were bought for this initial stage, including:
2 x Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini' - Foreground
1 x Rotala 'Bonsai' - Midground
1x Heteranthera zosterifolia - Background
1 x Riccia fluitans- Moss on Rock

Some of the plants were not in my initial planting scheme, however due to limited stock from GC, I chose them as alternate option.

Tools and planting scheme were ready for the process

Riccia was attached to the rock at first by cotton thread. I did not have any fishing line so this is the temporary method. I may need to tight it again if the cotton threads give way.

Water was sprayed on the surface of the soil gently so that the substrate would not mess up nor float up once water is filled in. 

Soil surface was damp and firm after water spraying

And it is ready for water filling process

Plastic bag / some floating material was introduced to cover the soil and hardscape below. It would help to protect the hardscape/soil from sudden movement when water being introduced. 

Traditional way to introduce water in to the tank :) Water was conditioned by Seachem Prime before piped into the tank. 

Water was filling up slowly

And at this level, that was sufficient to start planting. It can be seen there was no mess up on the soil and hardscape at all. :)

Plants was prepared to be ready 

Pinsette made planting under water much easier

Planting is easier with shallow water fill in the tank. 

Planting done and water was filled up till the top using similar method mentioned above. Water volume at 2/3 of the tank was recorded so that I might calculate the actual volume of water in the tank after minus hardscape and substrate volume. For my 2ft tank, actual water volume was 51 litters out of 64.8 L total volume. It can be seen volume for hardscape and substrate took more than 20% of the total volume of this tank. Recording the water volume will be useful in the future when dosing fertilizer and medical for fauna at later stage.

Crystal clear water 

Direct front view

A view from angle

CO2 drop checker was installed. It was blue colour at first since no CO2 was introduced to the tank.

Filter inflow and outflow were set up. Still waiting for my inflow glass pipe to come and in the meantime, EHEIM inflow pipe took the job. :) Canister filter started working. Many tiny bubbles came out at this initial stage.

CO2 was activated and connected to the main system. 

After setting up, everything was working as planned.

Water quite clear at this point of time. 

Front view of the new setup

Angle view of the setup. Definitely need an inflow glass pipe to make it look nicer. :P

After done with the setup, I started dosing the first batch of fertilizer to the tank, followed instruction of the supplier accordingly. Dosing is as follow for the first day:-

Descriptions	Frequency	Dosage	Per 50L (ml)
Seachem Prime	Water Change	200L - 5ml	1.25
Seachem Excel	Daily	200L - 5ml	6.25
Seachem Potassium	2-3 times / week	125L - 5ml	2.00
Seachem Iron	When needed	200L - 5ml	1.25
Seachem Flourish	1-2 times / week	250L - 5ml	1.00
BacterLife	1 time / week	50L - 5ml	5.00

I dosed more Seachem Excel according to instruction given for initial tank setup. After that, I might follow 5ml per 200L water. 

There are still some background and mid-ground plant to be put in place. Wait for the stock to come! Tank cycling has started. :)