Shrimp Tank

Sorry for the delay but here is an update.
 
The plants and wood arrived and have been planted, not too sure about my placement of plants so might change it yet. I currently have the wood attached to a bag of gravel to keep it down so please ignore that.
 


 
This is after I have planted it.
 
I currently have this film around the wood (bacterial?) however I have a cycled sponge filter running is this still normal?
 

 

 

 
 
Any suggestions please let me know

So pretty much a week down the line not a lot has changed in my tank, I started adding Liquid CO2 yesterday so hopefully that will help the plants.
 
I still have the cloudy film around my wood, how long should it take for this to clear? 
 
Pretty much all the plants aren't doing very well with wilting leaves and browns spots on them. Will be gibing it all a good trim tonight and doing another 50% water change.
 
Will also start testing my water params as I would like to add fish/shrimp soon, technically it should all be fine as I added mature media.

Give wood a good scrub at every water change in the old water you are discarding.it will eventually go.

Sorry I haven't been around much lately been super busy and haven't given as much attention as I would like to my tanks but had a really good sort out and trim last night and placed an order today for 4 Scarlet Basis to be the new residents in my tank.

Due to not being pay much attention to the tank the plants have suffered a bit but have given them all a good trim and clipped roots to hopefully stimulate them to grow again and dosing extra ferts and CO2.

Unfortunately I lost all the moss and I think it was to do with the slime that covered the red moor wood so looking at ordering some more. I'm thinking of getting some flame moss to attach to the wood and will order RCS at the same time. Here's how the tank currently looks



Nic1 very kindly gave me a bag of Pistia Stratitones which have been growing like crazy covering the tank every couple of weeks. I currently have a separate bowl full of them for anyone locally who wanted some.



I'll add another update when I receive the Scarlet Basis, hopefully they'll send me 3 females and 1 male.

Nice, keep us updated

Cool tank. Anyone know how if RCS could go in a tank with guppies and a dwarf gourami? Your tank looks like it will be awesome, and I would like to have shrimp as well. 

So time for an update on the tank and my recent decisions.
 
Yesterday I picked up 3 Scarlet Badis and the day previous to that a young Krib. The Krib will only be in here short term whilst it grows, I didn't want it getting eaten in my other tank. The Badis seem to of settled really well thus far, and just need to start working on feeding them some food as I have been advised that they can be fussy. 
 




 
Yesterday I also ordered this fertiliser and 50 root tabs. Hopefully I will see the plants respond nicely to this and get some good growth.
 
I still can't work out if my CFL light is too intense for the tank but will have to wait and see.
 
I have also thought about potentially about changing the filtration in the tank to something that will add more flow but I think I will wait and see how things develop first,
 

You will have to let me know how the Scarlet Badis do, I've heard they will only take live foods a lot of the time. But, if they aren't as finicky for you, I am considering them for my new high tech tank.

My new plants arrived today, 2 Anubias Bateri and 3 Java Fern. I have put one Anubias and one java into this tank and the rest into my other tank.

I added my new fertiliser last week and have noticed an improvement in the plant growth already, and I got my root tabs yesterday so will get them added and see if that helps even more.

The Scarlets have really settled in and I'm pretty certain I have a male and a female so might see some breeding in the future. As for feeding I haven't seen them take anything yet but have left food in the tank which has been eaten. They are constantly foraging for food in the sand and eating off the sponge filter so hopefully they are getting what they need.

Lovely fish