Right well I just typed out a decent sized update and lost it so...I've pretty much lost the will to live - oh and I want to go all "Hulk, smash!" on my laptop (sorry, watched Avengers last night - AMAZING! And so many beautiful men.... *sigh*)
OK! Moving on!
I did my first water change with my home-made syphon tonight and it was pretty successful! I did have to start the suction by filling the hose with my tap, which for some reason I thought I could avoid
- doesn't bother me though. And I did manage to create a torpedo with my syphon end by trying to fill the tank with it still attached - woops! I've got one with the little valve on that's supposed to help you start suction (yeah right). There was a slight mess, but no casualties
Also I'm planning on doing 60L water changes per week and, as it happened, I lost suction at exactly 60L lol. I'll just have to be careful when watching the flow if I want to remove more than that. My hose is a bit longer than it needs to be so shortening it may help? Since this was the first time using it I syphoned into a 10L bucket in my sink and used tip-ex (aka white-out to us yankees) to mark on the back of the tank for every 10L removed. This will also help guide me for bigger water changes because it's now easy to measure how much tank = 10L. I know...I'm smarter than I look, eh?
I've just bought one of these bad-boys off ebay which I think should be considered necessary kit with these python systems. I paid £10.40 for it including shipping, which before I even bought it I felt like I was being robbed but after I purchased it ebay kindly informed me of "other items I may be interested in" where loads of the exact same item appeared for less than half the price.
They were no where to be seen when I was searching for the stupid thing!
I'm also thinking about getting one of these:
HAGEN BATTERY GRAVEL VAC CLEANER - because I need more toys in my life. Oh, AND because there isn't particularly strong suction with my python system so my (smaller than I really need) gravel cleaner wasn't very effective. Plus it cleans glass and can be used as a powered syphon - WIN!
After cleaning the tank I spotted these things on a bit of wood, any idea what it is? There's a bit more than you can see in the picture.
Otherwise, all is well in my little aquatic world, the plants are going nuts. I noticed after doing the water change and adding some TPN that one of my wisteria plants was releasing a constant stream of tiny bubbles and it still is! What's that all aboot?
Oh and I tried rubbing some of the diatoms off the plants but it was closely resembling hard work so I gave up - it does look a little better though
Low tech tanks can still see pearling right after a water change. 
