About one week into this new 40 gallon breeder with a Father Fish style dirted deep substrate. For better or (probably) worse I didn't boil the wood and am dosing ammonia instead of cycling fish in. Definitely experiencing a bacterial bloom but intend to wait it out. I did have roughly one day of ammonia overdose which is almost certainly contributing to some issues with the plants but got that in check so ๐ค hopefully all of the plants pull through! I did add some water and material from an older 10 gallon tank. In hindsight, I probably should have passed on the ammonia and thrown in a guppy.
Looking good. Interesting to see a before-and-after with lighter plant load in the after, but it looks super clean and healthy. What do you have growing on the wood? It looks GREAT. If it's moss, it's SUPER fluffy and compact. If it's algae, it looks amazingly well managed.