Thanks you guys.
Guess a wee non-picture update while I'm here...
I forgot to mention in the last post that I switched the filter that came with the kit out with a Aqua-clear 20. I was just getting too much particulate matter with the kit from stopping/starting during feeding time. The water wasn't quite as polished looking as I would have liked it either. I folded my old used filter up in the new media bay and ran it for a week to help establish the new bacteria. Having a little ammonia issue right now (<.25ppm) so I guess I didn't quite leave it in there long enough. Nitrates are still 5ppm so at least I know something in there is still working. No readable Nitrites.
While still on the subject of water quality I hadn't realized just how much coloration had leeched out of the driftwood since adding it. The water had a nice light brown tinge to it. I guess this is ok in itself but with my lighting and the uber-bright green Wysteria it looked like I had green neon lights in the tank. I've done 2 - 40% water changes and several other 10% water changes since those last pics were taken. Removed the driftwood (in anticipation of my new plants arriving) and boiled the pieces again and soaked for 48 more hours with several water changes in a 5G bucket. The water is much clearer now and has remained so for several days.
Phosphates - Even after all the water changes they still remain high (>10ppm) so after doing some reading I found out that bloodworms will raise phosphate levels quite easily. I'd been feeding these several times a week to the betta/rasboras. No more for a while. Picked up a couple of things to help out with this. Cut a chunk of poly filter and added that to the filter and also a bag of Seachem purigen. Hopefully this will help get the levels down to a managable level. I'm guessing that I should aim for ~1ppm? Found a little info on the "redfield ratio" but I'm not entirely sure if that pertains to my low light situation. But if I read correctly it should be on a 1:5 ratio with the Nitrate level.
The new plants finally got here. Wow I knew that Anubias 'petite' was the smaller version but I had no idea it was THAT small. Very cool little plant this is. I got very nice portions from the vendor and was able to seperate 2 plants into 3 sections and a rogue rhizome (sp?) was in the same package. I jammed that into one of the driftwood pieces to see if it would develop. Tied up all the Taiwan Moss. My first time was quite tedious but I got the hang of it after the first try. The marimo balls are so much bigger than I thought they would be and look a little out of place in the tank. I'll get some pics up sometime this week.
The lfs that I had called about the rasboras I had never actually visited... I did on sunday and I'm so glad I didn't order anything from them in the dark. Probably a good 80% of the fish in the shop had ick. Man it was really sad to see all those sick fish. So the only other store semi-local to me has wild caught ones that I refuse to buy. Oh well. Maybe later.
Since that fell through I went ahead and picked up 12 White Cloud minnows (all juvenille) from another store. (Edit: I traded in the rasboras/tetras/oto for store credit.) Talk about adding activity to a tank, obviously this is way too many for such a small tank but...
My wife is so great. She's going to let me set up a nice tank in the bedroom. High light, pressurized CO2, the whole enchilada. So half of the Clouds are going in there eventually. I'm thinking 20G long right now but might go a tad bigger and do a 30G not quite sure yet, we have a little space restriction. Either way I'm planning everything out and taking my time. I'd like to do it as right as possible from the beginning from equipment to actually attempting to do a real aquascape. I have lots of research to do. :P
Wow, I type entirely too much sometimes... whoever reads it all gets a cookie I guess.
Cheers til next time.