the evaporation rates are pretty high in many places, so the pools are gone pretty fast in my 180 gallon tank, the HC is starting to grow in pretty fast now after sitting for about 2 weeks.
The same is true in submersed culture.
You will get denser growth in submersed culture after you flood the tank.
I am going to squeeze a few sponge filters worth of mulm into the new filter, that+4-5 weeks worth of HC growth, plenty of NH4 in the sediment, high surface area, will help the system's microbial community better than any other method I know of.
The other thing is that it's almost too easy.
Looking and thinking about how many water changes etc I'd need to do to get to this point and the stages of the algae as well.........
Not a bad deal at all.
I'll pack the back and rear sections with plenty of plants from my other tanks, I have a nice 3000gph wave maker, UV, excellent mechanical filtration, venturi CO2, very flexible lighting.
The tank should be up and running well rather quickly.
Regards,
Tom Barr