I will have more to update tomorrow after I pick up the equipment. A friend of mine has graciously offered the use of his tanks/etc while he is out of the country for work (years), so I will be picking up 2-3 10-gallon tanks and one 30-gallon tank (all glass).
Goals
The goals for this tank are as follows:
Water quality
The water, from what I know, is ~pH7 and moderately hard, so what goes in the tank must be able to deal with this - I do not want to deal with changing water chemistry via expensive chemicals.
What's in the tank
Substrate: Mineralized topsoil (AaronT's method) capped with Black Diamond 20/40 blasting grit
Plants: Anubias, Java fern, some type of moss, Rotala, Hygro
Fish: Cherry barb
Inverts: Red cherry shrimp (clean the plants/substrate), Ramshorn snails (clean the glass)
Infrastructure
I would like to experiment with sumps/overflows, but will probably keep things simple to start. 30G on its own and a 10G to breed the RCS. One of the spare 10Gs will be an emergency quarantine tank.
Timeline
More to come, and pictures, of course.
Goals
The goals for this tank are as follows:
- Learn how to run and enjoy an aquarium
- Low maintenance (minimal water changes, fert requirements)
- Low-light to save on power costs
- Low-tech - remove complication of CO2
- Low-cost (relatively, anways)
Water quality
The water, from what I know, is ~pH7 and moderately hard, so what goes in the tank must be able to deal with this - I do not want to deal with changing water chemistry via expensive chemicals.
What's in the tank
Substrate: Mineralized topsoil (AaronT's method) capped with Black Diamond 20/40 blasting grit
Plants: Anubias, Java fern, some type of moss, Rotala, Hygro
Fish: Cherry barb
Inverts: Red cherry shrimp (clean the plants/substrate), Ramshorn snails (clean the glass)
Infrastructure
I would like to experiment with sumps/overflows, but will probably keep things simple to start. 30G on its own and a 10G to breed the RCS. One of the spare 10Gs will be an emergency quarantine tank.
Timeline
- Mineralize the topsoil
- Lay the mud, then plant everything
- 2-3 weeks to cycle
- Add the RCS (10-15 to start)
- Give it 2-4 weeks for the RCS to get established
- Add a school of cherry barbs (~dozen)
- Enjoy, maintain, and document progress
More to come, and pictures, of course.