I recently just set this up and think it came out really cool! What do you guys think? suggestions on what fish/ inverts to stock?
I'm not done yet, I may add a sump or custom rig a canister filter with 4 inlets and outlets. I need a way to heat these too.... Here are stats on each tank:
Tank 1: custom mini sponge filter, amethyst crystals, anubias petite, cabomba furcata. Dosing phertz, excel and flourish.
Thank 2:Mini sponge filter, driftwood with slate foreground and rock background. Java fern, anubias petite, blyxa japonica. Dosing phertz,flourish, and excel
tank 3: this tank has a dirt bottom(mgopm) capped with sand. I'm dosing phertz, flourish and using a hagen mini elite with DIY co2 pumped in plus exel for good measure. High tech tank to pamper the staurogyne repens tropica that is dying in my 90g.
Tank 4: custom sponge filter no dosing at all, mgopm bottom, black sand cap, crystal and lava rock. Ludwiga aromatic....sp? This ones not really done yet.
Thought about it but if I do that all the tanks will share the same water, and the cool thing about this setup is that you can have 5 very different tanks all with different parameters which allows for more flexibility and variety. Thats actually why I went with individual filters and heaters as well, I was initially thinking of doing a sump or splitting up the intake and outflow of a canister filter for all the tanks but decided this way is cooler because I can be a mad scientist and try all my experiments... I can also set up a hospital tank in a hurry if need be.
How big is that salt tank?
This is a Condy?(min 30g)
As long you realize that anemone barely fit in a 10g add one fish and your maintenance will be an everyday business....
GL
Its only 2 gallons so I am way beyond pushing the limits, but I do a daily 25% wc and really keep up with maintenance so we will see if I get away with it! I do not plan to add any fish, maybe a cleaner shrimp or some of those super shrimp or a porcelain crab or something.
Picked up an anenome crab and the two are best friends now.
new re scape
Tank one is now filled and cycling with a well used filter cartridge in the whisper 20. I have 4 painted white skirt tetras in there temporarily.
Tank 2 is looking really good, the Xmas moss is growing like wildfire and the shrimp and endlers seem happy.
Tank 4 is a disaster. 2.5 gallons with DIY co2 has been a nightmare, the fluctuation is insane and the co2 spikes like crazy. I tried adding whey to the yeast and sugar to stabilize the mixture a little more, and switched to injecting the co2 into the hob intake for less efficient diffusion to prevent gassing the lone female endler that lives there. I had a bga infection in this tank that I solved with hydrogen peroxide and 2 50% wc in 2 days apart, but now it is cloudy, I believe it is re cycling.
Tank 5 has a new inhabitant, a baby betta from petco. This tank also got bga after the blackout but only a little on the moss, so manual removal and a bit of peroxide sent it packing and now it is looking much better and growing in nicely.
only thing i would suggest is not keeping the yellow and red shrimp together over time you will love the bright colors and end up with brown shrimp cause they cross breed back to wild color
Thanks for the tip I did not know that. Luckily I'm not trying to breed them or anything, I wouldn't mind a wild type look combined with some of those least killis mabj had, i think that would look cool in tank 2.
I recommend putting even more types of shrimp in there because they'll keep doing interesting things pretty much forever and have weird looking babies and those will be fun to look at too.
I've been pondering a way to incorporate a few pieces from my rock collection into a tank. This thread might be just the inspiration I needed. Also if you can get me a clear shot of that black mystery crystal I may be able to identify it.
Thanks he is the coolest critter I ever bought for 7 bucks thats for sure! glad I could contribute to you trying something new. Just be careful obviously certain rocks are not aquarium safe.
Ok so clown puke tank is going bye bye. I want to do a nice refugium With macroalgae and maybe mangroves, linked to the spec like this. Anyone who has done sumps, will a bulkhead in the plastic separator inside the spec work?
The red tube is the siphon and the blue is an airline run down PVC tubing to create a simple air lift pump that drains into the spec.
Or should I go with a traditional overflow, or try to drill the tank?
There are some threads here using pvc to make an overflow. You could probably place that into the filter section of the spec without the need to drill.
Update, did a lot today. I added some red kelp from a buddy's tank so officially a marine planted tank! I also decided to go with an overflow As per vvDO's suggestion, and got it done and dry fitted. My 26w finned bulb finally blew out when It fell in tank 4, oops! At least nobody got electrocuted for reasons I don't understand. Bought the best thing I could find on short notice, a petco screw in reef bulb, but it looks way dimmer plus want a less awkward solution... o now I'm thinking of some Small led fixture or possibly just swapping out the 6500k bulb in the 48" fixture for an actinic and leaving the 10k bulb in there wiithout any other lighting above the spec. Would the planted tanks look bad you think under half actinic?
This tank has really found it's balance and the Christmas moss is growing like a weed now, I like this stuff when it's healthy and not a bga magnet!
Tank 5 had been on the back burner. Up until recently it was uninhabited wi just plants in a dirt tank. I had been doing quick 10%wc here and there. The other day I pulled a cup of water and it happened to be a white cup and I noticed the water was brown tinted ver badly. Soil is still leaching, so I did a 50% wc and you can see the tank now! So far, I'm not a dirt tank fan. Too messy.anyway, I got a baby betta for this tank, and snapped a quick pic. He is tiny, not much bigger than a thumbnail and hard to get on camera. He is a jumper, I found him in tank 4 the other day! I made a plexiglass lid for him.
This morning my buddy Jerry came and picked up the white skirt tetras from the clown puke tank. They will be residing in his 75g bowfront discus tank. They seemed relieved to get out of that little tank! Set up the refugium tonight. Got 3 different macro algaes and a pound of live rock and a pound of live sand. My overflow was already breaking syphon! Murphys law has been killing me lol. I think I fixed the problem which was a leak in the check valve on top of the overflow... After I had just got done re doing it because of a faulty check valve the first time around. So now 3rd attempt, I checked the check valve this time and siliconed the [censored][censored][censored][censored] out of it so hopefully tomorrow it will be good to go, and I can start scaping my new marine planted tank refugium! Pics to come, tanks are too cloudy from the sand right now for it to even be worth showing them.
ok quick thing on the betta he is not a he but a she. stripes tend to be a give away and they tend to be smaller than males and wont get as big a tail. but on the up side most of the time you can have more than one female in the tank and they are pretty too
Ah i see. I've kept females in the past and I suspected this one was a female too, but wasn't sure because I have no experience with babies and thought maybe the fins would grow differently as it aged.
Love the tanks man. Makes me miss my 2.5. That salty tank is good looking. Honestly though, you can probably remove some of the sand. It looks a little deep in there. As for an overflow on it, just be careful. Not sure if you can drill that small tank, but it might be worth looking into.
Overflow and pump are in and working! Still need to clean everything up and scape the fugue tank but at least it is running and not flooding. More pics to come.
Eh Ive done the whole aesthetically pleasing thing with all my other tanks but this is my man cave/garage were talking about so its more of a rough industrial lab feel to it in general, whic h to me can just be aesthetically pleasing in its own right (think naked street bikes, race cars, steampunk style etc) Ill get some pics up of the whole room to put it in context. Also I will be spraying the pvc black and I may shorten up the outflow pipe over the fuge.
Do it! IME its no harder or more expensive than a high tech planted tank. Id start with at least a 10g though. Small tanks amplify the difficulties of saltwater tanks.
In the space of one tank you have four, nice. Will like to hear how the canister works out. I would think you would need a siphon between each tank to keep the levels constant.
Brinks, I decided against the canister idea due to the fact that I would have had the same water in all the tanks which woulddnt have allowed for individual environments and wouod have spread algae or disease..but I did have it all planned out. In a nutshell I was going to make intake and exhaust maniffolds out of pvc and 3/8" tubing with valves. kind of like how a car engine splits the air up on a 4 cyl engine. I can draw up a quick diagram if you dont know what I mean. But just so you know I wouldnt reccomend this idea. If you are interested in running a single pico off a canister then checkbout mabjs spec in his sig. Also I modded whisper 20 hob filters to fit these little 2.5g tanks, like these http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=3643
For 12 bucks it's a great filter, I just had to cut the inlet tube down and slip a sponge around it to limit the flow a bit and make sure shrimp don't get sucked in.
Just so you guys can see, Im not always doing things in mad scientist style.( and also cuz im stuck at a boring xmas party) Here are some of my more polished setups
: 20 long at work and my 90g at home
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
The Planted Tank Forum
3.5M posts
130.6K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to Aquatic tank owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about flora, fauna, health, housing, filters, care, classifieds, and more!