Help with my first nano (56k, I feel your pain)

[random_alias]

It sounds like you have plenty of light. Are you dosing any ferts or Excel for carbon? I would not think light would be your problem.

I will try this 2.5 with 13w PC lighting, 1.5x manufacturer's recommended dosage of Excel and 1/2 the normal dosage of EI since that seems to be where Tom has suggested I start from. If I test and my nutrients are building up I may back down to 1/4 EI dosing, just speculation until I get some plants in there and see what happens. Only experience I've had has been with 55 gallon hi-tech.

If things don't move along, I may try upping the light. Honestly, for some reason, I seem to be totally oblivious to how much light a smaller tank needs. I never thought I'd go smaller than 55 gallons again so I haven't been paying attention.

I tried breaking up some rocks I had but they fracture into thin sheets so it isn't working. I boiled the wood chips and after a while finally got them to sink. I replanted them and filled the tank with water to keep them from drying out. I'll drain the water back down for planting when I get the plants. I think the wood chips will work, at least until I come across something better.

[turtlehead]

Alright, thanks for asking for me. Where did you get the branches?

[Zen]

It really sucks you have to order things and wait, wait, wait.
Where I live you can get almost anything you want, but the prices are really high.

[Pseud]

RA, I have a LOT of slate left over. I can send you some slate pieces if you wanna try them. Just let me know what kinda size and shapes you're looking for and I'll see what I can find...

[random_alias]

Pseud, I'm trying to think of ways to use your slate. If I can come up with something I like you'll be the first person I ask.


Other than HC and Dwarf Hairgrass trimmed even shorter, what other plants fit the scale of a tank in the 1-3 gallon department?

Are there any mosses that grow tight to wood, like how terrestrial moss looks?

I have plenty of riccia but it's too long and branchy. I need something soft that grows in little clumps.

Does such a thing exist?

Maybe algae is what I'm really asking for?

[juanBeegas]

There is a form of moss... I don't know the latin name for it, but it's called mini moss here. It looks exactly like christmas moss, only, roughly, half the size.
I think you have your substrate a little too flat... Maybe if you sloped it off to the sides and create a little "valley" in between? You could fill up the valley with the HC and have the HG growing on the 2 "hills"... I hope you can get an idea of what I'm trying to describe...

[random_alias]

Hey! I had to use a 1.5 inch wide paintbrush to get my gravel like that!

I know what you mean and I agree. The soil needs to be higher where the wood juts out because there would be other hard stuff under the soil in those areas to raise it up, like with mountains. I plan to dust some soil around them before planting. It doesn't take much to make those little wood chips fall and I don't want to have to worry about the force of sloshing water.

I'm gonna look into this mini moss also. Until I see how the HC grows I can't be certain for what kind of scale I'm gonna shoot for.

Right now I'm thinking add a little rolling nature to the substrate, plant the HC everywhere, then put a few sprigs of HG around the edges of the wood where they meet the substrate and a few little patches dotted along the back glass, then trim the HG to about .5 inches along the smaller wood and 1 inch max near the larger wood chips and then the back a little taller than the rest. I really want the wood chips to look about 8-16 inches tall when everything is trimmed right.

Of course, I've never worked with wood, or stone, or HC, or HG, or Aquasoil before so these are probably typical best-laid plans

I'd love to use rocks in another one to make a mountain range from a far distance. I'd have to use algae to give them green patches of foliage.

I'd love to see something like this in an 18 inch x 12 inch x 9 inch tank.

[random_alias]

I've put up a black background and set the 13w galaxy light up over the 1.3. It's about 5.5-6.0 inches above the water. The wood has a much nicer brown color under this 7000k light, not at all like the orange hue it had under that other light I held over it for the above pic. I did a Ro water change and added 1/4tsp Equilibrium and a 1ml Excel. I added maybe 1/16 tsp of baking soda. Then I planted a few small cuttings of Pearl Weed to see if anything will grow in here before ordering a lot of HC and sending it to it's doom.

From now on I'll be dosing Excel at a rate of .2ml a day...somehow. At that rate, this 250ml bottle should last me about 3.5 years

So now I just need to dose ferts. I want to try EI @ 25% normal dosage.

So how do I add:

.0023 tsp of Potassium Nitrate
5.682x10(-4) tsp of Mono Potassium Phosphate
.0455 ml of micronutrient solution

Does anyone make 1/500th teaspoons? Looks like I'll have to mix solutions.

How do you guys dose your carbon enriched nanos?

[random_alias]

ok, I'm shooting for 25% normal EI dosage with my light and 1.5-2x normal dosage of excel for carbon.

Normal EI ranges are about 15ppm No3 and 1-3ppm PO4.

So I'm aiming for 3.75ppm NO3 and about 1 ppm PO4.

I want everything to mix into 500ml of RO H20 and dose at 5ml dosages because that's how I mix and dose my micros in my 55gal and that will keep everything consistent and easy to remember. It also allows me to use test kit vials for easy dosage since their fill line is 5ml.

Here's my math (based on this) ...

.5 tsp KNO3 added to 500ml RO water dosed in 1.2 gal of RO water will mean that every 1ml of solution will add 0.76ppm NO3 to my water, thus 5ml will dose 3.8ppm Nitrate.

.125 (1/8) tsp K2PO4 added to 500ml RO water dosed in 1.2 gal of RO water will mean that every 1ml solution will add .18ppm PO4 to my water, thus 5ml will dose .9ppm Phosphate.

Sound about right? Please check my math if you will.

Still need to figure out my micros.

[Tino]

Originally Posted by random_alias

I did a Ro water change and added 1/4tsp Equilibrium and a 1ml Excel. I added maybe 1/16 tsp of baking soda.

Honestly, you're set. Aquasoil will take care of the rest. Forget about Macros.
This is way more simple than you are imagening.

[random_alias]

Two quick snaps, obviously not meant for showing off. Tanks aren't finished with planting or scaping at all and the water in the larger is still cloudy. Just got my Azoo Palm filters in the mail today and finished setting them up. These pics are just to show how their filters and (painted) lights look and to give good size comparisons. Purely equipment/ Painting the reflectors white seems to have really helped even out the color of the lighting.

THe pics still came out blue but that's my photo skills, not the lights.

[turtlehead]

Hey what light is that and where did you get it? How many watts?

[random_alias]

It's a modified Azoo Galaxy light. The housing and the light it gives off looks very different from the way it does out of the box.

The housing was hot pink and transparent so light spilled out the top. The reflector has holes punched in it so light escapes and hits the semitransparent housing, making it look like little dots of light, very annoying. The reflector is unpolished and total crap. I painted it with a flat white paint. When you do those things, the light turns into something very nice and classy.

13w. They say 7200k but the color is very very unpredictable between the three I have. Painting the reflectors seemed to help even out the colors some.

I got them for half price from http://www.aquariumconnection.com/

But I do not recommend the lights very highly if you are going to use them as stock. I wasn't impressed. But the housing and the arm mounting made them worth the effort because I really wanted this style.

P.S. My photos were taken low because I don't have a tripod. I sat the camera on a small box. Under normal viewing conditions, you can't see the light bulb at all, only the black top of the lights.

Oh, and if you're gonna order more than one of these lights, I would recommend going ahead and order a spare bulb. It'll give you better odds of being able to get the light temps to match.

[fhqwhgads]

i think i found a moss that you might be interested in on aquabid, i thought it looked a lot like terrestrial moss
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/aucti...nts&1132146770

[random_alias]

Since you and juanBeegas have recommended the mini moss, I just won that auction. Thanks for the heads up. When I get it I'll grow it out and then we'll see how well it works in a nano.

Thanks.