"Broken Bridge" - 3gal picotope journal

[Solstice]

Thank Guillermo!

The more I think about it, the more I want a little more than just HC in this tank, but I'm shying away from stem plants. I still want to keep a clean, basic, simplistic look, but I want to dress it up a tiny bit. I've got some Monosolenium tenerum (aka Pellia...one of these days I'll either learn the scientific names or give up and stop posting them all together :P) that I spent the evening tying down to some rocks that I'm thinking about growing out for a background.

I'm also playing with the idea of using some dwarf hairgrass along the sides of the tank for a little more texture. Something like (and please pardon the MS Paint skills here):



I realize I'm asking for hell trying to keep the HC and hairgrass semi-seperated, but I figure that's what conference calls and 8" tweezers are for.

This would kind of give the effect that the hairgrass was growing atop the hills on each side of the bridge and the HC was growing on the banks and the bed of the canyon.

What do you guys think?

[SCMurphy]

Originally Posted by Solstice

Steven
I love the look of the Cassula helmsi, but I can't find any images of the Micropea minima.

Just to help out. Microcarpea minima is in the background of this pic.

[wood]

Originally Posted by Solstice

Thank Guillermo!

The more I think about it, the more I want a little more than just HC in this tank, but I'm shying away from stem plants. I still want to keep a clean, basic, simplistic look, but I want to dress it up a tiny bit. I've got some Monosolenium tenerum (aka Pellia...one of these days I'll either learn the scientific names or give up and stop posting them all together :P) that I spent the evening tying down to some rocks that I'm thinking about growing out for a background.

I'm also playing with the idea of using some dwarf hairgrass along the sides of the tank for a little more texture. Something like (and please pardon the MS Paint skills here):



I realize I'm asking for hell trying to keep the HC and hairgrass semi-seperated, but I figure that's what conference calls and 8" tweezers are for.

This would kind of give the effect that the hairgrass was growing atop the hills on each side of the bridge and the HC was growing on the banks and the bed of the canyon.

What do you guys think?

Hehe, reminds me of that old nintendo game Zelda

Sounds like a nice aquascape you will have going. You will be dosing with Excel I assume?

-Ryan

[Gill]

Very Interesting Tank.
Really Like the Scape

[Solstice]

SCMurphy
Thanks for the pic. I think if I go with anything other than the HC, DHG and Pellia though, it'll probably be the Crassula helmsi. I'm trying to resist the urge to design version 2.0 of this tank before version 1.0 is finished, but it's tough!

Gill
Thanks buddy! Hopefully it grows in as well as what I have in my head right now. Ha!

Here's a marginally better photo. As soon as I thought I was getting the hang of shooting this tank, the camera's battery died...go figure... I have to figure out how to keep my reflection from fudging up the tank. I'll have to try some more tomorrow after the Energizer Bunny works his magic.

Anyway, 3 Pellia stones are in the back of the tank now. The java moss is getting yanked today and there's the first shot of the black neon that I haven't named yet. I think that'll have to be my next priority....

[Solstice]

Wood
LOL @ Zelda. Now I've got the theme song stuck in my head! Do-da-doooo. Do-do-da-doooooooo. :P

Sorry I missed your post. Yes, I'm going to start off dosing with Excel. If I'm not happy with the growth I'm getting out of the HC, I'm going to give Lycosa's DIY Paintball CO2 a shot as I don't want to mess with yeast/sugar/baking soda at work. I'm considering setting one up for my home tank (10gal) too as I've been getting really inconsistent CO2 out of my DIY setup there.

I started dosing EI today using:


Those little baby medication oral injectors are invaluable IMO. I have one for each tank now The container has enough KNO3/KH2PO4 to last me over 6 months worth of dosing for macros on Mon and Thurs and I'll be using 1.5ml of Flourish on Tues and Fri for micros. Excel will be added at .25ml Mon-Fri.

This, of course, is just a starting point and will probably be adjusted based on growth/algae issues.

[SCMurphy]

Originally Posted by Solstice

SCMurphy
Thanks for the pic. I think if I go with anything other than the HC, DHG and Pellia though, it'll probably be the Crassula helmsi. I'm trying to resist the urge to design version 2.0 of this tank before version 1.0 is finished, but it's tough!

You are welcome, I was just offering a pic of a plant that you said you couldn't find. The HC in that tank was/is growing with Excel and Flourish under a 23 watt screw in PC so I think you should be ok getting HC to grow in your tank. Oh, that's an 8 inch cube tank, 2.2 gallons, just for persepective.

[Hoppy]

I'm not a great aquascaper, so I can't offer much advice there, but naming fish is my specialty: Stripe! How's that for originality, imagination, etc?

Seriously, this is an interesting journal!

[Solstice]

SCMurphy
Don't get me wrong, I was seriously thankful for the picture. I didn't me to seem flippant or like I was dismissing it. That's a beautiful nano you've got there. And I'm stoked that Excel will work. That's a lot less to worry about.

Hoppy
Awesome! Stripe it is. Or we could go with Striper and tie in the whole Gremlins thing. Haha.

[Solstice]

Wow, I've got a bunch of pics to share this post....

I came into work a half hour early today to get the 2"x2" square of HC that BUCKEYEMOLDED sent me. Haha! Shows how much experience I have with HC. 2 1/2 hours later and I'm finally done. Granted there was some work I had to do in between there, but my goodness, planting HC is tedious!

Not really knowing what to do with it, I decided I'd plant it like I would plant anything else. I gently pulled strands out of the clump of HC, found a root, trimmed the top off right below the root, stripped the leaves about 1/4" up the stem and then pushed it into the soil. I figure all-in-all I probably planted 90-100 individual stems and I still have a decent amount of HC left.

Lessons learned:

1. After HC is shipped, some parts will arrive better than others. Don't bother with the stuff that didn't come out of the box as well.
2. Sharp tweezers are a must. I wound up using some tweezers I had instead of my "aquatic forcepts" because they were sharper.
3. Aquasoil is a lot hard to plant fine stemmed plants in than EcoComplete.
4. Be patient and take your time. It'll come out better in the long run.

Sorry, back to crappy camera phone pics. I remembered to charge the battery last night but then I left the whole camera at home this morning. DOH!

Here's me prepping the HC. You can see the individual strands I'm ready to plant lined up along the yellow stripe on the ziplock baggie.




And here's a shot of the tank after they're all done. You'll have to pardon the floating HC remnants as I don't have a net here in the office. I'll add that to my lunch time shopping list.




I've also gotten several PMs about the lights that I'm using. As I mentioned before, I originally bought the 27w Home Depot light linked to in the first post (I think) and later replaced it with an architect's desk lamp and a 23w spiral bulb that I had lying around. The reason for this was that, although the bulb in the Home Depot light was advertised as 6500k, it looked a lot more yellow to me.

Here are the lights. I took these pics with them turned off because it glared up the camera too much to shoot them powered on.

Home Depot special


Architect's light


Finally, here's a pic of what the tank looks like with the Home Depot light that you can compare to the above pic (which has the architect's light over it) to see the color difference



I've decided really prefer the look of the Home Depot light. It looks better over the tank IMO. I think I'll pick up a 6500k bulb for it after all....

Thanks for reading!

[Solstice]

Ok, I have a question for you guys. My RCS babies are on schedule to hatch next week (assuming the approx. 28 day gestation period is correct). When they do, I'm planning to move a couple of the adults from my 10g at home into the nano.

My problem is the HC still hasn't rooted very strongly. Topping off the tank today I missed the plate I had floating on the surface for just a second and the downforce of the water uprooted 3 HC stems. How long should I wait for the HC to take hold before I put any shrimp in?

[SCMurphy]

Originally Posted by Solstice

SCMurphy
Don't get me wrong, I was seriously thankful for the picture. I didn't me to seem flippant or like I was dismissing it. That's a beautiful nano you've got there. And I'm stoked that Excel will work. That's a lot less to worry about.

I didn't take it as flippant, I just wanted to share a little more info with you and answer some more questions you had. Thank you btw.

I have uprooted and replanted the HC in that tank 3 times with a full load of shrimp in the tank. You don't have to wait for the HC to become established unless you want to.

[Solstice]

SCMurphy
I'd just like to avoid having to replant it as much as possible, but I think I'll move some shrimp and some baby spixi snails in soon anyway.

Today acutally I moved offices and, therefore, had to move the tank. I just drained it until there was only about 1" of water above the substrate, lifted it onto an office chair and rolled it to my new space (went from a corner office to a cubicle - damn fast growing companies - or are they trying to tell me something? :P). Gotta love the easy of moving a nano! Just a little HC got loosened up and had to be replanted, but other than that, it was really easy.

My RCS just started hatching babies yesterday in my 10gal. I can't wait to get home and see how many eggs the females have hatched! I was dosing the hairgrass that I want to move into this tank with some Excel (clearing up a little BBA first) and one of the females shook her swimmeretts like they do to circulate water around the eggs, but this time a baby shrimp shot out the back. Holy cow they're tiny! Anyway, I figure in a week or two if I'm able to catch any, I'll go ahead and bring them to their new home.

There's a tiny bit of algae growing already on the back right Okho rock, so I figure brining in the cleanup crew sooner rather than later won't hurt.

I'm still debating on what kind of fish to keep in here. The Sparkling Gouramis still really appeal to me and I've read a few threads of people successfully keeping them with shrimp, so I may go ahead and give it a try.

On another note, my mom asked me if I would setup a tank for her house. I'll do something similar except I'll use wood and less rock in her setup. Just ordered another Picotope today!

[bioch]

Maybe no fish?

[Solstice]

Originally Posted by bioch

Maybe no fish?

Well, the problem is, if I was going to do something crazy like that, I just might have to buy some CRS to justify the lack of fish... Hmmm...