Lego's 10g Rescape - Beginnings

[legomaniac89]

I was going to wait and start this once I rescaped the tank, but I'm a bit bored at the moment. So here ya go. This was the first tank I set up after getting into the planted hobby, and it's been up for a little over two years now.

This is the tank as it stands now. It's been pretty neglected lately, so it doesn't look the best. Hence the upcoming rescape



The new scape is going to be a dark, deep rainforest jungle theme. I'm waiting on some Manzy from Jake at the moment. He's working on finding me a couple pieces with lots of intertwining and twisted branches that will make this tank look pretty sick, I think. The plan is to use almost exclusively mosses, Anubias and ferns.

Size - standard 10g (20"x10"x12")

Lighting - Coralife Aqualight 2x18W T5 fixture

Filter - not sure yet. I have an Aqueon 20 HOB right now, but it's not gonna stay long for sure

CO2 - probably DIY until I can save up enough money for a new pressurized setup. I'll probably go mostly GLA with that.

Substrate - My (well technically, Jfrank85's) special substrate mixture that grows plants like none other. Potting soil, clay gravel, greensand and kelp meal and the main components planned for this guy. I'll probably top it with Flourite Black or something similar.

Hardscape - manzanita from Badcopnofishtank. I can't wait to see what he finds for me

Plants:
-Anubias nana "Golden"
-Anubias nana "Petite"
-Anubias nana "Narrow Leaf"
-Anubias nana "Marbled"
-Anubias nana "Eyes"
-Anubias coffeefolia
-Bolbitis heudolotii
-Flame Moss
-Weeping Moss
-Pottias Moss
-Chorong Moss
-Mini Pellia (maybe)
-Peacock or Xmas Moss
-maybe Singapore Moss
-Needle Leaf Java Fern
-Cryptocoryne usteriana x walkeri - I got this guy from AaronT a while back and I've been hoarding it ever since

Fish - no idea. Probably one of the following:
-a school of some kind of Microrasbora or Boraras
-Sparkling Gouramis
-Dwarf Puffers
-a shrimp-only tank, maybe Yellows, Dark Greens or something like that

All I need to get is the manzy and I can get started! Woot!

[CL]

Just like the Chicago song

Nice anubias collection
This is gonna be a sick tank with that DW

[TsuRyuu]

Stunning plant collection. Looking forward to seeing what you'll do with it!

As for fauna, that's a toughie. I think dwarf puffers are absolutely adorable, but I'm afraid they're so small and so camouflaged that they'd vanish against the anubias-dominated background. Microrasbora could be pretty stunning. What about neons? The bright blue + red could look stellar against that backdrop.

[legomaniac89]

Originally Posted by clwatkins10

Just like the Chicago song

Nice anubias collection
This is gonna be a sick tank with that DW

Thanks Chris! Yeah, about 90% of the Anubias you sent me are going in this thing. It's been a vision in my head for quite a while, I've just never gotten around to doing it

Originally Posted by TsuRyuu

Stunning plant collection. Looking forward to seeing what you'll do with it!

As for fauna, that's a toughie. I think dwarf puffers are absolutely adorable, but I'm afraid they're so small and so camouflaged that they'd vanish against the anubias-dominated background. Microrasbora could be pretty stunning. What about neons? The bright blue + red could look stellar against that backdrop.

Thanks! As of right now, I'm kinda leaning towards maybe a trio of the gouramis and a bunch of shrimp of some kind. The SG's only get 1.5" long, so they'd be fairly shrimp-safe.

My goal with the fauna in this tank is to not have them be the first thing you notice. DP's and the gouramis are both pretty secretive, and I think they'd love hanging out in the mass of driftwood. I'm leaning more towards the gouramis because they're not one you see very often, where it seems like a number of people have DP's or Microrasboras.

[FrostyNYC]

I'd go with the sparkling gouramis for sure. They could even use the anubias leaves for their bubble nests, since they often nest under leaves (rather than at the surface like most gouramis).

I would throw in a more substantial cleanup crew though, since you have 36 watts of light and all of your plants are very slow growing. I also see some algae on the anubias you already have and diatom on your glass. Maybe otos and snails?

[legomaniac89]

Thanks Frosty! Gouramis are a fish I've never had much interest in before, but I've been doing a lot of research on the smaller species and they really piqued my interest. Honestly, I hate the bigger ones like the Opaline and Kissing gouramis, but the little guys are really cool.

I'll definitely have some sort of a cleanup crew for this thing. Otos, shrimp and snails most likely. The algae I have now is mostly because I've neglected this tank a lot lately (i.e not dosing ferts or Excel, hardly any water changes).

[CL]

I hate the bigger gouramis as well. Beautiful colors, but they just look ugly IMO. If it weren't for the colors, no one would have any IMO, but I love the sparkling gouramis. One of my favorite fw fish. They have great personalities.

[legomaniac89]

Ever seen a Samurai Gourami before? Those guys are sick! Expensive too. I wonder if invertzfactory can get them?

They're nice, but a little too big for this tank I think

[CL]

Originally Posted by legomaniac89

Ever seen a Samurai Gourami before? Those guys are sick! Expensive too. I wonder if invertzfactory can get them?

They're nice, but a little too big for this tank I think

Wow! That is sick!

[speedie408]

Good luck with the tank lego. I know you'll do good with it. That gourami you posted up there has got to be the best looking gourami I've seen... and I don't even like gourami's. Hope you get some

[legomaniac89]

Well, the rescape may be delayed a bit longer than I expected. I just dropped over $500 on books for this semester (which starts tomorrow morning), meaning I'll also be getting about half the hours at work that I have been getting. But to top it all off, I'm pretty sure that the hard drive in my laptop crashed last night and I haven't been able to access anything since then. I'm taking it to a compute tech friend tonight, but he said that it didn't sound good, so there's a good possibility that I may be forced to buy a new laptop for this school year. There goes another few hundred dollars.

Here's the icing on the cake. My cell phone has been acting all stupid for the past two weeks. The battery only holds a charge for a couple of hours now, and it's been turning off at random times, even when the battery's fully charged up. So that may end up being replaced too. Rrrrrrrrrr...I really hate technology

Sorry for the vent, but man, has this been a bad week.

[Postal Penguin]

If the hard drive is dead, just buy another one. No need to replace the whole laptop.

[legomaniac89]

Well the hard drive was still working somewhat. I could restart the computer and the Windows login screen would load, but nothing after that, just black screens. I dropped it off at my friend's house earlier and he's gonna work on it tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be okay.

[CL]

Originally Posted by legomaniac89

Well the hard drive was still working somewhat. I could restart the computer and the Windows login screen would load, but nothing after that, just black screens. I dropped it off at my friend's house earlier and he's gonna work on it tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be okay.

fingers crossed

[SvenBoogie]

I'm considering a trio of scarlet badis for my 10g, two females and one male. Extremely tiny fish, but very attractive and interesting, IMO. The difficulty I'm having is finding a way to get my hands on sexed fish, almost everyone sells only males.