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Schuber-Wright 6g office tank

18K views 80 replies 29 participants last post by  toastedtoast 
#1 · (Edited)
Current photo, 10/12/12:


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Original 1st post
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I've been thinking that I need an office tank for a while now, and after reading CryptKeeper54's thread on his Schuber-Wright 4g setup I decided to take the plunge.

Planned equipment list:

Schuber-Wright 6g
Finnex canister
FugeRay 16" light
Atomic Nano V3 CO2 regulator on a 20oz paintball tank
GLA inline diffuser
Netlea 'Lambo' soil

Overall the tank is pretty nice, although the back right silicone seam is quite poorly done--the glass doesn't meet well at the top and the glue is quite thick. Since the tank is small and there's little water pressure I'm not going to worry about it, but I probably would have returned a larger tank with this seam. The rest of the silicone is pretty nice though, so maybe it's just a one-off bad seam.

I really like the Finnex FugeRay light, it looks pretty sleek and the overall fit and finish is pretty solid for $40. I was a bit torn between the FugeRay and RayII for a tank this small, but at around 9" between substrate and light I decided to go for the fugeray. We'll see how it does.

Empty-ish tank, I'm trying to optimize the fit of the DIY manzanita tree and larger stones. Since the tank is sitting in front of a window, being able to see through the glass onto the photocopier was a bit distracting. I've put a layer of "clear" contact paper over the back glass for a bit of a frosted effect and I think it's an improvement. It's easy to remove, so if I don't like it I can just peel it off later--much easier then adding it to a full tank.




Substrate in, along with the rest of the stones. I've been using a pyrex dish on my windowsill to grow emersed fissidens on some of these, we'll see how it does with the transition into the tank:


My LFS (Menagerie, Toronto) has started carrying these small "aquapaks" of tissue cultured plants from aqua flora in BC. They're a bit pricy at $7 but the plants are beautiful and once I separated it out there's actually a lot of plant mass here




All planted:



Since taking the last photo I caught the pothole in the front and fixed it.

Not sure how long I'm going to let this dry start, there's pretty decent coverage of HC already, so I may just let it go long enough to get a few roots down (1 week? 2?) before adding some taller plants to the back corners and flooding.

I'm thinking of putting some blyxa in the back left, and maybe more blyxa mixed with some kind of crypt and rotala around the branches on the right. If anyone has plant suggestions for a tank of this size I'd love to hear them.
 
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#34 ·
I think there's too much current for them, and they haven't figured out the dead zones yet. They seem to swim parallel to the glass right where the main water current hits it. In the tank they came from, they used to hang directly below the filter outlet where there was basically no flow.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Coming up on three weeks flooded, so here's another photo.

Not much has changed really, although I trimmed the taller bits of HC a bit shortly after taking the last photo--it's grown back pretty quickly however and you'd never know looking at the tank today. Some of the original blyxa leaves melted and are being replaced with new growth that's shorter and brighter green. I've never grown this plant before, so I'm not sure if this means it's happy or sad.

My emersed fissidens experiment worked better then I could have hoped, and a couple of my stones are now covered in fuzz.



I took this immediately after lights-on, so the drop checker is still a little dark and the fish are a little light. Both improve as the day goes on, but I'm thinking I should start the CO2 a bit earlier (it's currently turning on an hour before the lights).

I've started to notice some green dust-type algae on the upper branches of driftwood, just under the surface. It improves the look of the wood IMO, but I'll be shocked if it doesn't try and spread. I'm going to move a dozen or so cherry shrimp from my home tank when I have a chance--they should enjoy some fresh greens and some more red will look good with the scape.

So far, I think my biggest lesson from this tank is with planting HC. While it seems awesome to get enough to cover most of the substrate from the beginning, it's actually a bad idea. Areas where I had planted densely from the start had nowhere to spread out, and started to grow up (and float up). Zones that started out more sparsely have begun to spread nicely and are doing much better. Even though it's only been three weeks, I'm impressed with the growth speed of the HC under this light. I was expecting it to struggle or not grow at all, but it seems to be doing fairly well.

It's been a lot of fun so far having this in the office, especially since there's a window and the tank can be seen from the hall. It's a good conversation piece and I've had a chance to chat with a lot of the random people I see every day but have never actually talked to.
 
#40 ·
Thanks for the comments.

@Lowe, Overall I'm pretty happy with the setup equipment-wise and I'm glad I ended up going with you guys for most of it. My feeling is that the tank and filter are both decent products at fair prices, but the light is really a gem. For essentially the price of one of the eheim or fluval kits, it's a low-iron setup with a canister filter and a light that can grow plants pretty well. I'd enter a photo in your giveaway, but for some reason your facebook page isn't viewable for people outside the US.
 
#43 · (Edited)
Yeah, Blink it's one of the perks of working in a research lab--I have an office but spend less then 10% of my time actually sitting at a desk working on the computer. On the downside is that it's 2100h on friday night, and I'm at the lab posting on aquarium forums and waiting for my experiment to finish.

Week 4, time for another update. I should preface this post by saying that I've processed this week's photos on my work laptop, which has a really weird screen. I'm basically guessing on white balance etc. If the colors look to terrible when I see it from a decent monitor I'll change them when I get home.

Edit: Yep, the images look every bit as bad as I feared. I've updated them.

Here's the basic full tank shot from before tonight's WC:



I'm really happy with how things are growing in, especially the fissidens on some of the stones:



A less welcome addition is some green spot algae, which has spread a bit from last week and has now colonized the larger stones as well.



It's welcome to all the stones and driftwood it can eat, but I'm hoping to stop the spread before it reaches the glass in a serious way.

From my reading, it seems that my best route of attack is 3-fold:

1: Increase CO2
2: Increase dosing of P
3: Shorten day length

I've started #1, and started thinking about #3 but that's as far as I've gotten. If anyone has more experience with this algae, I'd appreciate hearing your suggestions.

While I was doing the weekly water change, I thought it was about time for a heavy trimming of the stems and HC. Here's the damage. Please excuse the residual HC crumbs and scared fish from the water change:



And another FTS:

 
#49 ·
Great looking addition to your office. Do you find your productivity has plummeted at the office? :icon_wink

If the nerite is anything like mine, he will spend most of his time on the glass and on the rocks. I only have DHG, but the nerite glides over it from time to time without ever damaging it. I know HC is a little easier to uproot, though.

Hey, I'm curious about your weekend routine. When I first became interested in having a planted tank, I had plans to put a tank on my desk at the office, but I sometimes work from home and I'm not in the office on the weekends. I eventually gave up the idea. With small fish like boraras brigittae that require finely ground food and regular feedings, how do you handle weekends away from the office? Do you use an automatic feeder? Do you also have temperature drops/rises on the weekend to contend with?

I'm glad you and your co-workers are enjoying the tank. It's great to have a little nature in an office.
 
#50 ·
Thanks for the nerite snail anecdotes. I think the suggestion of sticking to the smaller horned versions is a great one and I'll go hunting for one this weekend.

@Salty: Unfortunately I find myself working 7 days a week most of the time, so this isn't a big issue. I did go out of town for thanksgiving, and there was no problem over a 3-day weekend but I'm not sure I would want to do that often. My tank at home has an automatic feeder that I use on holidays, and I may buy one to use here if I decide to leave town over christmas.

I'm a little concerned about temperature, but so far it hasn't been a problem. During the day they keep our office about 25, and at night/weekends it drops to 22. Even with the lights off, the tank seems to average at least a degree above the ambient temperature. I think 23 is pushing it for these fish, but as long as it doesn't go lower I hope they don't mind. If it seems to become a problem I have a 25w heater that I can put in, but I'm hoping to avoid it.
 
#51 ·
I'm glad to see some of the latest tank shots, it's filling out beautifully! I'm sorry algae threatening, but you seem to be catching it early enough to fix it, right? Good luck!
 
#52 ·
Another week, another photo. I hope people don't mind my shameless bumping of the thread every week, but it's been a fun way to force myself to track the tank progress--not to mention all the useful feedback I've gotten.



As you can see, the green algae has continued its spread and has now colonized the back glass in addition to the stones. It's clearly happy, as you can see it start to pearl late in the day.

Starting last week I've increased fert dosing by 30% and dialed up the co2 a bit, but I think those will take time to show a difference (if they change anything). As a shorter-term solution, I've added a horned nerite, which looks pretty cool even if it doesn't manage to eliminate the algae. The cherry shrimp do a good job of keeping the wood clear, but they don't seem to come out and clean the rocks much.

Other then algae, I think the tank is doing fairly well. HC is spreading out, though there is some melting--I think this is the emmersed growth finally dying off but it's hard to tell. It recovered pretty well after my trim last week, so I hope it will be OK.

Blyxa is doing well, and I think there is some trimming in its near future. H. tenellus is going crazy, though the growth is different then what I see in my low-light tank. At home, it's about 4cm tall and green and here it's growing the full height of the tank and turning reddish. It's different then I expected, but it actually looks pretty neat like this.
 
#53 ·
I don't mind at all! It's inspiring :D And if it helps you keep track yourself, all the better :) Looks like it's coming along; hope the steps you took against the algae pay off.
 
#56 ·
After they've been in here a few weeks, I really don't think the chili rasboras are very happy. The temperature and water quality are good, but I think flow is too high and they seem to be struggling with the current. In my 20g tank at home they were able to find dead zones to hide in, but here they don't seem to be able to.

I'm going to bring them home tomorrow, but I'm undecided about what to replace them with. At home I have a school of microdarivario kubotai (~16) and 5 Trigonostigma espei. I think the espei are too large for this setup, which is too bad since they handle current well and are very outgoing. I'm tempted to bring in half of the kubotai since they're fairly active but the green isn't as striking as it could be against plants. Another possibility is to just get a half dozen neons somewhere, since they're cheap and fairly outgoing most of the time.
 
#58 ·
Looks like the problem is solved. I shoved a small funnel on the filter outlet as a ghetto lily pipe, and it does a pretty good job of spreading out the water flow and preventing the strong jet that was causing problems before. I just put it on last night, but the fish are already colouring up more this morning then they have since I moved them into this tank.
 
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