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Navyblue's 22G Custom Rimless

4K views 32 replies 6 participants last post by  Navyblue 
#1 ·
This is my fist attempt at planted tank.

About 2 years ago I custom made a 2'x1.5'x1' shallow rimless tank, with the intention of housing a pair of clownfish and anemones.



However the project was soon neglected after it had started. This is as far as it went.



Anemones, corals and even the lighting were never added. Fast forward to last few months, I have mostly finished filling up my main reef tank which fell into a similar state of neglect. I moved the fishes to the big tank and the tank is left pretty much empty for a while.



The tank was plumbed to the sump of my main tank to share a common filtration system. I wasn't entirely happy with the way it was plumbed. It wasn't loud, but it wasn't dead silent either. I decided to rectify the plumbing or to remove it altogether. I decided with the later.

However, what should I do with the tank after it was disconnected? The easiest thing to do is to turn it into another reef tank, as I already own most if not all the necessary equipments. But now that it is disconnected from my main tank, all options are suddenly on the table. But the two options that stood out the most are a low maintenance soft coral tank versus a low maintenance low tech planted tank.

It took me a while to make the decision but I decided against a reef tank. Having a simpler and smaller reef sitting right next to a larger and more elaborate reef would just make it look lame. With a planted tank, it would at least be something different and provide a nice contrast to the reef tank.
 
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#28 ·
Thanks. :) I was kind of influenced by this tank here and wanted to try build something similar.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1823130

In the end I think it is more suitable for a riparium style planted tank than reef.
Yeah I was thinking about doing a riparium planting in a low and broad rimless tank like this. It would looks real good with a nice stone and gravel substrate and tall plants.
 
#29 ·
I took the hands off approach for a while. And when I came back from a trip, the tank looked somewhat horrible.

There was a rather thick surface film. The anacharis had mostly melted. The rotala that were growing is now turning brown and melting. The water sprite are also started to melt.

Not sure what had gone wrong. My guess is the light was too strong and the CO2 was too little. The surface film is likely impeding the CO2 exchange. I did some water change and try to skim off the film but there are still some of it left. And I think I am going to change the photoperiod from 10 hours to 2x4 hours split photoperiod.

I removed the dead and dying plants and added more new plants. On a positive note, the anubias had sprout new leaves and the jungle Val had sprung out new plantlets through its runner.



I added 5 Sakura shrimps yesterday, but I only saw 4 max. I think all of them are female and most are berried. This morning I found 2 dead shrimps, and only saw 2 at most. However I also saw a 2mm or so long transparent shrimp, one of them seemed to have given birth.

I also saw some tiny crawling stuffs that is even smaller than the tiny shrimp I saw. What are those? Are there copepods in FW tank?
 
#30 ·
I recently moved the tank across the room, I thought it warrants an update. I also took the opportunity to modify the light stand. Apart from minor difference in arrangement this is how the tank looked like for quite a while.







Looking at the original post date, the tank has been running for more than 18 months. During this I would say I have learned quite a bit regarding plant.
The tank has suffered bouts of neglect, some plants do better than the others. But the only one that does well is submersed anubias nana petite. So I thought, why not made a tank with just it. That would be the ultimate low maintenance tank.

Speaking of low maintenance, the initial goal of have only the fish waste fertilise the plant, has been a catastrophic failure. It seem to work when the only plants in there are submersed anubias nana petite. When having the regular anubias nana, it will always show nutrient deficiency. When I was having it emersed, I could never dose enough N or have enough fish for it not to have yellow tips. Now that it is completely submersed, I have to dose 6ml of Seachem Flourish N weekly, along with P and K. That is more than twice the recommended dosage, I never thought it could happen to a low tech tank.

I suspect it has partly to do with the vigorous surface agitation which provided it with significant CO2 supply. It is the plants that are directly in the path of MaxiJet 1200 (15x turnover per hour) that shows the most nutrient deficiency. I reduced lighting to 7 hours to reduce nutrient consumption. I wonder if reducing flow would reduce nutrient consumption further? Which No dosing is my goal but it doesn't look like it will happen with the plants in there.

While I failed in the low maintenance department, the tank never had any algae problem. I attribute it to the low light and the vigorous flow. There are hints of green brush algae on the centrepiece wood but that's about it. During the tank move I took the opportunity to spot treat Seachem Excel. Some of them has turned pale now.
 
#32 ·
That turned out to be the last picture before I tore it down and moved all the plants to another tank.

I swapped out the bulb for a stronger one, added pressurised CO2, a cooling fan, and basically turned this tank into a high tech tank.





Behind the bush at the back, you can see a panel. Behind the panel there is the same Maxijet 1200, a ceramic CO2 diffuser is placed underneath the intake.
 
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