Impulse buy for an office tank, purchased from petstore.com and it arrived in less than 3 days. I already had a bag of eco-complete and threw some in to gauge how much I would need. Ordered a Finnex Fugeray 12" LED fixture which I hope will be here by next week. Unsure on filter, I'm either going to use a Fluval 205 a friend gave me recently if I can figure a way to reduce flow or a HOB AC20. If I can't have a CO2 setup at work then I will likely be dosing excel. What I really need is a cover
The master plan (best case scenario):
Tank: 12" (30cm) Mr. Aqua cube
Substrate: Soil capped with Eco-complete
Lighting: Fugeray 12" High powered LED (awaiting delivery)
Filtration: Fluval 205
CO2: Paintball (limited office space)
Fertilization: Root-medic tabs and liquid ferts macro + micro
Heater: hydor inline (really depends on whether or not I go all shrimp vs mixed fish and shrimp and what kind of filter decide on)
Scape: rock vs driftwood: with a cube shape I think driftwood would look better
Flora: glosso foreground, undecided on mid and rear plants.
Possibly Limnophila sp mini vietnam, blyxa japonica and a reddish plant, maybe rotala macrandra sp Japan red, fissidens fontanus on driftwood
Fauna: 6 corydorus habrosus, green neons, possibly RCS or fire reds
Well that's the plan anyway. Here's where I am so far... (not very far at all shhhhh...)
Slept on it and made some changes, added 7-8 rootmedic tabs then a top dressing of eco-complete. The light is a Finnex Fuge-Ray 12" with daylight and moonlight.
Had a huge delay in setting this up. At least now I have just about everything I need. Never knew having a kid would set me back so far.
A friend in the Bay Area was able to supply me with a bunch of cuttings. Planned glosso is out since my emersed set up dried out while I was away. I gave away half to my friend however his became overgrown by microsword so there went all my glosso. Not a big deal I guess since that same friend is the one hooking me up with the following:
2 unknown stems (one has longish, fine needle like green leaves, the other sends shoots out at 90 deg and comes apart very easily.)
Corkscrew Val
Staurogyne Repens
Dwarf hairgrass (? Belem)
Rotala macandra red
Bacopa sp
Plus a bunch more to stock my 20g long.
I am dry starting the cube. Unsure if some of the stem plants are going to make it. I may reconsider the light since these plants may require more. First I will get CO2 going and see how things grow. 20g is planted, filled, and pressurized CO2 is running... Much easier than I thought thanks to this forum.
Pics to follow, right now I'm off to get some much needed sleep.
Pics as promised, first here's why progress came to a halt...
6 months later...
And here's the tank planted and ready for dry start. I sprayed and sprayed, poured some water, sprayed some more then covered with saran wrap, added my light and now the waiting and watching begins. I kept the front 2 inches unplanted and will attempt to keep it clean since i am planning to have shrimp. I want an open area to provide a feeding ground.
Love the set up! Glad your back to it. Your son is very handsome and I love the Yankee hat! Can't wait to see it thriving. Please keep us updated if you find the time. I know too well how it is with my 17 month old boy. Sooner or later I'll get around to posting pics
S. repens didn't do so well, only 1 stem remaining, I will probably flood it soon once I have my CO2 paintball setup for this and transfer plants over from my 20L.
Dry start was killing me, only thing growing well were a small bit of HM and bacopa australis. DHG wasn't growing much, S. repens almost completely melted. It needed a drastic change. Thanks to my friend for hooking me up with some stems of S. repens, r macandra Japanese and a single stem of a bacopa. Well here goes... Oh and I filled the sucka. Paintball tanks also filled, have a cool paintball setup that I want to try more to follow on that.
That was one of my thoughts, and I would have probably placed 2 of those over the tank. I'm not sure this light is strong enough to get the colors I want however it does look nice. I took the pics without the moonlights on. There's a bit of a glimmer especially with water movement from the output bar.
Had some issues getting CO2 to work, tank was leaking from the relief valve and I tried tightening it however no change, hopefully I can return it. I have another idea for setting up my paintball CO2 but I need to have a working tank of course. Also my JBJ bubble counter's check valve already gave way and I hope the water didn't ruin the reg setup. Waiting for everything to dry until I try with my 2nd bottle.
S. repens loves to melt until cycle is over. I am surprised this tank is taking this long to cycle since I added medium from my 20L. At least nitrites are coming up which means the cycle's end is coming. I hope to stock soon and will likely try my hand at shrimp once the tank matures some.
YAY... CO2 is working with my other tank and I also received word my paintball is going to be replaced and Empire is also covering shipping to return my tank.
Here's the setup. I bought a paintball regulator made by RAP4 which attaches to my ASA on/off valve. This reduces the tank pressure to 50psi. I also modified a paintball setup from Nilocg to add a more accurate needle valve and a solenoid. I was afraid to use the original setup nor let it go to waste/sell it off, I did a lot of research on adapters etc and this seemed to be the most reasonable. Better to play with 50-100 psi than 800. Major problem is the gauge has a large scale so I can't see where my output pressure sits. I am looking into buying a smaller scale gauge to replace one of the 2 gauges and may plug the other.
I've decided not to add the betta, tank has been running plants and snails alone. Minor changes... Added hydrocotyle from my 20L however it's overgrowing and will likely come out. Bacopa and R. Macandra Japanese are growing well. The Finnex is pretty bright however does not bring out the reds as much as in my 20L.
Not bad... A little over 2 months on a 20 oz paintball CO2 canister. I bought 6 juvenile long finned golden rams and added end them last weeks. They are juveniles and are aggressive eaters. Plan is to move half of them out once I have a better idea on sex and to see which fish pair off. The rest I will likely sell or move to another tank that I'm planning. Pics to come once they are a bit less skittish.
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