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Various Help for 2.5G?

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  gnome 
#1 ·
I have an All-Glass Aquarium with 2 Azoo Palm Filters and will be adding SeaChem Onyx Sand as a substrate and adding Glossostigma, Bacopa and Riccia with a small DIY Co2 reactor made out of one of those squattish water bottles.

Now with all these things listed out so you know what I have and what I will eventually get, what would be good stocking plans? An idea I had was 3 Pygmy Corys and 4-5ish Longfin Blue Leopard Danios or a Dwarf Gourami and 5 Longfin Leopard Danios. Opinions? :?

Also, are there any already assembled high intensity lighting hoods that might have a website?

Any thoughts are appreciated! :lol:
 
#5 ·
If you start out by planting it rather heavily you should be ok with that bio-load. i wouldnt add them all at the same time, add the oto by itself, then a week later the shrimps, then week after that the Gouramis. make sure you get the Gouramis young and that they are Male and female or they will fight.
 
#6 ·
Velvet AciD said:
Also, are there any already assembled high intensity lighting hoods that might have a website?
Based on the published outside dimensions of your 2-1/2 gallon AGA tank, (12-3/16"L x 6-1/8"W x 8-1/8"H), I can think of three sources that might suit your needs.

ESU Coralife Mini Freshwater Aqualight
9"L x 5"W x 2"H
2x 9W 6700K PC
18 watts = 7.2 WPG
This unit seems to sell for around $32.00-40.00 online.

JBJ PL-JG2-12F Desktop Formosa
12"L x 6"W x 3-1/2"H
2x 18W 10000K PC
36 watts = 14.4 WPG
Total wattage, cooling fan, leg stands (?), and the six-inch width might make this unit overkill/impractical. However, if interested, I'd suggest trying to negotiate a 6500K lamp swap with the vendor/reseller. I'm guessing that the photos in this old "For Sale" post are a better representation than the one on the JBJ site.

Pet Supply Liquidator
9"L x 4-3/4"W x 2 3/4"H
2x 13W 6500K PC
26 watts = 10.4 WPG
Two different styles are shown.

If you should happen to end-up with the little nine-inch Coralife Aqualight, please post a review!

PlantView
 
#7 ·
I also like the idea of B. maculata or T. pumila. Danios may be small, but they're fast swimmers and really are better off in larger tanks. I have two 2.5-gallon All-Glass tanks and in my planted one, I keep some algae-eating shrimp and few little guppies to eat worms and other incidental creepy invaders. I don't like T. pumila (sparkling gouramis) because they're very wiley. Mine sneaks up under my egg-laden Amano shrimp and snaps at the eggs. I'm just waiting for it to die, but it may be a while... Meanwhile, my shrimp have to learn self-defense.

I also keep an oto in the tank, and I happen to also have Malaysian trumpet snails and small ramshorns.

I'm wondering why you're going to run two palm filters on this tank...? Mine's fine with just one.

Oh yeah - if you want to go heaterless, you can try Heterandria formosa ("least killifish" - livebearers). They can tolerate quite low temps, although I wouldn't recommend *really* low, like under 60F. I'm planning a 4-gallon 'long' in which I plan to keep these, as well as some Amano shrimp.

-Naomi
 
#8 ·
Regarding lighting, *my* humble opinion is that PC is overkill. However, I don't know if you can get away with keeping a riccia lawn under regular fluorescent. I use the All-Glass 12" fluorescent strip light that's made for this tank, and if you use a Hagen Power-Glo bulb (*supposedly* 18,000K but I don't think it's quite that), you can grow ALMOST any plant. I replaced my old bulb with this one a few weeks ago, and my plants are now looking and growing very nicely, AND the color rendition is quite pleasing. My objective was to get my Hottonia palustris growing well, and my expectation was met. At one point (with a previous bulb), I was growing a very nice lawn of glosso in that tank. The last bulb I used was a Colormax, which wasn't so great. Anyway, main point being: it's not absolutely necessary to have PC lighting to grow beautiful plants. Besides, if you can't balance that intense light with the ferts and CO2, you're likely going to end up with a nasty, persistent algae problem.

I can tell you from experience that glosso and Bacopa (I presume B. monnieri) will be fine with the 8W N-O flo. Just make sure you get a good bulb and replace it every year. I don't know if you'd be successful with tied-down riccia, though, but it certainly doesn't hurt to try. You can always substitute it with something else if it doesn't work out. And keep in mind that Onyx is going to raise the water's hardness.

Good luck!

-Naomi
 
#10 ·
Aquaman said:
By the way the bulbs you mentioned gnome, are Mini-compact flourescents and have their own ballast built in, and yes they would work on a tank this size also.
Which bulbs did I mention? You mean the Hagen Power-Glo? Or are we talking about a different thread?

A few months ago I actually bought the incandescent 12" All-Glass strip light. I got it so that I could use one of those 10W screw-in PC bulbs (believe it or not, I could have gotten a Mini Aqualight for about the price I paid for the fixture and PC bulb). The whole thing was a major waste of money. First off, the socket is off to one side so that only half of the tank gets much light. Secondly, the bulb (6500K) made everything look so greenish-yellow and washed-out, any improvement in growth wouldn't have made up for the terrible color. More importantly, my beautiful crypt started growing out weird, deformed leaves after switching to this light and some of the older leaves melted. After about 10 days, I decided to go back to using my 8W N-O flo. and realized that all I really needed to do was to replace the bulb. Actually, Power-Glo's are pricey, but I decided to order a few things from Big Al's and they were selling the 12" Power-Glo for only $8.99 (as opposed to $17.99 my LFS was charging). My crypt is growing nicely, again, and the bad algae that resulted from the PC lighting seemed to recede, especially on my Anubias 'petit' leaves. And for the first time, my Sagittaria subulata has put out a runner. AND, today, I noticed that my plants are pearling!

Believe me - I've been tempted to get one of those Mini Aqualights. But just the idea of running 18W of PC lighting over such a small tank makes me very nervous because I tend to under-fertilize and my CO2 levels are always low. There's simply no way I could avoid uncontrollable algae in such a set-up. I've heard of people only running one bulb in those things, but wouldn't that be bad for the fixture and the single running bulb?

Anyway, for now, I'm very happy with the regular fluorescent Power-Glo. It definitely gives a "richness" and "even-ness" of color that I didn't get from the 10W PC bulb. I could probably get away with running the ferts low for days without any ill effects.

-Naomi
 
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