Hoochi's pint sized Pico

[hydrophyte]

wow, what a fantastic tank! i remember it from a while ago and glad to see this update. that is really cool that you have U. graminifolia in a setup like this--i thought that it was a very demanding.

[garuf]

I'd only checked this thread out of curiosity as I'm a full time hater of pico tanks. This however is breathtaking, in both it's longevity and it's plant choice. Can you give some tips on how you got the UG to grow so well and how you maintained it during this period, I'm genuinely inspired to get some for my optiwhite nano!

[hoochi]

Thanks for the comments.

Originally Posted by hydrophyte

wow, what a fantastic tank! i remember it from a while ago and glad to see this update. that is really cool that you have U. graminifolia in a setup like this--i thought that it was a very demanding.

Originally Posted by garuf

I'd only checked this thread out of curiosity as I'm a full time hater of pico tanks. This however is breathtaking, in both it's longevity and it's plant choice. Can you give some tips on how you got the UG to grow so well and how you maintained it during this period, I'm genuinely inspired to get some for my optiwhite nano!

I've never found UG to be very demanding. UG has done well for me without ferts or CO2 and it can grow in med light except it tends to grow longer than if grown in higher light. I do however use RO water for my planted tanks so UG might prefer a lower KH.

For this tank in particular I mixed in some new aquasoil when I rescaped and I decided to grow the UG emersed. I planted some plugs of UG, poured water to just below the soil line, covered the tank tightly with plastic wrap and just waited for things to fill in. The tank needed a few occasional refills of water due to some evaporation. I kept the photoperiod at 12 hours since it was growing emersed and now I've cut the photoperiod back to 8 hrs since filling it up. Voila! that's it. A very low maintenance tank start up. Now to wait and see how the UG does converting from emersed to submersed. Hopfully the algae will stay away and the UG grows well.

[garuf]

Thanks for that, I have very hard water but since you've had such good luck I think I'm going to go for it. Again, really nice, it's rare I like picos since they're so contrived but this is brilliant.

[hydrophyte]

i need to try some of that plant someday. it looks so cool.

[hoochi]

Bringing this thread back from the dead. The tank was overrun with hair algae when I put a little piece of mini pellia in that had a spec of algae. The nutrients in the aquasoil were starting to get depleted anyways and UG was starting to suffer because of it. So this tank will be decommissioned.

I do however have a new pico tank to work on. It's a 12cm cube instead of 10cm. The 12cm is a 75% increase in volume over the 10cm which will give me a little more room to try and get a better scape. I can't wait to get started once I get together some hardscape materials for the tank.

Here are some final pictures of the tank

[TeamTeal]

that last pic look so clear!
very nice

[arien12]

This is an amazing little tank! I'd like to have something like this for my desk at work.

Have you started your new pico tank yet?

[Cottagewitch]

Sweet tank! I've been thinking of a pico for my desk. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE little tanks!