vvDO's Mr. Aqua 7.5g cube... Golden rams pics added 5/19/13 UPDATE

[vvDO]

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...)

From the right:



Center view


From the left...

[vvDO]

Out goes Eco-complete for a bit while I switch with New Amazonia. Also have a piece of lava rock that I just picked up and decided to try a scape.

Plan is to fill in and top with ecocomplete. The rock gets a lot darker when wet.

[vvDO]

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.

[GMYukonon24s]

Nice start

[GMYukonon24s]

Did you fill this up with water ? or made any changes?

[vvDO]

Not yet, planning to dry start next week with Glosso it's gonna be a slow progress due to travel plans/work.

[tropicalmackdaddy]

Update?

[ObeytheFish]

Can you take a pic of the LED box? I wanna see if It's the same as mine
Thanks!

[vvDO]

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.

[vvDO]

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.

[Darth Toro]

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

[vvDO]

Originally Posted by Darth Toro

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

Thanks, I plan to update as often as I can.

[vvDO]

1 week after planting and things are slowly growing, much better here in dry start than my 20L.

[vvDO]

Some melting on S. repens, dwarf hairgrass is spreading somewhat, bacopa growing fairly well.

View from top...



From the front...

[The Dude]

Any updates on this?