Current photo, 10/12/12:
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Original 1st post
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I've been thinking that I need an office tank for a while now, and after reading CryptKeeper54's thread on his Schuber-Wright 4g setup I decided to take the plunge.
Planned equipment list:
Schuber-Wright 6g
Finnex canister
FugeRay 16" light
Atomic Nano V3 CO2 regulator on a 20oz paintball tank
GLA inline diffuser
Netlea 'Lambo' soil
Overall the tank is pretty nice, although the back right silicone seam is quite poorly done--the glass doesn't meet well at the top and the glue is quite thick. Since the tank is small and there's little water pressure I'm not going to worry about it, but I probably would have returned a larger tank with this seam. The rest of the silicone is pretty nice though, so maybe it's just a one-off bad seam.
I really like the Finnex FugeRay light, it looks pretty sleek and the overall fit and finish is pretty solid for $40. I was a bit torn between the FugeRay and RayII for a tank this small, but at around 9" between substrate and light I decided to go for the fugeray. We'll see how it does.
Empty-ish tank, I'm trying to optimize the fit of the DIY manzanita tree and larger stones. Since the tank is sitting in front of a window, being able to see through the glass onto the photocopier was a bit distracting. I've put a layer of "clear" contact paper over the back glass for a bit of a frosted effect and I think it's an improvement. It's easy to remove, so if I don't like it I can just peel it off later--much easier then adding it to a full tank.
Substrate in, along with the rest of the stones. I've been using a pyrex dish on my windowsill to grow emersed fissidens on some of these, we'll see how it does with the transition into the tank:
My LFS (Menagerie, Toronto) has started carrying these small "aquapaks" of tissue cultured plants from aqua flora in BC. They're a bit pricy at $7 but the plants are beautiful and once I separated it out there's actually a lot of plant mass here
All planted:
Since taking the last photo I caught the pothole in the front and fixed it.
Not sure how long I'm going to let this dry start, there's pretty decent coverage of HC already, so I may just let it go long enough to get a few roots down (1 week? 2?) before adding some taller plants to the back corners and flooding.
I'm thinking of putting some blyxa in the back left, and maybe more blyxa mixed with some kind of crypt and rotala around the branches on the right. If anyone has plant suggestions for a tank of this size I'd love to hear them.
----------------------------------------
Original 1st post
----------------------------------------
I've been thinking that I need an office tank for a while now, and after reading CryptKeeper54's thread on his Schuber-Wright 4g setup I decided to take the plunge.
Planned equipment list:
Schuber-Wright 6g
Finnex canister
FugeRay 16" light
Atomic Nano V3 CO2 regulator on a 20oz paintball tank
GLA inline diffuser
Netlea 'Lambo' soil
Overall the tank is pretty nice, although the back right silicone seam is quite poorly done--the glass doesn't meet well at the top and the glue is quite thick. Since the tank is small and there's little water pressure I'm not going to worry about it, but I probably would have returned a larger tank with this seam. The rest of the silicone is pretty nice though, so maybe it's just a one-off bad seam.
I really like the Finnex FugeRay light, it looks pretty sleek and the overall fit and finish is pretty solid for $40. I was a bit torn between the FugeRay and RayII for a tank this small, but at around 9" between substrate and light I decided to go for the fugeray. We'll see how it does.
Empty-ish tank, I'm trying to optimize the fit of the DIY manzanita tree and larger stones. Since the tank is sitting in front of a window, being able to see through the glass onto the photocopier was a bit distracting. I've put a layer of "clear" contact paper over the back glass for a bit of a frosted effect and I think it's an improvement. It's easy to remove, so if I don't like it I can just peel it off later--much easier then adding it to a full tank.
Substrate in, along with the rest of the stones. I've been using a pyrex dish on my windowsill to grow emersed fissidens on some of these, we'll see how it does with the transition into the tank:
My LFS (Menagerie, Toronto) has started carrying these small "aquapaks" of tissue cultured plants from aqua flora in BC. They're a bit pricy at $7 but the plants are beautiful and once I separated it out there's actually a lot of plant mass here
All planted:
Since taking the last photo I caught the pothole in the front and fixed it.
Not sure how long I'm going to let this dry start, there's pretty decent coverage of HC already, so I may just let it go long enough to get a few roots down (1 week? 2?) before adding some taller plants to the back corners and flooding.
I'm thinking of putting some blyxa in the back left, and maybe more blyxa mixed with some kind of crypt and rotala around the branches on the right. If anyone has plant suggestions for a tank of this size I'd love to hear them.