Hey all, thanks for reading another of my journals. This tank has come a long way, and I'd like to preface the whole story of this tank with a full tank shot that I'll keep pretty current.
------- The journey from the beginning.
I've been saving this for a weekend project, and a lot of my business just cleared up, so I can finally get to this!
I've recently started an 18" long 2.5 gal tank and it has sucked up my time and resources, but it is set up and has fauna in it now. But now this tank will be my focus for a while!
So if you don't know the dimensions of a Fluval Spec, it is almost awkwardly tall.
Roughly 10" tall, 6" deep and 7" across. Something like that.
I'll have some rocks to work with
And some driftwood
And of course the tank, which will be a clean slate. No plants, removing this gravel and cleaning the tank up.
Basically I'll be working with a cycled this:
Finally, I hope to keep nerites, ramshorns and only CRS in this tank.
Hey thanks for clocking in nope. Still working on cycling the cray's tank. Just got the filter in and everything.
Should only be a few weeks and I'll get some beauties in there. This should hopefully be worth the wait. I haven't planted my fissidens or Hydrocotyle yet.
Going to officially do this tank tomorrow. Excited. I'll work with some fissidens and Hyrdocoyle species.. I think is how you spell it. Anyways, props to h4n.
CRS will be here in three days. I will post picture updates very soon.
I got 14 shrimp from Nick. I'm not big on the SSS look anymore. My tastes have changed I guess, and I've decided on the three-line CRS and two-line CRS.
Ok I made some big progress today. I patched what little of the small bottom slit was showing, so nothing will be getting in there ever again.
I pulled and moved some mosses, and I FINALLY glued down the Anubias.
The Don of this tank was captured and acclimated to his new home, and this is ready for the new inhabitants in two days.
As for the GH and KH, I'm not good at reading them, but KH was at 0-1 and the GH was at 4-5. PH was at around 6.2. Nitates near zero thanks to the floaters.
Alrighty I JUST figured out my official GH and KH. I figured out the whole formula thing, and the whole test strip thing is in fact inaccurate. I previously thought I had 1 KH, 3 GH.
Since I finally read it right, I have:
5 GH
Less than 1 KH
150 TDS.
Roughly 6.2 PH
That is SPOT ON for CRS. I'm now super confident they're going to do well for me.
My nitrates barely register, ammonia and nitrites don't register of course.
I love this little thing! Are you finding it hard to maintain parameters? And have you done any research on breeding? Supposedly they done very often in smaller tanks
I love this little thing! Are you finding it hard to maintain parameters? And have you done any research on breeding? Supposedly they done very often in smaller tanks
Hey thanks a bunch!! I've also read breeding happens in smaller tanks.
I've read SO much on CRS. This was no impulse purchase. I trained for months to make sure I could keep their water, get their environment ready and finally get them from my man Nick.
It has been 150 TDS for about 2 months. I do not do partial water changes, I only top off. If I do partial water changes, I remineralize the water to 150 TDS that I'm replacing.
I just learned my true GH and KH but they were steady, I just thought they were a little different.
I suppose it is nice to have such a small volume of water. You see them really well, they have a chance to breed and food is always nearby.
As far as reading up on breeding, everything I read points to keeping params really steady and it'll all just kinda work itself out. That is my goal.
Tiny update. I left these guys for a week for spring break. I've put them where they will be exposed to natural light each day.
Before I left, I made sure the water was 100% topped off and fed a large portion of something they IMMEDIATELY took to. I recommend ravengates's pumpkin chips to everybody with inverts.
Jamie said it doesn't disperse in your water like some compressed food, so I fed a little extra. There are plenty of ammonia sucking devices in the tank, so I'll rely on that and take the risk so they have a healthy dose of food for the 7 days I'm gone ...
The moment of truth is tomorrow. I left my tanks on break for 7 days. We'll see if they're ok when I get back tomorrow morning . I'll keep you updated.
Possibly switching out my light. Breaking down another tank, so I've got a spare light that is very nice. Let me know if you'd select it over the stock light. I'll post pics soon.
I'd sill like input, but I'm liking the way the half strength light looks.
Here are some nice shots.
Shadows among the recovering Anubias. It is recovering quick. The roots immediately started growing upon attachment.
Some shots of food time today.
Finally, a few shrimp took a ride on my tweezers lol.
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