Dean's 1 Foot Cube Tank

[Brian_Cali77]

Dean really sweet tank! I'm new here and actually just registered to comment on your project you got going on here... I've been considering Mr. Aqua tanks and comparing them to ADA and Do!Aqua. The price of these Mr. Aqua's are quite attractive. Anyway, just wanted to know where you got that Archaea 27 light fixture and how much was it? I'm also considering some Catalina Aquarium Lighthouse fixtures... but haven't settled on one yet.

[hydrophyte]

That's a sweet little setup.

[AquaDean]

Just about 4 weeks into this project and I’ve given the moss tree a haircut. It’s really starting to take shape and fill in nicely. It was a royal pain trying to get all the little bits of moss from the trimming out of the tank. The moss trimmings do float up and they tend to stick to all the other mosses in the tank. If anyone has easy ways to accomplish this please share because I was at it for over an hour. Here’s the whole shot tank this week:





I also went ahead with my idea of adding some ADA Amazonia II substrate to the tank to try to get the KH to come down a bit. Just to be on the safe side I only added a ¼ cup at a time over 3 days and watched the tank levels carefully. No ammonia so the filter and mosses must be handling it well. KN came down a little but I still want it down a little more so might add some more Amazonia II in another week or so. The good thing is by using the smaller grade of Amazonia II it blends right in with the fine gravel substrate and you can hardly tell it is there.

Out in my yard I found some dead twigs that had probably been dried up for a couple years. I took some of the twigs and boiled the crap out of them then cut the few that I wanted and stuck them in the back left corner of the tank. I’m not looking at reducing the size of the intake sponge to make it a little more discreet. Another thought I’ve been having is Eheim makes that prefilter thing that sets down in the substrate. Maybe I could do a DIY Nano sized one, could be a new challenge? This would be a way I could get that intake sponge completely out of sight. (just thinking out loud, but we’ll see).






I did make it out to one of my favorite LFS and picked up a start of dwarf marsilea for the front left corner. Straight out of one of their show tanks, how about that? I do have to say this was the most frustrating plant to plant that I’ve ever seen. I’d get one piece all in place then up it would come as I did the next piece. The CRS shrimp babies in the tank (there are about 80 of them now) had to just be laughing at me. I’m looking forward to seeing how it does.





The moss behind the tree that is a lighter green in color is really nice. I think I purchased it as “stringy moss” but can’t remember for sure. It is fine individual strands and is growing upright almost like grass. I don’t think I’ll let it get much taller but do want it to fill in some more and want to keep the varying heights of the strands, so cutting it might be a challenge.
The other mosses seem to be doing fine some growing faster than others but all and all pretty good. The final shot for today is a closer in picture of the tree:





Can any of you lighting and fertilizer experts out there give me some direction for a good routine that will help to insure that the tank doesn’t get over come with algae? There is about 6 gallons of water in the tank and I’ve been keeping the light on for 8 hours a day. I’ve been getting just a little bit of bright green algae on the glass so far. Water changes have been about 40% once a week and top offs with RO water.
Hope you enjoy!

[AlexXx]

Man im obsessed wit this tank! the tiny baby CRS are so cute haha. Also what is that moss/plant behind the tree?



that stuff ^^^ its awesome!

[AquaDean]

AlexXx,
That moss is some that I purchased under the name Stringy moss from eBay. It tends to grow upright and I've just tied it to a couple stones with some netting and it started growing upright. I like it because of the different texture and lighter color.

[AquaDean]

Well it’s been a couple weeks and I’ve been really busy with new work load and trying to keep up with everything else. The moss tree is doing great but does need a little pruning as does the rest of the tank. This probably won’t happen for another week as I’ve got to head out of town for a few days. I’ve had a couple of the Erios melt away and don’t know if they will come back. I might end up taking them out of this tank and turn it into a moss only in it. The other mosses in the tank are doing great and the stringy moss behind the tree really looks nice and I’m ready to cut it and start some more clusters of it. I didn’t do any new pictures but have been playing with a video camera so below is a link to a short video that I did. I’ll be pruning everything up before the next update so it will probably look a little different. I should say the shrimp are really doing well in this tank and sometimes I’ll see 20 or more of them up in the moss tree. I still can’t get the KH down where I’d like, it’s running about 5 and I’d like it to be around 2. But the tank is working so I’m not feeling the need to change things up. Also getting some algae on the glass, especially the left side so might cut down the light from 8 hours a day to 7. Here’s the video link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt8vk04fT5A

[sharkbite]

wow~ awesome tank you got there!

[funkyfish]

Looks great! How often do you trim? I wanna make a tree with my manzanita but I'm thinking using fissidens for that.

[Digsy]

This is an amazing tank! I can't stop looking at that tree, it's the best "tree" I've seen on here. Any photo updates?

[bitFUUL]

Good Lookin' on the advice from the other post Dean, I went ahead with the Mr. Aqua Cube as well. Very clean looking scape, and those CRS are looking rich... would love to nab some offspring.

[bikeny]

Any update on this tank? I am working on a tree as well and would love some inspiration!

Mark

[AquaDean]

Well it's been quite a while with this tank and as I've been doing some home remodeling I've neglected the tank. But even so it looks like with some careful trimming the tank will come back to all its neatness. So here is a picture of how the tank looks in it's neglected state. I hope to give it a good pruning and cleaning over the next week. The shrimp BTW simply love all the moss.

[kifeter]

Im loving the tank! The shrimp looks awesome. Such a clean look. I just got the same tank dimensions in ADA. Im thinking about putting a stump in there and some mosses as well

[tylergvolk]

I love the DIY Zip Tie Moss Tree. Very clever! I'm in the DSM plotting out plants for a moss tree. I love your setup well done!