Schuber-Wright 6g office tank

[FisheriesOmen]

Cherry Shrimp shouldn't be much of a threat. Doesn't look like algae is in there anyways so they'd have to rely on feedings in a dish.

[Silmarwen]

I love the chili rasboras in there, once they color up some more they'll be a lovely contrast!

[SaltyNC]

The chilis look good in there. Do you find they spend a lot of time bobbing up and down in that corner?

[toastedtoast]

I think there's too much current for them, and they haven't figured out the dead zones yet. They seem to swim parallel to the glass right where the main water current hits it. In the tank they came from, they used to hang directly below the filter outlet where there was basically no flow.

[KFryman]

Tank looks gorgeous! I can't wait to see this tank in a month or so!

[toastedtoast]

Coming up on three weeks flooded, so here's another photo.

Not much has changed really, although I trimmed the taller bits of HC a bit shortly after taking the last photo--it's grown back pretty quickly however and you'd never know looking at the tank today. Some of the original blyxa leaves melted and are being replaced with new growth that's shorter and brighter green. I've never grown this plant before, so I'm not sure if this means it's happy or sad.

My emersed fissidens experiment worked better then I could have hoped, and a couple of my stones are now covered in fuzz.



I took this immediately after lights-on, so the drop checker is still a little dark and the fish are a little light. Both improve as the day goes on, but I'm thinking I should start the CO2 a bit earlier (it's currently turning on an hour before the lights).

I've started to notice some green dust-type algae on the upper branches of driftwood, just under the surface. It improves the look of the wood IMO, but I'll be shocked if it doesn't try and spread. I'm going to move a dozen or so cherry shrimp from my home tank when I have a chance--they should enjoy some fresh greens and some more red will look good with the scape.

So far, I think my biggest lesson from this tank is with planting HC. While it seems awesome to get enough to cover most of the substrate from the beginning, it's actually a bad idea. Areas where I had planted densely from the start had nowhere to spread out, and started to grow up (and float up). Zones that started out more sparsely have begun to spread nicely and are doing much better. Even though it's only been three weeks, I'm impressed with the growth speed of the HC under this light. I was expecting it to struggle or not grow at all, but it seems to be doing fairly well.

It's been a lot of fun so far having this in the office, especially since there's a window and the tank can be seen from the hall. It's a good conversation piece and I've had a chance to chat with a lot of the random people I see every day but have never actually talked to.

[Lowe]

Man this is a beautiful tank that I've been following from its beginning.

[PinkRasbora]

Looking very nice. Its all growing together so nicely

[mistahoo]

Very nice!

Sent from my spaceship using Tapatalk 2.

[toastedtoast]

Thanks for the comments.

@Lowe, Overall I'm pretty happy with the setup equipment-wise and I'm glad I ended up going with you guys for most of it. My feeling is that the tank and filter are both decent products at fair prices, but the light is really a gem. For essentially the price of one of the eheim or fluval kits, it's a low-iron setup with a canister filter and a light that can grow plants pretty well. I'd enter a photo in your giveaway, but for some reason your facebook page isn't viewable for people outside the US.

[Lowe]

Hey toasted, no worries about the facebook. You can still enter w/out posting on our FB =)

[blink]

Beautiful tank, sometimes I wish I had an office job that would allow something like this but working in a machine shop it's just not an option.

[toastedtoast]

Yeah, Blink it's one of the perks of working in a research lab--I have an office but spend less then 10% of my time actually sitting at a desk working on the computer. On the downside is that it's 2100h on friday night, and I'm at the lab posting on aquarium forums and waiting for my experiment to finish.

Week 4, time for another update. I should preface this post by saying that I've processed this week's photos on my work laptop, which has a really weird screen. I'm basically guessing on white balance etc. If the colors look to terrible when I see it from a decent monitor I'll change them when I get home.

Edit: Yep, the images look every bit as bad as I feared. I've updated them.

Here's the basic full tank shot from before tonight's WC:



I'm really happy with how things are growing in, especially the fissidens on some of the stones:



A less welcome addition is some green spot algae, which has spread a bit from last week and has now colonized the larger stones as well.



It's welcome to all the stones and driftwood it can eat, but I'm hoping to stop the spread before it reaches the glass in a serious way.

From my reading, it seems that my best route of attack is 3-fold:

1: Increase CO2
2: Increase dosing of P
3: Shorten day length

I've started #1, and started thinking about #3 but that's as far as I've gotten. If anyone has more experience with this algae, I'd appreciate hearing your suggestions.

While I was doing the weekly water change, I thought it was about time for a heavy trimming of the stems and HC. Here's the damage. Please excuse the residual HC crumbs and scared fish from the water change:



And another FTS:

[Geniusdudekiran]

I love the placement of the tank from the FTS, it goes well with the tank. Placement is half the importance of nano tanks.

Overall, you're doing a great job, keep it up!

[talontsiawd]

Looks amazing. Love what you have done so far.