Schuber-Wright 6g office tank

[Neatfish]

Nice tank. This makes me want to setup a nano tank too.

[toastedtoast]

Thanks for the comments all, I'm pretty new to all of these plants so I'm mostly just excited that they're alive.

I'm thinking about adding a nerite snail, but I've never kept one with fine carpet plants before. Are they likely to uproot HC?

[tiggity]

You can maybe try Horned Nerites, they're smaller than regular Nerites and not disturb your HC.

[SaltyNC]

Great looking addition to your office. Do you find your productivity has plummeted at the office?

If the nerite is anything like mine, he will spend most of his time on the glass and on the rocks. I only have DHG, but the nerite glides over it from time to time without ever damaging it. I know HC is a little easier to uproot, though.

Hey, I'm curious about your weekend routine. When I first became interested in having a planted tank, I had plans to put a tank on my desk at the office, but I sometimes work from home and I'm not in the office on the weekends. I eventually gave up the idea. With small fish like boraras brigittae that require finely ground food and regular feedings, how do you handle weekends away from the office? Do you use an automatic feeder? Do you also have temperature drops/rises on the weekend to contend with?

I'm glad you and your co-workers are enjoying the tank. It's great to have a little nature in an office.

[toastedtoast]

Thanks for the nerite snail anecdotes. I think the suggestion of sticking to the smaller horned versions is a great one and I'll go hunting for one this weekend.

@Salty: Unfortunately I find myself working 7 days a week most of the time, so this isn't a big issue. I did go out of town for thanksgiving, and there was no problem over a 3-day weekend but I'm not sure I would want to do that often. My tank at home has an automatic feeder that I use on holidays, and I may buy one to use here if I decide to leave town over christmas.

I'm a little concerned about temperature, but so far it hasn't been a problem. During the day they keep our office about 25, and at night/weekends it drops to 22. Even with the lights off, the tank seems to average at least a degree above the ambient temperature. I think 23 is pushing it for these fish, but as long as it doesn't go lower I hope they don't mind. If it seems to become a problem I have a 25w heater that I can put in, but I'm hoping to avoid it.

[Silmarwen]

I'm glad to see some of the latest tank shots, it's filling out beautifully! I'm sorry algae threatening, but you seem to be catching it early enough to fix it, right? Good luck!

[toastedtoast]

Another week, another photo. I hope people don't mind my shameless bumping of the thread every week, but it's been a fun way to force myself to track the tank progress--not to mention all the useful feedback I've gotten.



As you can see, the green algae has continued its spread and has now colonized the back glass in addition to the stones. It's clearly happy, as you can see it start to pearl late in the day.

Starting last week I've increased fert dosing by 30% and dialed up the co2 a bit, but I think those will take time to show a difference (if they change anything). As a shorter-term solution, I've added a horned nerite, which looks pretty cool even if it doesn't manage to eliminate the algae. The cherry shrimp do a good job of keeping the wood clear, but they don't seem to come out and clean the rocks much.

Other then algae, I think the tank is doing fairly well. HC is spreading out, though there is some melting--I think this is the emmersed growth finally dying off but it's hard to tell. It recovered pretty well after my trim last week, so I hope it will be OK.

Blyxa is doing well, and I think there is some trimming in its near future. H. tenellus is going crazy, though the growth is different then what I see in my low-light tank. At home, it's about 4cm tall and green and here it's growing the full height of the tank and turning reddish. It's different then I expected, but it actually looks pretty neat like this.

[Silmarwen]

I don't mind at all! It's inspiring And if it helps you keep track yourself, all the better Looks like it's coming along; hope the steps you took against the algae pay off.

[andrewss]

I like the scape/layout you got going on there

[tetra10]

Originally Posted by toastedtoast

Another week, another photo. I hope people don't mind my shameless bumping of the thread every week, but it's been a fun way to force myself to track the tank progress--not to mention all the useful feedback I've gotten.



As you can see, the green algae has continued its spread and has now colonized the back glass in addition to the stones. It's clearly happy, as you can see it start to pearl late in the day.

Starting last week I've increased fert dosing by 30% and dialed up the co2 a bit, but I think those will take time to show a difference (if they change anything). As a shorter-term solution, I've added a horned nerite, which looks pretty cool even if it doesn't manage to eliminate the algae. The cherry shrimp do a good job of keeping the wood clear, but they don't seem to come out and clean the rocks much.

Other then algae, I think the tank is doing fairly well. HC is spreading out, though there is some melting--I think this is the emmersed growth finally dying off but it's hard to tell. It recovered pretty well after my trim last week, so I hope it will be OK.

Blyxa is doing well, and I think there is some trimming in its near future. H. tenellus is going crazy, though the growth is different then what I see in my low-light tank. At home, it's about 4cm tall and green and here it's growing the full height of the tank and turning reddish. It's different then I expected, but it actually looks pretty neat like this.

i have the same "white algae" on the rubber elbow of the finnex outlet.

[toastedtoast]

After they've been in here a few weeks, I really don't think the chili rasboras are very happy. The temperature and water quality are good, but I think flow is too high and they seem to be struggling with the current. In my 20g tank at home they were able to find dead zones to hide in, but here they don't seem to be able to.

I'm going to bring them home tomorrow, but I'm undecided about what to replace them with. At home I have a school of microdarivario kubotai (~16) and 5 Trigonostigma espei. I think the espei are too large for this setup, which is too bad since they handle current well and are very outgoing. I'm tempted to bring in half of the kubotai since they're fairly active but the green isn't as striking as it could be against plants. Another possibility is to just get a half dozen neons somewhere, since they're cheap and fairly outgoing most of the time.

[CryptKeeper54]

Nice progress. I'm interested to see what fish you come up with. I need to find high flow loving, nano fish as well.

[toastedtoast]

Looks like the problem is solved. I shoved a small funnel on the filter outlet as a ghetto lily pipe, and it does a pretty good job of spreading out the water flow and preventing the strong jet that was causing problems before. I just put it on last night, but the fish are already colouring up more this morning then they have since I moved them into this tank.

[Silmarwen]

Well at least you've found a solution! I like the idea of a "ghetto lily pipe," the thought made me snicker. Hopefully something somewhat more elegant will present itself? The chilis really are lovely in this tank.

[toastedtoast]

Week 6:



Stems are getting overgrown but not much else has changed. Green algae seems to be slowing down, and it hasn't tried to invade the glass again since I scraped it off last week. I'm not sure why, and I'm fully expecting it to return at some point (likely when I don't have time to scrape it)

My ugly new filter outlet is pretty effective, though I need to come up with something that's less of an eyesore. I'm tempted to try bending some glass pipettes into a makeshift lily pipe, but I need to do some more reading about the technique.

I did a quick trim during my weekly water change, here's the damage:


And a shrimp: