Brohawk's 2.5 gal - UPDATED 3/27/10

[brohawk]

Hi everyone,

So I set this up back in January, but initially had some local zebra like rock in it which threw my gH/kH through the roof. I pulled them out 3 or 4 months ago but the left over sediment continued to harden the water. My tap water is extremely soft (1 -2 gH), but the tank wanted to stay around 9 - 10 gH, so even small water changes were stressing out any critters I kept in it. My last cherry shrimp died last week so I decided to semi-tear the tank down today in the hopes of fixing the hardness issue once and for all. I was also rather bored w/ the current scape...

First pic is how it looked earlier today. I'd been neglecting it the last couple months, so the HC browned out down below and hadn't returned to green yet after my last trim.

Next two pics are afterwards. I refused to replant all that hairgrass so I kept some of the old substrate in the back intact. Substrate btw is a layer of potting soil under regular aquarium gravel. I know, not a huge change from before. The ol' HC / hairgrass display has become a bit cliche these days, so I'm looking for any suggestions. I was thinking a bit of moss/intertwined riccia somewhere on the left maybe?

[kittytango]

It looks good are there fish in there?

[brohawk]

Thanks! Nothing yet. I was going to wait and see if I have a mini recycle to deal w/ first. I'll probably house cherries or regular bee shrimp in it later. Also maybe a small school of microrasbora kubotai, or I'll try to pull my boraras maculatus out of my 29g.

[CL]

That looks wonderful. What kind of hairgrass is that? Your rocks are awesome, where did you get them? I would go with a finer substrate to use to give better scale .
oh, and is that a MH light? That would be crazy on a 2.5 gallon

[brohawk]

Thanks CL. It's just dwarf hairgrass. The rocks, I broke down and ordered online from ADA/Aquaforest. It's the shou stone variety, and I'm rather glad I paid so much for "rocks" of all things. And yeah, I could go w/ a smaller substrate, but I figured it's all going to be covered eventually anyway. Then again, my gH was back up at 7 by this evening, so I might have to replace the substrate completely anyway. We'll see if it goes down after the next couple WCs. The light's just an 18 watt coralife mini.

[FrostyNYC]

The first two pics dont work for me, not sure if anyone else is having that problem.

[brohawk]

In advance, sorry about the pic quality! I now realize my old Nikon Coolpix is in dire need of a replacement.

Anyway, after a few WCs my H2O hardness remained an issue, so I decided to swap out substrates and completely start over. After a little tweaking, I've now got an ideal 4gH, 2kH, 6.8 pH. I did a similar scape to the last one, and it's been going for about 4 weeks now. The hair grass is taking off, but the HC has been slow. The shrimp have been pulling up bits of it, but it's still not taking off like it had in my previous scape (and the plantlets I used were from the same earlier setup!). Anyway, if/when the HC starts moving, I'll be pulling out some of the hairgrass. Probably I'll use it just in the corner(s) to hide the heater, but for now I'm just letting the tank grow however it wants to. Oh, and I went rimless this time.







Comments/suggestions? Thanks!

[fastfreddie]

Beautiful tank! How about a dumb question from a beginner? What are the clear cup like hose extensions in your tank? I'm assuming filtration and CO2, but what do the cup like shapes achieve? I've seen them in many posts.

Are they glass or plastic?

[MarioMaster]

they're basically for better circulation with less velocity - plus they look nice

edit - they're plastic if you're short on cash, but they're normally glass

[CL]

That looks fantastic where did you get your pipes?

[fastfreddie]

What kind of filtration are you using?

[brohawk]

Thanks all! Yep, Mario nailed it. Mine are glass. CO2's on the left side of the tank.

The lily pipes are made by PowerMen. Got mine from Int'l Fish Street (HK) off ebay. They're usually around $45 for the pair, shipped. Fair warning, the inlet's are pretty fragile. I've had to replace mine once, and they only sell the pair together. With the 2nd pair, the box had been well abused during shipping and the inlet arrived in pieces, but Fish Street did a great job of sending another, no extra charge.

Filter is the usual ZooMed 501. I've been pretty happy w/ the flow at least for this size tank.

[garuf]

Reminds me a lot of George Farmer's old nano scape. Very nice it is indeed. I really like it, can you give us a full tech spec of the tank please?

[frozenbarb]

I love your hairgrass and I like your rocks.

[pbfreakon]

Looks great! How much time do you get out of your co2 in that hagen?