danepatrick's 2.5 gal journal

[danepatrick]

it's official. i'm starting it. today i went out and bought the 27w light that i've noticed a lot of people are using on their nano's. i recently made a thread about making my mind up in which to use the 13w light or the 27w and seeing as the light i already had just didn't satisfy my eyes, i decided to go with this one. i really like that i can raise it if i end up with a few algae issues.
i found a couple pieces of driftwood that i had lying around and placed them in in hopes that it would spark some idea of a hardscape that i could create. i'm kind of satisfied with the way it is, but then again, i don't know.. lol.

lighting: hamilton bay 27w cf lamp
substrate: aquasoil amazonia fluorite black
heat: 7.5w hydor mini heater
filtration: red sea nano filter aquaclear 20 hob filter
co2: pressurized

teasers..

[danepatrick]

okay, so i decided to pull the top plastic piece off of the tank, clean up the silicone some, and make a semi-rimless tank. unfortunately, the silicone job on this tank looks like DOO DOO. i didn't really notice it until i put everything in it. i think i'm going to just try and look past it. so here it is again for the second time. what do you guys think about the wood and the way it's placed and what not? i'm thinking about putting some taiwan moss or christmas moss on the driftwood or maybe even a piece of HC on top of the larger piece of driftwood letting it fall down. then maybe some rotala colorata in the corners, with some glosso for the foreground and through the middle. i know glosso isn't as popular anymore in foregrounds, but i figured i'd do a little something different.
i'm also going to put pressurized co2 on this tank seeing as i have a 5lb tank full in my closet right now as soon as i can find some plants to start the tank, i'll fill 'er up!

front tank shot


view from my bed

[danepatrick]

so i decided to fill the tank and add a larger filter. i added an aquaclear 20 and decided to do something a little different with the intake. i had a piece of vinyl tubing lying around that just fit inside the intake of the filter and decided to cut it and stick the co2 right inside of the tubing to be able to chop up the co2.
i also added some purigen to the tank to get rid of the stupid cloudiness. i should be getting some plants this week.

front tank shot


close up of the filer intake

[skiboarder72]

lookin good!

[jhoops]

I love your hardscape! Especially the larger driftwood it is a really cool shape

[danepatrick]

so i'm having problems.. (go figure). it seems like things have never been a breeze to me in this hobby but that's okay. what i started out using in this journal is left over aquasoil that i've had in a sealed bucket that has been sitting in the shed for about a year and a half now. hear this: for those who plan on trying to re-use aquasoil after this amount of time, DON'T. you will never have clear water.



this is what it will look like. i've spent about two hours in labor trying to wash this soil, filling the tank up slowly from a siphon through air tubing, purigen, polishing floss, and nothing will prevent the water from becoming brown.
my plan of action now, is to run around town tomorrow and try to find some black fluorite or black fluorite sand. i'm kind of in a rush now seeing as i have some HC that arrived today and some more plants arriving in a couple days. oh joy! lol.

[MrJG]

dp: a suggestion for your dust problems. I've done this myself twice now, once with the AS from my 2.5g and once on the 20 long. I had sand mixed into the soil on both of these tanks and when I re-scaped them I wanted it out.

Get a fine kitchen strainer that the larger AS pellets will not fall through and fill a 5 gallon bucket with clean water. About a cup at a time fill the strainer and move it around in the bucket like you are panning for gold. This will do a great job at separating the dust/detritus/sand etc from used aquasoil and leave you with in tact larger granules. Depending on how much you need to "clean" you might have to dump the bucket a few times to start with clean water.
After this process I spread the strained soil out on a tarp underneath a space heater and dried it out... personal preference I guess. I like doing scaping with dry soil as it tends to be much less of a mess to deal with.

Granted doing this you are going to loose some significant volume but you'll be left with the good stuff.

[danepatrick]

JG - your method sounds very promising as i also read somewhere when doing my research (on fluorite and rinsing), that it is best to dry the substrate. seeing as i'm in college, i'm crazy busy between homework and tests and spending the time on something that extensive is going to have to wait until i can make that a project for an upcoming weekend. until then, i'll go buy some fluorite.

[badmatt]

Id clean up that excess silicone on the front pane.. but other then that love the rock scape!

[danepatrick]

Originally Posted by badmatt

Id clean up that excess silicone on the front pane.. but other then that love the rock scape!

you know, i thought about doing that seeing as i was going to tear it down tomorrow anyway. i'm just a little nervous about jeopardizing the seams as i already took off the plastic rim and cleaned up the silicone around the top. the glass is very thin.

[badmatt]

Originally Posted by danepatrick

you know, i thought about doing that seeing as i was going to tear it down tomorrow anyway. i'm just a little nervous about jeopardizing the seams as i already took off the plastic rim and cleaned up the silicone around the top. the glass is very thin.

The most pressure on a tank is closer to the bottom not the top. but just shave the silicone down until your a 1/4" away from the actual joint and it would clean it up a lot and there maybe 2 gallons of water in the tank so like 16lbs of water exerting pressure on the glass? to me thats fine

[danepatrick]

Originally Posted by badmatt

The most pressure on a tank is closer to the bottom not the top. but just shave the silicone down until your a 1/4" away from the actual joint and it would clean it up a lot and there maybe 2 gallons of water in the tank so like 16lbs of water exerting pressure on the glass? to me thats fine

makes sense. i will definitely try that tomorrow. hopefully i don't crack the glass like i did on the first tank while i was cleaning up the rim. i didn't post pictures of that one.

[badmatt]

Originally Posted by danepatrick

makes sense. i will definitely try that tomorrow. hopefully i don't crack the glass like i did on the first tank while i was cleaning up the rim. i didn't post pictures of that one.

looking forward to it!

[JennaH]

looks like you got the top edge very clean though after taking off the rim- nice job! i too love the shape of the driftwood. i used flourite in my tank and used a pitcher to rinse it. i filled the pitcher about 1/4 with substrate at a time, filled with water while swishing it in circles then dumped the excess water. did this about 6-7 times per pitcher and then put it in the tank wet. after filling, the cloudiness cleared up in less than 24 hours

[danepatrick]

i'm going to keep this entry pretty short and self explanatory seeing as i have already taken up a lot with something i've changed up anyway. the only thing that has changed from day one, is the following:

• instead of the red sea nano filter, i now use an aquaclear 20 that i added a piece of vinyl tubing to the intake, to better chop up some co2.
  
• instead of the aquasoil, i am now using fluorite black.

empty tank.

i took the advice of badmatt and attempted to clean up the silicone on the front some. we will all have our opinion on it, but hey! i'm satisfied!

i just wanted to include how the heater was placed in the aquarium. no big secret, but nice to know.


hardscape in.


filling the tank slowly with airline tubing.


finally planted.


so as i mentioned in my second post, my original idea for a foreground was glosso. i couldn't find a member who had any, but i found someone with some UG, so i decided to go for that. my idea for the HC was to be right where it is - on top of the driftwood in hopes that it would creep down and create a nice flowing look. since i was given a decent amount of HC, i decided to go ahead and plant a little in the very front of the tank and see how it goes. depending on how the UG looks when it arrives, i will use it in the middle of and center rear of the tank. if it doesn't look good, i will just toss it and go with a full HC carpet.

as far as the fluorite goes, i LOVE it. very, very easy to plant in, and rinses extremely easy. what i did was fill up the tank with the amount i needed, then put that into a bucket and went at it. i think i filled it up, swished it around at most 6 times, and i had completely clear water. fluorite rocks!