Tank - Dennerle 30L Cube (30x30x35) LWH
Filter - Eheim 2213 (Classic 250)
Heater - 50w Dennerle Nano Heater
Co2 - Nano setup from Co2Supermarket
Lighting - Fluval Nano LED 15w
Substrate - Tropica Aquarium Soil
Hardscape - Dragon Stone

I will be using RO Water which i will remineralise.

I plan on using either Monte Carlo or Dwarf Hair Grass for a carpet, along with something densely grown & ideally reddish for the background

I will have a handful of shrimps & snails as well as a small number of Ember Tetras

I am looking for any recommendations for fertilisation, preferably a weekly dosing/all in one.

I currently do not have my water parameters, I will have the water a few days before flooding, being RO water & then remineralise it should be quite standard.

I am undecided whether to go for dry start or not, what’re people’s suggestions?

Any suggestions, advice or criticism welcome!








Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does anybody else use the Fluval Nano LED light & use the preset “planted” programme? Is it any good or is it best to go for trial and error and adjust when needed?

Will hopefully have plants being delivered tomorrow so will hopefully get around to planting & full set up!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have it on my dennerle cube (same tank as yours) - however I did a more custom program, anyway I wouldnt fret too much about what preset to use. Early on you probably want to be careful not to use a long lighting duration to avoid big algae blooms and slowly increase, at that point maybe you'll find out what combo of lighting you like with it! I enjoy it pretty well evenly spread from the different colors.

I'm using a different light but also prefer an even spread of colours like @andrewss

Also agree on light duration, especially in the tank's early days. Most suggest starting with 6 hours.

You'll also want to change a lot of water during the first couple of weeks... Even though plants can use ammonia as a source of nitrogen too much ammonia will burn them, especially if you'll be planting tissue culture.

I'm using APT Complete for fertiliser for my tiny CO2 tank and Tropica Specialised for my low tech. Have not really tried any other fertilisers but my tank has been growing really well recently with APT. Might be worth a shot if you can get it. For remineralisation I use Seachem Equilibrium.

I don't know much about the dry start. Do you know if you will be getting plants that have been grown emersed? I think perhaps mosses or carpeting plants would benefit from a dry start but not sure about tall stems, and you would have to look out for issues that might arise from excess humidity.

I’ll have a go with the preset planted programme, if it gets a bit much I’ll shorten it, I may even shorten it beforehand anyway, seems quite long at first glance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

With the light I’m going to take the preset planted programme and make it shorter as it seems to be quite a long time.

I plan on 50% water changes every 3-4 days for 2 weeks & then 30% every 3-4 days, I’ll play it as it comes though.

I’ve ordered a fertiliser from Aquadip, I saw it on the website when ordering filter, looks like a basic all in one filter with weekly dosing, I’ll give that a go, If I see any deficiencies i have two decent local shops which sell seachem’s full range.

Remineralisation I have Tropic Marin Remineralise Tropical, I use that for my other tank, no live plants in that tank (turtles ate every plant at the last attempt within 30 minutes)

I’ve ordered a new full test kit which hopefully should arrive today along with plants so I’ll test the water before planting so it’s all good


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ahh, are you based in Europe? Haven't had much experience with European products except for JBL, Sera, Tropica and Bassleer so can't really comment on the ferts and remineraliser.

I am looking forward to the finished tank though!

Based in U.K, I’ll be posting photos on here once planted & set up going, changed the hardscape slightly already, I’ll have it all up and running by the weekend for sure!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Planting done!

First time ever planting live plants into a tank, I realised I probably needed another plant or two to fill space out.

Questions are now shall I start the tank as normal now, co2, filtration, fertiliser & lights as normal?

Currently trying to get a decent co2 count, only have a drop checker to measure it though, I found another post recommending starting with 1 bps.

Any comments or criticism?






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really should break apart your pants into smaller clumps and spread out more.

That fert looks pretty complete.......

AquaDip Plant Food+ is an essential product for aquatic plants taking nutrients through the leaves. It is a complete plant fertilizer containing all-important micro and macronutrients, providing optimal, lush, and healthy plant growth. The range of nutrients contains iron, potassium and magnesium, ammonium, boron, copper, lithium, manganese, iodine, tin, nickel, cobalt and a few more ingredients to make this your complete plant fertilizer. AquaDip Plant Food+ in combination with AquaDip Liquid Carbon is the perfect match for lush and healthy plants.

Dosage instruction: Shake well before use. Normal planted tank: Add weekly 10 ml per 100 liters Dose twice per week for heavily planted tanks. Safe for fish, shrimps and crustaceans. Suitable for freshwater only.
............

With your plants being new and not established your probably better off dosing at about 1/2 that rate and just dosing after water changes. As plants orient/establish themselves and density increases bring your light and dosing up in tandem. If algae starts showing up uncontrollably back off on light a bit, if it still hangs on back off on dosing a bit also. 1st month or two are always feeling out your tanks needs for light/fert/co2 balance. Especially with water changes being in a state of flux and new active substrate throwing off extra ammonium/nitrogen it’s easy to create a greenwater or hair algae bomb.

Also don’t be alarmed if see phosphate etc disappearing, active substrate are a high CEC sponge and will suck up nutrients from water like crazy.

The plants were broken up, all into clumps around 1cm, granted the one you mean is larger, it came very tangled with not much root, all sprung out of 1 or 2 stems so I only got 4 chunks out, I’ll bring it back out & try again with that piece.

I’ll start the fertiliser on Sunday as that’ll be the day I want to do the weekly maintenance in future.

Are there any signs of too much co2 being injected in I should look out for or just leave it, no livestock currently to worry about either.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just watch your co2 indicator, if by what you consider midday in light cycle the indicator is not into full on green’ish your not keeping up. Up co2 rate slightly. Watch shift to green next 2 days, it takes a extra day/night cycle for co2 concentrations to balance out. Small changes and observation/education/experience and effort are things that make it work.

7 days in & all going good. Decided to buy a couple more pots to plant to fill out empty spaces that may not have been filled, happy I did as they’ve grown rapidly already, after one week I’ve had no problems at all, zero algae so far.

When is it possible to add livestock of any sort?

Anybody here have a Dennerle 30L short cover link which is available (the same as the standard cover but allows space for piping etc)

Done my first week water tests, anything below which is alarming after 7 days.

GH - Below 50ppm, 3 drops on API test
KH - 0.5ppm
PH - 6.4-6.5
Phos - 0ppm
Nitrate - 5ppm
Ammonia - 0.5ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking forward to seeing updates, I really dig nano cubes for some reason.

Eh, for livestock I guess it will be safe to add them when you have 0 ammonia and nitrite, which I reckon is anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks. Of course, don't add them all at once.

Algae will start popping up eventually but sounds like you already have a handle on it.

Spoke a bit soon regarding having zero algae! Woke up today with one big strand of algae growing up & a light layer on the dragon stone.

I’ll do a water change tonight & possibly look at getting some algae eating snails in there some time soon possibly??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk