I got a new fishtank the other day. A cute little 4g tank, pretty much a cube.
Just finished setting it up, no livestock yet and I don't quite know what to put in it.
I ordered the rocks online for it and got so much grief at work for paying money for rocks and having them shipped to me, but they were well worth it.
I had initially wanted to do something with driftwood but when the rocks turned up I knew I had to let them be the main focus.
I'm currently running the tank just with the built in LED lights, it's also next to a window where it gets lots of day light but no direct sunlight. We'll see how it goes. Also not using Co2 yet, not sure if I will.
I found it quite hard to aquascape, both being this small and being basically a cube. Im really happy with how it came out though in terms of the placement of the rocks.
The tank, I ended up taking out the filter that came with it though it was really noisy and have another in there now. That filter doesn't fit into the little compartment though so the tank is a little bit less clean than in these photos. Not by much though, it pretty much blends in with the black background anyway.
Filled up with substrate and the rocks placed
Ive got the fluval plant stratum thingie in it, we'll see how that works out. I put really fine gravel on top, in part because I don't really like the look of the substrate and to make it a bit easier to plant in. I know they'll end up mixing but hopefully the plants will mostly cover things by then
And voila! flooded and planted
Ive got hairgrass at the back, staurogyne repens at the front and Pogostemon helferi in the middle. It's all freshly planted so I have no idea how the plants will do really, esp since I don't know if the light is going to be good enough but we'll see. I'd be happy if any one of these plants thrive.
Thanks and yeah. I'll almost certainly get shrimp for it.
The brand is superfish wave 15. I got the tank as a free subscribing present when I subscribed to Practical Fishkeeping. That offer was just inside the UK I think
One thing I find a bit of a drawback with it is that there's a touch sensitive button to turn the lights on/off and pick intensity but if I put it onto a timer the timer turns the lights off but not back on again. I need to go and touch the button for them to go on.
Maybe I can get some sort of LED controller thing for it. I don't know. Im not much of an electric engineer.
Not the best photo but I've added 3 amano shrimp to it. I was going to go for red cherry shrimp but couldn't get hold of any within a reasonable timescale and the tank was starting to really need something that eats algae in so just went for the amanos. They won't breed so that's nice and stable I guess
Better FTS now with the shrimp, they finished off all the algae in no time and are munching on a fragment of a piece of sinking pleco tablet each there. Bit too much food for them really but I hadn't realised they'd pick up the food and swim away with it playing keep aways with the others and since I didn't want them to start fighting over the one bit I put in two more to have one per shrimp. It was hilarious to watch them though.
So quick at finding the food and eating it too, anyway I really like them.
Oh yes, the little tank has been so much fun, very low maintenance too so far. The shrimp are amazing as well, not kept any freshwater shrimp before so that's all new.
The plants are growing well so far, I've not been fertilising other than trace but it's a relatively low light set up (although the tank is close to a window and gets a fair bit of daylight but not direct sunlight, which helps)
One of the shrimp molted and I did the newbie shrimp keeper thing of seeing the molt and thinking one of them had died, esp since two of them were eating the molt. Then the third one joined in and I did a huh? wait but.. oh right yes, molts!
Starting to get some deep green algae on the big rock that the shrimp don't eat. Doesn't look bad though, it's not slimy and doesn't come off when I rub at it with a finger. Glass is still clear though and the plants so I'm not too worried.
Updated shot, colours went a bit weird and super saturated but still wanted to post the photo.
This has been such a low maintenance tank so far. No Co2 and barely fertilised once a week (just a few drops of trace). 40% waterchange weekly but the tank is so small that that's less than a full bucket.
It's hairgrass in the back, I'm using it for a background plant since the tank is so small. It only has a small area to grow into at the back of the tank, some of it is cut but I left some of it long so that it'll give that vallisneria curtain at the back look.
Current state of the tank (not the best photo and I do need to clean the glass)
I cannot stress how low maintenance this tank is. Waterchange once a week and that's it. No fertilising beyond a few drops of trace during waterchange and no Co2, haven't even trimmed any plants yet although Im starting to have to think about that.
Everything's growing really slowly but the plants are healthy and the shrimp are fine
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