Jake's Nano

[JenCliBee]

Hi all i thought i may aswell add a journal for this nano tank i unexpectedly set up.

Firstly a little bit of background on it.....

I originally brought this tank to do a very small iwagumi setup for some shrimp, items were brought slow and when they came up (had no real rush). Finally i got everything together ready to make a start... waiting only on the arcadia arc light... it arrived damaged which wasn't any good to me. contacted the seller and he swiftly refunded and claimed the money back from RM, so with that light unit gone i went out and brought another off somebody else... received and it arrived with a 2 pin plug/fixed power adaptor (wasn't told about).... went out and brought an adaptor which didn't actually work. I then decided to cut the power adaptor off and put a 3 pin which swiftly blew the bulb lol.... so yet again a light unit unusable..... i proceeded in buying a new bulb for it which arrived promptly and i re-attached the power supply and brought a new adaptor which actually worked this time lol.

After all what happened with the light unit above i lost interest in this tank and the hassle it was been for such a small tank.

A few days past and i was looking at the sale section and came across a couple java fern covered bogwood pieces which sounded interesting, i decided these may actually be nice in another setup i would be doing next week so promptly enquired and brought (thankyou matlee )

These arrived but i had nowhere to put them apart from temporally into this nano i was originally going to use as an iwagumi shrimp tank, sooooo.... i put them in there with a rock/boulder i wanted to grow some java moss out on and these were the results below.....

Once they were put in and arranged so they fitted i immediately like the look..albeit a little overgrown....the java moss rock was never gonna be a feature in the tank, it was just to see if the moss would pick up again after i been left to go a little brown.

So..... with this tank now running and looking 'ok'... i decided i may aswell try and make it look better and use it as the shrimp tank it was initially intended for... the plants i received had quite a few damaged and nutrient lacked leaves which wouldn't have got any better... with this in mind i decided that it would be better to give a good trim... so a good trim is what i did lol....i cut pretty much all the damaged ones off... pics below show the state of quite a few leaves....

And this was the result of the final massacre ....

This was a good old trim as you can see but it really did need it, however it should grow back even better and healthier in the future (fingers crossed lol).

All trimming was sorted so i proceeded to fill the tank back up and see what it looked like......

Tank filling....

All filled and equipment back in.....

So that was the basics to how the tank ended up been setup lol... but i hear you ask..why is it called 'weeping field'?...haha... well as i mentioned the java moss rock isn't staying there and in it's place is going to be a weeping moss carpet.... it will have to wait till next weekend now... i need to get the mesh and the moss and then can get cracking.

So for now that's pretty much it, nothing special to look at yet but i'm hoping it will fill out nicely in the near future .

So now here comes the tank stats.....

Equipment:

12x8x8 unbranded tank (around 12L)
Rena filstar 350lph internal filter
Arcadia arcpod 11w hang on light.

Hardscape:

Just the bogwood the java fern is attached to.

Substrate:

Akadama (graded for small pieces)

Plants:

Java fern
Weeping moss

Fish and Inverts:

Not yet decided on shrimp species, will either be CRS, blue tiger shrimp or a mix of amano, tigers and cherry.

Fertilisation:

James Home made TPN+ mix (found HERE!!)


Thanks for looking, will update regularly .

 

[mattbleasby]

Hey mate,

Nice little journal you have going here Looks great in my opinion although you maybe got carried away with them snips

But all in all its looking like a great little tank I love the idea of Tigers and Cherry shrimp in there it will make some great colour's

The only thing i would say if it were my tank, Id get that filter hidden in the back corner. So that its not really seen when you look at the tank, As in most pictures you have too look past it too see the "Tank" itself.

Keep us posted. Looking forward to seeing how this evolves

 

[ian]

looks perfectly trimmed to me! Looking forward to the updates.

 

[JenCliBee]

Hey mate,

Nice little journal you have going here Looks great in my opinion although you maybe got carried away with them snips

But all in all its looking like a great little tank I love the idea of Tigers and Cherry shrimp in there it will make some great colour's

The only thing i would say if it were my tank, Id get that filter hidden in the back corner. So that its not really seen when you look at the tank, As in most pictures you have too look past it too see the "Tank" itself.

Keep us posted. Looking forward to seeing how this evolves

Hi and thankyou for the response, yep the trimming was very excessive lol but tbh alot of the leaves wear damaged beyond repair and this way it will grow back stronger and healthier .

To the filter..... i have no choice but leave it as it is for now, putting at the back will restrict the flow to much with the java fern and even more so when the java starts to grow again... i will take the filter out for further pics, i agree it's not very nice been able to see it but for now it will do .

Thanks again for the message

looks perfectly trimmed to me! Looking forward to the updates.

Cheers mate, will try and update as often as possible

 

[JenCliBee]

A little update.... the plants have pretty much pearled from the offset of this tank but today i managed to get some half decent pictures.

Nothing special but thought i would add anyways.

Thanks for looking

 

[mattbleasby]

The plants look great mate Love this journal Maybe get a HOB filter for it... its your tank though hehe

Im pretty sure i was watching this topic, but for some reason didnt get the notification of your reply

 

[BadBadger]

Will be watching this one matey Looking good so far

 

[JenCliBee]

The plants look great mate Love this journal Maybe get a HOB filter for it... its your tank though hehe

Im pretty sure i was watching this topic, but for some reason didnt get the notification of your reply

Cheers mate , the hob filter was considered but with the tank being so small it would have been a very small hob (if i could have found one small enough) and the flow rate would have dropped considerably compared to the internal in there. The flow around the tank is far better with my internal (as ugly looking as it is lol) so distributes the ferts far better .

I am considering a little re sun external but room is tight where the tank is... will have to see how the tank develops.

Thanks again

Will be watching this one matey Looking good so far

Thankyou

 

[ian]

you won't regret a resun external, however, APS do one now,

http/www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquarium-filters/aquarium-external-filters/aquarium-external-filter-150-l-h.html

would be perfect for that tank, would fit down the back? nice shots as well BTW!

 

[JenCliBee]

you won't regret a resun external, however, APS do one now,

http/www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquarium-filters/aquarium-external-filters/aquarium-external-filter-150-l-h.html

would be perfect for that tank, would fit down the back? nice shots as well BTW!

Cheers mate

I new there was another place selling them now lol, i read someone mentioning a couple the other day and for the life of me couldn't remeber where they mentioned lol.

Will have to see, the 150lph is a big drop from the 350lph in there now and all is going ok... do i try an external and risk or keep as it is and hopefully things stay the same lol.

Thanks for the link anyways mate.... will have a good think to see if it is a feasible option .

 

[lljdma06]

Hmmm. I wouldn't personally decrease the flow. When I had a similar size tank, I had two nano HOBs. Now, I probably would just go filterless & add a nano powerhead. Still wish they'd come out with little Koralias like 1/2 the size of their current smallest model.

It's looking very good. I'm a fan of moss.

Liz

 

[JenCliBee]

Hmmm. I wouldn't personally decrease the flow. When I had a similar size tank, I had two nano HOBs. Now, I probably would just go filterless & add a nano powerhead. Still wish they'd come out with little Koralias like 1/2 the size of their current smallest model.

It's looking very good. I'm a fan of moss.

Liz

I agree Liz and the reason why i didn't initially go for the little externals, the largest flow rate for size i needed was 150lph, this little internal is 350lph... i dont think 150lph is gonna cut it once the java fern has filled out properly. Will shop around and see if there happens to be a much higher rated external but at a similar size as the ones Ian linked to.

Filterless ive always been unsure of with livestock and with the size of the powerheads it wouldn't be much point removing this internal and adding one of my koralia nano's, the nano would take more room up. This internal wont impede and i will just remove for photo purposes lol... cheaper and easier that way... especially with the tank (fingers crossed) running ok at the moment.

Thankyou and yes i'm a big fan of moss aswell... initially it was going to be an all moss tank but when these java ferns came they looked pretty good in there so will see how this goes with the weeping moss carpet.

Thnaks all for the comment so far .

 

[JenCliBee]

Quick question to you all

What do you think of using java moss for a carpet rather than weeping moss?.

Reason behind it is, i can source the amount of java moss needed easier than i can weeping moss and can get java moss much quicker due to it been in this country lol... so the reason behind the question basically.... I know this is ultimately my decision but wondered what peoples opinions were on the matter

 

[ian]

once it gets going i think java moss looks as good as a carpet. Mark Evans has it (along with weeping moss) as an almost carpet in his new scape, and it looks really good!

 

[JenCliBee]

once it gets going i think java moss looks as good as a carpet. Mark Evans has it (along with weeping moss) as an almost carpet in his new scape, and it looks really good!

I guess i could try java first and if i dont like it change it over to weeping... however... looking at your tank mate... the HC is stunning and really is tempting me lol