Triangle Of Life

[SuperColey1]

After the premature end of Nursery Island I quickly rescaped with a simple design I thought about during the whole day thinking about whilst doing other things of course. As soon as the kids were in bed work commenced on pulling all the plants, hardscape and substrate from Nursery Island and then cleaning the tank up.

Specs:

TANK : 33cm x 15cm x 20cm homemade 10 litres

FILTRATION : Boyu external 200lph
HEATER : Newattino K 10W
LIGHTING : 3 x 3W 5500K Luxeon LED - underpowered to circa 7.35W (3.5WPG)
SUBSTRATE : Leonardite bottom layer, Natural sand.
DOSING : Non CO2 with 1 dose of macros per week. No water changes

PLANTS : Microsorum Pteropus 'Needle', Java Moss, Cryptocoryne Parva, Riccia Fluitans
INHABITANTS : Corydoras Schultzei Black (Fry), Cherry Shrimp

The idea is for a moss wall in a triangular shape to grow with the collection of cobbles and pebbles in the corner to provide a feature whilst leaving the rest of the substrate bare. The Riccia is floating to take up nutrient and also block a little light. The plants chosen should be ideal for a fry tank.

Measuring the 'triangle'.

the Leonardite goes in.

The sand is added.

The hardscape positioned.

A couple of shots of the tank back in Situ and running.

The scape is in it's third day now and the single remaining Cory fry is still swimming around so fingers crossed.

AC

 

[keenonfish]

Looks promising - Are you taking steps to avoid the BGA by changing your ferts / co2 regime or is that for other reasons?

 

[SuperColey1]

I basically chucked the substrate and thoroughly cleaned the tank.

The change in low ferts and non CO2 is a purely experimental trial I want to do. following TBs non CO2 method and see if it will work.

Hard to get tanks this small to work well but always up for the challenge.

AC

 

[lljdma06]

How is this little tank doing? Reminds me of my 2.5g.

llj

 

[SuperColey1]

Nearly 2 weeks old and apart from a slight oily appearance to the water surface the water in the tank is crystal clear. Not any noticable change in the plants though.

The single fry is still alive and growing on well and the 4 shrimp are now ??? I see a few miniature ones in there

AC

 

[SuperColey1]

The pictures here are from 19th June.

One month on and the scape is holding up well. The Riccia does get blown into the tank and caught in the fern leaves but is easily pushed aside.

The non-CO2 method seems to be working well. No water changes have ben performed over this month although the water does need topping up every day or two. The only algae issues seem to be the standard diatoms on the glass which I have cleaned off for these pictures. I will let it run its full course before the next update so hopefully it will not return.

As you can see in the pictures below the lone Cory fry is still alive and well and growing nicely. It is approximately 2cm now.

AC

 

[bagu]

lovely shots mate! love the cory

 

[SuperColey1]

The scape is now 2½ months old and a quick update on proceedings:

There are now only shrimp in the tank. I put the single Cory fry in the main tank with the others as it was starting to get a little large for this tank being 3cm long now

The moss wall was beginning to be very sparse. I forgot about shrimp being lovers of moss. lol With it being sandwiched between the mesh sheets and not growing very fast I think they ate most of it. Therefore I pulled it out, removed one layer of the mesh and rather than it being sandwiched it is now spread over the tank side of 1 sheet of mesh. I have tucked it through the holes to keep it in place which seems to be working.

Another change is that I decided to trial HC in this tank. It is now 4 days since I planted it and it seems to be doing OK. Will be interesting to see how it works in a non CO2 lowish light tank:

AC

 

[SuperColey1]

9th November 2009

After a couple of months of neglect due to be becoming uninterested with the hobby I decided rather than trying to get this aquascape back up to speed that I would do a complete overhaul. This will be reborn as a new aquascape.

However here are a few final shots of the aquascape pre-breakdown.

As you can see in the pictures below GSA/GDA had started to get a hold on the glass. The 'triangle' moss had become very thin as I think the shrimp had been feasting on it. After initial success the HC at this opint was completely gone apart from small stems. Still alive but not spreading and barely any leaves.

Not to be beaten I have restarted the tank and renamed it Castaway so will start a new journal for that soon

AC

 

[lljdma06]

Sometimes that happens. I've had trouble in the past keeping motivated, though I have found my second wind. Helps when you only have one or two tanks, rather than 5! I do look forward to the new scape.

 

[c-dub]

Brilliant idea with the triangle net. Looking great well done!

 

[Biulu]

Nice to have you back! Yeah, I can fully understand; last year I gave my 'beginners' tank' with all its inhabitants away after months of frustrations over extended business trips abroad, automatic feeders that broke down and other personal problems. But this is also a hobby that never stops amazing you and somehow you keep coming back. And as llj says, it is easier if you have only 1 or 2 tanks.