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Aquatoon

X3NiTH

X3NiTH

Member
Joined
13 Apr 2014
Messages
1,669
Hi there,

I thought I should make a Journal for an upgrade to my CRS Tank that sits on a shelf above my main tank, so here we go.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/13962200558_b76e64ae8f_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5488/14130008436_13d1b6d0fc_b.jpg

The crystal shrimp were an impulse buy when I spotted them in my local Fishkeeper, I had been trawling the LFS's looking for Red Rili Shrimp for my main tank, specifically males, since my entire shrimp population of 5 RR and 3 Red Cherry that I have in my main tank are all female, evidenced by each showing a visible saddle, which i have to add is a situation which hasn't changed in the last couple of months as I haven't been able to source any male RR locally. Anyway before the impulse buy I had already been boning up on CRS and so when i spotted them locally I just had to have some and walked away with 14 of them, a nice little starter colony, although within a couple of weeks I lost 3 Tiger Tooths post molt to an No-Entry, no other predation or deaths since. Tank has been up and running for a couple of months and the hitchhiker cherry fry that got caught with the CRS have almost grown full size, but in all that time my CRS colony hasn't bred even with pheromone behaviour post molt, maybe the colony is sterile, who knows but I'm going to give them a new home for when I swap them over to RO/BeeGH+ water to get near 0kH in an effort to get them breeding.

The tank that is currently in use is a £15 Aquatown Starter Tank from P@H, I had this lying empty when I made my impulse buy and bought a JBL TekAir Silent sponge filter for it when I got the shrimp, all the rest I had laying around so it kind off just got thrown together without any thought and its pretty uninspiring to look at (I wouldn't care what the tank looked like if I was being distracted by a multitude of nano sized CRS, but I'm not). I had already been mulling over ideas of what I wanted to do with the shrimp tank to change the way it looks and make it more natural looking with no visible kit in the tank which was going to be a big ask as its such a small tank at 12L (I think?). So with this in mind I thought the easiest way to go about things and not end up with a rush job in an effort to get livestock back in their home quickly, I decided I was just going to go buy another tank!

The new tank will occupy the same spot above the main tank so I can scape it so that the sides that face the corners will hide the filter gubbins behind a wall. I have this clear vision in my head that I want a planted Anubia/Moss wall with a Cladophora Hill/Carpet with no visible filter/heater in the tank.

To achieve this I needed a way to secure plants to the glass and eggcrate was just going to be a pain to get hold of in a small enough size and black in colour, so I opted to try and source plastic mesh that was sturdy enough to take a shape if bent and hold it and was also black in colour, A4 size would be great but I never was able to find any that sized locally. At the end of a long trawl I found a roll of Gutter Mesh at B&Q and this appeared to be fine/coarse enough for my purposes and cheap enough to punt some money on it, unfortunately it's not wide enough to do the job exactly, so I was going to have to get creative in joining the stuff to make a larger contiguous area.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2938/14125240826_568c7158f1_z.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2898/13961805938_b1c93cc6cb_z.jpg

So i set about trying the mesh out in the tank with enough space hidden in the corner to house the filter and heater.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7314/13961766147_76d5c5d4b3_z.jpg

I then set about joining the two long strips of mesh together using a small section of mesh behind and forcing hot glue through the mesh from the front to form a bond with the mesh at the back (Initially i tried stiching the pieces together with nylon fishing line but there was too much play and I wanted the whole wall to be even and not have flex in the middle of the join). I then Siliconed this into place on the back glass and floor pane, I wanted good adherence as the mesh moved if disturbed so I used more silicone than maybe I should have and maybe should have taken the time and used masking tape to make the joins neater.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7003/13926743804_6df18aa8ce_z.jpg

Its going to be a bit of a challenge to plant Anubia on that wall and get moss to grow through from behind it now that its permanently secured to the back pane , soooo......

Mesh Wall No.2

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7359/13961828260_3067c5f2d0_b.jpg

I've created a removable wall using the same mesh that I can now plant Anubia onto and moss behind, this is secured with just passing a cable tie through both mesh walls to hold in place, I measured the second wall to fit a 5mm spacer to keep a growing space between the walls to allow Anubia roots to grow down between and leave space for any mosses to grow through.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5559/14168564763_6ec1b55bd0_z.jpg

Since this wall may be visible I endeavoured to make it glueless which is where black cable ties from Maplin came to the rescue and Plastic HO Gauge 'I' beams from a local hobby shop.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2909/14145187391_63614a69cf_z.jpg

The 2nd wall has been constructed into two easily removable parts using the gutter mesh, cable ties and 'I' beams.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2927/13961925298_bc35ff8e56_z.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5483/13961933388_144f0d68a7_z.jpg

Here's the backside of the above part to give you an idea of its construction.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14148573805_064df3f76f_z.jpg

I also constructed an Under-Cladophora filter (since i'm going gravel free) using the same materials as above, I want to form a low hill so I have stitched with fishing line some sculpted reticulated filter foam to the raised mesh construction. Here's both sides.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7404/14148535235_4a5eaa8da4_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7297/13961835267_ef154d400d_z.jpg

Stacked loosely together and it looks like this.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7426/14145254231_ebafd26abd_z.jpg

And placed inside the tank.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2920/14145674052_212bbeb7bc_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7339/13961854697_5ccab616b9_z.jpg

I hoovered up the local supplies of Anubia Nana Bonsai which were 8 Tropica pots and 3 Aquafleur pots.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7159/13903190641_eedd8b3638_z.jpg

I also raided the main tank for 3 bunches of Nana that had grown spectacularly well in a high light CO2 environment, you can see them sunbathing covered in GSA at the front of my bogwood.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3774/13903272301_f688e9228d_b.jpg

Since replaced by C.Willisii which were hiding among the Anubias in the tub above.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7379/13966578758_8606288288_b.jpg

I also rescued an Anubia from the shrimp tank that they floated after eating their way through the cotton that was holding it to its bogwood support, you can still see the bogwood left in there with a lonely piece of Java Sword.

Here's one of the little blighters making short work of a Nettle.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7361/14096648063_842bde1725_k.jpg

So that's a wallet draining collection of 15 pot sized Anubia plants to use to fill the tank. Surely it's enough?

Here's a starter section I planted.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5562/14148582825_b86777540a_b.jpg

You can see here that I have tied at the back using Fine Bio-Degradable Fishing Bait Elastic.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5156/14148761534_61060d145d_b.jpg

I have cut the roots right back to about a couple of centimetres from the rhizome and placed the Anubia onto the Mesh vertically from above so that some roots pass through the mesh, I then used a large needle threaded with the elastic and stitched from behind through to the front over the rhizome between leaves and back through the mesh again and tied off the elastic and cut to tidy. I planted the first batch above and left it 48hrs before planting the rest, after that elapsed time I could see traces of root growth through the mesh.

Now for the rest.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7436/14125549376_169ab94e29_b.jpg

Filling in nicely.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7453/14168797023_328ab283eb_b.jpg

Boom!

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2926/13962089139_9118d615d5_k.jpg

I've run out of Anubia to plant!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7417/14145449471_08fcafc1b0_b.jpg

A small corner on this wall needs filling and I want some more to spread onto the filter wall that I want to maybe transition to Fissidens.

I'll need to go trawl the LFS's for more Anubia, its been a few weeks since I last cleared them out, so I should be able to get some more, maybe! Carpet next, I'll be having a go with ripped up Cladophora balls in a hairnet combo!

🙂
 
Here we have 5 Aquatic Tribbles awaiting their fate.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7335/14169312451_ce87749d42_b.jpg

Up closer, nice and hairy!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7341/14169953122_1b2ce81dc8_k.jpg

So the plan is to rip open these delightful critters and cover this reticulated filter foam construct.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7297/13961835267_ef154d400d_b.jpg

And so I got stuck right in and cut them half way down the middle and then spread them out, turning them over to the back while under water and gently teasing them into a flat shape with my fingers, periodically checking for fit over the sponge. The bigger balls opened up really nicely and spread out well while the smaller ones were a bit more tatty at the edges when opened up so I used them to fill gaps. Making sure I had them outer surface side up I placed them onto the construct.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5475/14172639835_8c34d10ac7_k.jpg

I then took a hairnet and placed it over the top and round to the underside and pulled it tighter in places (not too tight, just enough so it will hold the carpet), I then stitched through from back to from to back again with nylon fishing line in various places to secure the net to the frame, I also stitched around the inside of the circular shape and cut away a small section of net so that I can pop a small crypt planted pot in there.

Here's a couple of pictures with the hairnet covered carpet placed in the aquarium.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5540/14192773773_280d5dc3f9_k.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5585/14169375421_e55a99dbd2_k.jpg

It looks a bit messy at the moment but the Cladophora got a good squashing while spreading and teasing it out so it should perk up, hopefully disguising the hairnet over time. I will leave it soaking in the bath tub with the Anubia wall for the moment and see how it looks after a couple of days.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5522/14172744594_b5d9d753a0_k.jpg

I really like the contrasting greens of the Anubia with the Cladophora, I hope the hairnet gets grown around.
I may redo it with some dark green fine mesh (the kind of stuff that dressmakers use), I have a pile of different colours somewhere that I used as a macro photography background image so I may give that a try if the hairnet doesn't work out. You can see some blue stuff of it I used here as backdrop for these spiders.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3274/2744672505_f5486072bd_b.jpg

I did manage to get a few more Anubia, but I'm going to need more, some really small ones would be nice if I could find them locally as I would like to soften the transition over to the mosses on the filter wall, which I still need to decide on and work out how much I'll need to buy.

In the meantime the Un-Pregnant Rilli in my main tank continue to tease!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7372/14149575246_964354b004_k.jpg

😵

If the images I'm posting are too large can someone let me know thanks!

🙂
 
Those photos are incredible! Are you not worried about your shrimp getting stuck behind the mesh?
 
Thanks re the pics, they're not too big are they ? (Full res on Flickr)

For fry I suppose they will be able to nip in and out of the mesh on the walls, actually I suspect this is where they will congregate. Im going to put a fine sheet of filter foam behind the filter wall so that there should be no way for them to enter into the filter compartment, on the glass walls I had thought of using foam between the mesh walls but that would impinge on growing space for the Anubia Roots. I could plant moss behind the Anubia and allow it to grow through the mesh like how I'm going to do around the curved filter wall which may minimise the risk. I've added some more cherries to the existing tank which a few are berried so I will have fry by the time this tank is up and running, actually there were a lot of freshly hatched hitchhiker fry in their water, about 20 or so that I hoovered up with a syringe and introduced to the tank but they've disappeared behind the sponge filter. A big part of the plan on this build is to give the shrimp somewhere to hide but still be in full view and not behind stuff I can't get to because it faces the wall (sponge filter and heater). I suppose its a case of wait and see, I'll certainly be trying to minimise any gaps that I can find. Hopefully fry would exit from behind the wall if they get too big, a quick moult may give them a small amount of time to squeeze through the gaps back into the main tank.

Thing is critters always find a way to end up where you least expect them too. If I ever lose one of my Purple Emperors out my main tank I know now to check my cerges/dwell time reactor in the cupboard under the tank since I have witnessed on three occasions one of them swim into the outlet of my glass crook, never would have thought it possible unless I saw it with my own eyes,lol.
 
I decided to redo the mesh for the carpet as the hairnet looked a little messy with the Cladophora clumping up in the spaces. I used the mesh that I mentioned above, not the green as it was a little too lurid over the Cladophora, so I used some black instead. I tested it first by wrapping an intact mini ball from the shrimp tank to gauge the effect, I think it looks like it would probably work out.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5530/14029765408_7463b18e09_k.jpg

I was able to pull the mesh a little tighter than the hairnet when fitting over the sponge covered frame and it was easier to stitch in place. It turned out a lot neater this time and hopefully given some growing-in time the mesh should be engulfed evenly without looking clumpy.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2927/14029782559_53a3f4932c_k.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2912/14029863750_9ffec82c7e_k.jpg

So that was a few days ago that the mesh was redone, I had just chucked the carpet back in the bath with the Anubia Wall, and since then I've been diligently doing 100% daily water changes. Today I noticed the water surface looking quite oily so I did another water change, this got me wondering about using some frets to get the Cladophora going but I wanted to know what would trigger good growth so I did a search. I found a nice patent PDF online about growing Cladophora as a fire retardent filling, the magic to growing it is the usual stuff, "lights, ferts, co2". The magic to killing it so it can be used as a flame retardant filling is by treating it with Chlorine! Oops, I've not been dechlorinating the water the carpet is sitting in and when I've been doing water changes I have been filling straight from the tap. I didn't think I needed to as there's no fish or verts to worry about with it sitting in a tub in the bath. So that's why I was seeing an oily surface, I've been slowly killing the Cladophora with all the non dechlorinated water changes.

Disaster averted I've chucked it all into the new tank and filled it with fresh water, dechlorinated this time, I have also put a mini sponge filter in the filter compartment to get some aerated water moving about. I placed the tank next to my main tank so it could get the ambient light spill bouncing off the wall to illuminate it.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5583/14029877078_85da5e07f9_k.jpg

I have good root growth from the Anubia emerging from behind the mesh so the plants should hold fast by the time the fishing bait elastic holding it on dissolves and with the walls new upright position it should encourage the leaves to start to turn and grow vertically upwards while the roots turn to grow down between the walls, hopefully I should get a nice curve to the leaf stems as they start to grow towards the light.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2914/14029871958_ee77d3198d_k.jpg

I am hoping the carpet mesh gets engulfed, the closeup below gives me an idea that it might, but I don't know how quickly.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5316/14216334644_b12efdab75_k.jpg

I fed the tank a skoosh of Tropica Premium to give it some ferts. I'll keep doing that between the water changes (I might feed it the waste EI dosed water from the main tank when that gets changed). I have my mosses coming this week so I can get on and plant up the other wall. I ordered a couple of tubs of Fissidens, 3 tubs of Flame and a tub of Christmas moss, I already have a good clump of moss tied to my shrimp flats that I'm going to rob and I can dismantle the shrimps floating ball to get at the Java moss. I have a big clump of some unidentified dark green thread like moss thats hiding out in a pale in the bath that will also get chucked into the mix. I also have a pot of Microsorum mini coming that I can add somewhere on the wall, maybe in the left corner and 2 pots of C.Parva, these I can plant up in a small peat cup with some nice growing medium topped with gravel and plant into the circular space in the carpet.

I'm hoping the mosses are going to be enough to cover the filter wall, not yet settled on how to go about planting it, not sure if I'm going to plant through the mesh from the front or just sandwich it between the walls, maybe I should do both. Might do a quick test piece with a single frond sandwich and see how that works out as I don't want to waste the whole lot of Fissidens and Flame to find out it doesn't work.

🙂
 
I agree, it's great to see people coming up with new ideas, it's starting to look really nice.

One thing's troubling me though..... what's going on with that spider? Are you actually keeping them? 😱
 
Thanks for the comments!

James D said:
One thing's troubling me though..... what's going on with that spider? Are you actually keeping them? 😱
Click to expand...

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3005/2711661162_2aa9f7435c_b.jpg

This expectant mother was found hiding in the hand towels of my in laws caravan a few years back, obviously I went nuts with the macro that holiday, I brought the little package back home with me for more. I released them into the garden once the eggs hatched (only got a couple of pics of the hatchlings before the wife chased me out the house!). I used the mesh for colour effects to see the colours through the spider when using the flashgun.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3002/2744674641_3949827576_b.jpg

My fave macro that holiday was a fly!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3113/2711668546_d392721ef8_b.jpg

I have a few other ideas for the tank that could possibly make it like no other if I pull it off, but I need to experiment a little to see if I can fully realise what I have stuck in my head. Who would have thought that a £15 12L starter tank from P@H would turn into such a massive money pit. I reckon by the time I have finished I could have bought an ADA 60P instead, coincidentally the space where my tanks sit could accommodate a 60P exactly but the AquaStart 320 would have to have an accident first :nailbiting:🙁😉🙂, hee hee.
 
I've given this a couple of weeks to see if the carpet would grow through the mesh and it appears that it is, definite signs that it will eventually be engulfed.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3882/14354129384_b4551827d2_h.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2937/14168522187_4ee06f89aa_b.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3852/14351210231_bd2984400e_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5196/14354204864_7b3175dae3_b.jpg

I have made a start on the Moss wall using the sandwich method to hold in the moss, I used the fine mesh I have and stitched it onto the back of the wall over the moss with nylon fishing line.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3891/14331363656_bb675fc1a3_b.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2938/14351154521_a498993088_b.jpg

I'm not sure what type of Moss it is that I stitched in there but I can describe it as being a dark green very fine hair like growth with little branching, I should have taken a Macro pic of it for an ID. Anyway, I left it for a few days to make sure it would grow through to the front, which it did, so I then got on with planting the wall up from the front. I have used Tropica 1-2-Grow Tubs, three of Taxiphyllum sp. 'Flame' and one of Vesicularia Dubyana 'Christmas'. First I planted up the Flame moss, I tried to do this in a way that made it look like flames spreading across the wall. I used a fine set of tweezers and positioned a small bunch of sprigs between its tips and carefully pushed this through the mesh from the front side until it was far enough through the mesh sandwich that it was able to support itself. Once I had run out of Flame moss I then used the tub of Christmas moss and planted in between the Flame moss and spread it out across the wall a bit, I made sure with the Christmas moss that there was enough pushed through that it would grow through the adjacent holes and fill the wall out a little bit more.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/14392518114_0988d09096_b.jpg

I then grabbed the tub of Java Sword plantlets that I have been collecting from the mother plants in my main tank that dont grow but continually spawn plantlets, there's some Windelov in there also.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/14392525294_2821c13ab7_h.jpg

I then set about splitting these up at the rhizome into small enough sizes that i could use the fine needle nosed tweezers and plant through the mesh into the moss sandwich. The black cable tie through the wall in the picture is a place marker for the height of the carpet.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5556/14390208881_6fc2e3f0ba_h.jpg

The right hand margin of the wall is sparsley planted because this will go behind a section of mesh on the meeting edge of the Anubia wall, there is still the thread moss behind it that can grow through to fill it out, so it won't remain bare. The next pic is lit a little differently to make the planting look less flat.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2914/14392174222_c960b99cc0_h.jpg

There's still a small rectangular section of wall on the left that needs planting up, I am supposed to be using the two portions of Fissidens on steel mesh that I have, but when it came to me along with the other mosses that were in spectacular condition it looked very sorry for itself in its tub with mushy Chinese newspaper and covered in shrimp poo, such a minimal amount of plant for a tenner and to be honest I doubt it would have survived getting buried in a mesh wall sandwich, so I have had to rescue it by hanging it up in the Intensive Care Unit (my main tank) for the moment so that it can take advantage of the EI ferts and CO2 and hopefully grow some legs.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5320/14167859428_62a2c43f0c_h.jpg

The above pic is a couple of weeks after rescue and it's certainly taking advantage of all the goodies in the main tank as I have it positioned in a nice spot just slightly out of the flow from the filter outlet. Hopefully it takes off like my Aternanthera did after I hacked it in half and moved its position in the tank to calmer sunnier climes.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2902/14168813717_2f5c8b8c9b_h.jpg

In the shrimp tank I think I have about 60-80 Cherry shrimplets, too many to count actually (I got to 56 with the ones I could see), lots of different colours in there including this little beauty.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2925/14392481244_20a5645f3e_k.jpg

Finally saw some stacking action with the CRS, dashed to the other room to get the camera to record the occasion but my wife shouted through that they had separated before I could get back and grab a pic, ah well here's hoping the CRS manage to add to the the RCS smorgasbord I've got going.

The C.Parva I had planned to use for this tank ended up in the main tank for the moment as I did a corner rescape and sand extraction on that and wanted to fill the space.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3856/14167883730_41e44f629f_h.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5545/14351701081_a79d359899_h.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3925/14355066255_e496595415_h.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2915/14168431728_9831884339_h.jpg

I have some mini Sword also that's going in the tank somewhere, probably along the bottom edge of the wall so that it grows up and over the carpet. I'm going to give the moss wall a few days in a bucket in my sunny bathroom to settle in before I start having a go with tying the mini sword to it. Don't know whether to plant the Fissidens behind the wall or just secure it to the front still attached to the steel mesh, the two pieces placed together one above the other just fit in the space I have marked out for it, I need it more grown in though before I do anything with it, I'll ponder on this one.

🙂
 
I have added some Mini Java Sword along the bottom edge of the filter wall, the roots will be obscured by the carpet when it is in place. I sandwiched up another moss type (not sure of ID but its a branching moss this time) on the slim side panel and I have also planted in some more Anubia, two pots of Nana Bonsai, and one Petite, although I noticed after planting a label for Coffeefolia staring up at me?

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3845/14244559769_de7b47c093_b.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2896/14244566039_19ebbd5661_k.jpg

It's resting in a bucket with a splash of Tropica ferts until I am ready to fix it into place.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5114/14244626200_fe8e7f4d26_k.jpg

Here's how it looks after a dunking to relax the sword leaves.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3912/14244608879_777c94fe00_k.jpg

🙂
 
I love this and have thought along similar lines in the past. A problem I can't see past though is that moss is going to need trimmed but with all the other plants growing over it this is going to be difficult. How are you going to cope with this so I doesn't become a tank full of moss?
 
ldcgroomer said:
A problem I can't see past though is that moss is going to need trimmed but with all the other plants growing over it this is going to be difficult. How are you going to cope with this so it doesn't become a tank full of moss?
Click to expand...

I have absolutely no idea, I imagine it will be a monumental battle once things become established, I love the overgrown look which is why I have planted heavily to begin with. There's a very good chance that there will be some die off and this will determine how or if I will trim back any excess growth. To be honest I never planted thinking how I would maintain excess growth and if I had thought beforehand that it would be a nightmare to trim and keep tidy I may never have progressed further than wistful thinking. The good thing though is that I have gone ahead and done it and have posted my journey here for all to see and if it doesn't work out ending in a tank gut then so be it, but at least it will have been quite a trip and I and everyone else can learn from the experience.

🙂
 
I'm looking forward to seeing it grown in. I wanted to do this in a bigger tank, say a 30cm cube, for a Bettta splendens. It would really mimic the grassy banks those fish live along
 
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