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Asian Cube 20L

ourmanflint

ourmanflint

Member
Joined
8 Mar 2009
Messages
257
Location
London
Thought I should make some sort of effort to follow the progress of my AquaNano 30. I've had lots of different fish over the years but 10 years ago I had what I thought was the perfect tank! It had Licorice gouramis, Chocoltate gouramis, Psueudomugil gertrudae and a shoal of Boraras. 10 years later and they are still the fish I really want to keep again, so I'm starting small just so my partner doesn't go mental and ban me from having a big tank, start small I say, get her used to it...

Anyway, I decided to go with the cat litter and John Innes combo, even though I had been warned about the limestone grit in John Innes by Alastair. I washed the soil in soda water over a weekend, in an effort to dissolve some of the limestone, then used that as base. I covered in mesh as I had seen in ukaps tutorial and capped with Tesco cat litter, that had been thoroughly washed in tap water.

So here is the resulting hardscape, I tried a few things but have decided to go vertical instead of across

hardscape_2_small_zps05e02f5c.jpg

hardscape_1_small_zps8694530d.jpg

I planted the tank the other day and this is where we were at this morning... everything is not in its place as bogwood hasn't fully settled yet.

9w_PL_small_zpsaf660b12.jpg
 
Hi Lee

You bet! Just looking to see whats around and it is slim pickings, but in no rush. Of the ones I have seen, they are all very small so sexing difficult so would have to buy a small group and grow them out a bit to try and get a pair. I've got my eye on a 40cm cube (then a 50!) so should hopefully be able to house them all once they've grown a bit.
 
Postman came today as well! I ordered a small 5W LED to replace the useless 9w PL that came with the tank. Can't believe the difference, the last time I had a marine tank, LED's were just coming in, must be at least 2-3 times as bright as the 9w PL.

5W_LED_noBlue_small_zpsa41e85ec.jpg

The downside is, it's got 1 blue LED which is just too much for me so have masked it off with gaffer tape. I can angle it to create a light gradient as well. Perfect
 
That's looking rather good, open yet busy enough to keep fish interested
 
I can only hope! SWMBO has shown an interest since I started the cube. I reckon 6 months and I'll have my 18-20" Optiwhite cube and ADA style cabinet.
Cheers
Rod
 
I've heard of people referring to their wives and girlfriends as other half or better half or home minister or finance minister. But what is SWMBO?!
 
Ha! Spot on! Maybe it's just a British thing I don't know, I always thought it came from the film She.
 
Hi all,
ourmanflint said:
Also added some small pieces of dragon stone to see how it looks
Click to expand...
I think Dragon Stone raises both dKH & dGH, Ca++ ions will be strongly bound by the cat litter with its high CEC, and are very difficult to remove.

Personally (because of the JI mainly) I don't think you will ever be able to get the pH and hardness low enough to keep Parosphromenus happy.

It would be a perfect tank for Trichopsis pumila? really smart little fish <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/trichopsis-pumila/>.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks for the info Darrel. I did read around and I thought the general opinion was that Dragon stone was relatively neutral regarding hardness issues, I was going to start using moss peat in filter bags once tank was cycled to remove any excess Calcium/Magnesium. I'm happy to change everything though if I can't achieve a satisfactory result. I have found a much better soil substrate since, and do regret my impatience a little, but I wanted to cycle tank as quickly as possible. This is the stuff.. http://www.gardenhealth.com/products/indoorspecialist/citrus-compost and its pH is around the 5.5-6 mark so pretty damn perfect. I also regret using cat litter and wonder why so many people recommend it as it is terrible as a planting medium unless very deep, it just flies everywhere.

Rod
 
They use cat litter because it's cheap and easy to get a hold off for the high CEC, I don't think many people recommed it as a cap but as a complete substrate. You can get the same results using earthern clay (the red stuff make sure it has no additives that most clays have), mix about 90% soil and 10% clay, you'll need to cap at least as deep as the soil using a coarse sand or fine gravel something between 1-6mm grain size works best.
 
ourmanflint said:
I was going to start using moss peat in filter bags once tank was cycled to remove any excess Calcium/Magnesium
Click to expand...
It works and will exchange H+ ions for Ca++ ions, reducing both pH and dGH. The problem is that you need a lot of sphagnum peat to reduce hardness.

It is much harder to take things away from water than to add them.

I use silica sand as a substrate and just added a bit of oak leaf-mould to it. They get live food and a mixture of RO and rain-water (I don't add anything, but our rain-water has some carbonates). I've never added any fertiliser to their tank.(I've had them about 2 years).

There is a pretty poor photo of them in this thread:
<http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/roots-dyed-dark-low-tech-blackwater.31437/page-6>

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all, I think Dragon Stone raises both dKH & dGH, Ca++ ions will be strongly bound by the cat litter with its high CEC, and are very difficult to remove.

Personally (because of the JI mainly) I don't think you will ever be able to get the pH and hardness low enough to keep Parosphromenus happy.

It would be a perfect tank for Trichopsis pumila? really smart little fish <http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/trichopsis-pumila/>.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...

Hi Darrel
I have been thinking about this overnight and it seems to me that high CEC substrates have the opposite effect you are implying. They behave like DI resins in that they capture Ca and Mg ions and swap them for H ions. This will lead to a drop in kH, pH and GH not an increase, which is what I want. So using a high CEC substrate is good in systems where you want low pH and soft water, but bad in systems where you want high pH and hard water.

Cheers

Rod
 
Hi all,
ourmanflint said:
I have been thinking about this overnight and it seems to me that high CEC substrates have the opposite effect you are implying. They behave like DI resins in that they capture Ca and Mg ions and swap them for H ions. This will lead to a drop in kH, pH and GH not an increase, which is what I want. So using a high CEC substrate is good in systems where you want low pH and soft water, but bad in systems where you want high pH and hard water.
Click to expand...
Yes and no, the important part of CEC is "exchange", meaning it is a two-way street. Exactly what happens is dependent upon the "LYOTROPIC SERIES", where the most tightly bound cations are:

H+ = Al3+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+ = NH4+ > Na+ least tightly bound.

Adding large amounts of one cation will replace others, regardless of their position in the lyotropic series. For example Na+ could replace Ca++ on the mineral's exchange sites if sufficient concentration of Na+ existed in tank water.

Sphagnum peat only forms in "ombrotrophic mires", this just means rain-fed, the sphagnum itself is very efficient at swapping H+ ions for all other cations, but because you are in a rain-fed situation 99.9% of the exchange sites in the sphagnum (and subsequent peat) will be occupied by H+ ions.

This is very similar to the situation for "Akadama", it comes from an area of high rainfall and acid soils, meaning that the exchange sites have H+ and Al+++ ions.

Laterite, sphagnum peat and Akadama are all described as having a "low base percent saturation", because very long exposure to rain water has leached all the soluble ions (K+, Ca++ etc) from them, leaving behind the insoluble ferric iron and aluminium compounds (that is why they are red), and filling the exchange sites with the only available cation from rain-water, H+.

The situation is different for the moler clay cat litter, the exchange sites could have any cations in them, depending upon the solution that you washed it in. When I used it, I left it out in the rain until the perfume had diminished, I did this because we have hard tap water, and once I'd added Ca++ ions they would be tightly bound and basically always present in the tank.

When you added JINo. 3, the carbonated water this would have had the effect of solubilising some of the calcium ions (Ca++), until it was neutralised, and those Ca++ ions would be retained on the exchange sites.

I hope that makes sense.

cheers Darrel
 
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