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Matt's vivarium nano

a1Matt

a1Matt

Member
Joined
10 Mar 2008
Messages
2,489
Location
Bromley
This is the tank that I will be exhibiting at Vivarium 2011.

No co2, ambient light, no ferts, filter only gets cleaned when the flow stops completely :wideyed: (4-6 months). Never cleaned the glass once. The inverts do all the work for me. I control plant growth rate by how much food I put in. I export plant mass regularly.

I do plan on making it more presentable in the near future (slope gravel, complete the carpet, tidy the moss, etc), and will post some pics when I do so.

For now, warts and all....

(These pics are courtesy of Rik & Clarissa, thanks!)
Full tank shot

(full size here)



Almost full tank shot

(full size here)




CRS

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CRS again

(full size here)
 
That looks well nice Matt, a true testament to "low energy"!
 
Thanks guys :)

I only put the 25w heater in a few weeks ago. Before that point the tank used up a whopping.... wait for it... 2watts! :lol:
 
Thanks again :D

For me, this tank is all about the needle leaf you gave me Neil :thumbup: (which is spreading nicely round the UK now, think I've given it to about 6 people to date, someone will get some at the meet this Sat. too).
 
In an attempt to highlight how little light this tank gets, here is a shot that shows it in situ (for reference the tank to the right has an Arcadia arc pod on it).

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(full size here)
 
ghostsword said:
The tank looks really good. I would not do anything to it, it looks just natural. :)

What sort of water do you use to top up? Tap water? Looks really good.
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If it is just a little evap top up then I use whatever I have to hand, either RO or tap (after smelling it for freshness!).
For WC's I opt for RO (I have it already and it saves on the effort of adding dechlor).

When doing WC's (no schedule, just when needed, usually when I've used water from this tank to seed another tank\acclimatise stock\etc.) I take care to refill really slowly (hours sometimes, I go by the shrimps reaction) using knotted airline tubing. I think this is important as it is such a small body of water (10l).

I also got a new lid cut by the local glazers that fits snugly (the dennerle one has a 1inch gap at the front, presumably for feeding). Well worth the effort IMO, evaporation loss is minimal.


CeeJay said:
Nice work Matt
Now that's what I call a low tech tank, you can't get any lower :lol:
I like it a lot :thumbup:
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Actually I have a tank lower tech still!
It is no tech - no light\heater or filter. No WC ever. Just has daphnia in it and a single ramshorn to keep it from going stagnant. and not a speck of algae in sight. which was annoying, because I wanted to use it for my theodoxus fluviatilis!
It is all thanks to emergent plants ;)
I'll post a pic up of it sometime.


Tony Swinney said:
Nice and simple Matt - the way it should be :thumbup:

Looks great.

Tony
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:) I am loving all these compliments, wish I'd done a journal sooner now :lol:

mlgt said:
NIce set up. Looks like you cleaned your room. Good boy! LOL!
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I found if you turn the flash off the dust does not show up in the pic ;)
 
Thats a great ecosystem Matt. And very nice indeed. My wife is lucky we share a house with friends, otherwise it would be full of various tanks :lol: So many oportunities out there...
 
Thanks again to everyone for the kind comments. My head is geting quite large now. :angelic:

ghostsword said:
:) is that a wabi tray on the left side?
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Yes, and one on the right too :)
Can you make the meet tomorrow?
I want to rescape the one on the right during the meet (add some rockwork to it).

Piece-of-fish said:
Thats a great ecosystem Matt. And very nice indeed. My wife is lucky we share a house with friends, otherwise it would be full of various tanks :lol: So many oportunities out there...
Click to expand...
When you come round mine you will see I have no restraints, tanks are everywhere, but I do try and keep it subtle. I ask family and non fishy friends to tell me when it gets too excessive!

SteveUK said:
Lovely tank Matt :) What fauna?

Oh, and you got rid of the plant you had growing into your window blinds!? That thing was awesome :)
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Fauna:
- 5 x Crystal red (SS grade double hino).
-1 x male Sakura
- 6 x female fire red.

There is a definite difference in colour. The Sakura is a very bright red. The Fire red a deeper hue. Saw the first shrimplet last week...

Ramshorns (pink ones). When they get too many I give them away, or feed them to my chocolate gourami's.

Theodoxus Fluviatilis, Clithon Corona, Neritina natalensis, - all for a short while sadly as they starved from lack of algae (it is nice when the worst issue you have with a tank is no algae), and could not go in the main tank because of predation.

As to the plant in the window.... I killed it :arghh: In the summer it was so hot it was sucking up 1 litre of water every day. So I was giving it 2l every other day. Then when the heat dropped I gave it the same amount of water and drowned the poor thing in no time flat. Took me a few years to get it to the monster size it was at too. On the bright side, I have 7 moss vases in its place instead 8)

Tom said:
I've always liked scapes with moss balls :) I found em a nightmare to keep clean though! Love the wood detail too :)
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I know what you mean, it shows up everything. Luckily, the shrimp and snails keep it clean for me. I never touch it. If you look up close it is littered in shrimp poo. You have to get the magnifying glass out though :lol:

The wood is alder wood I collected, it is brown on the tree, but goes reddish when broken off.
 
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