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(Free) Liquid Tension Experiment

Vinkenoog1977

Vinkenoog1977

Member
Joined
14 Apr 2014
Messages
560
Location
The Hague, Netherlands
So, the last time I had an aquarium was back in 2016. Well, "an"; thirteen in all.
Moved house earlier this year, and have been planning a new, large, aquarium (I mostly had nano tanks before), a Juwel Rio 240. As I was talking to an acquaintance in the dog park, I mentioned this in passing, and he said he had a small tank I could have for free. And as I was itching to get started again, I couldn't say no. It's a 25 liter, 40x25x25 cm. tank. The light is an old desk lamp with a 600 lumen, 2900K bulb. Had some old potting soil, gravel, and some black sticky back stuff laying around, and stole a couple of handfulls of larger gravel from the front garden of an old pensioners home nearby. LOL Only thing I paid for, so far, was the large piece of corbo root (20 Euros).
I'll be adding a heater and the smallest pump I can find, and that's it. I'm going full high tech with the 240, so might as well go full low tech with this one.
As for plants, I'm thinking java moss, java fern (regular and windelov), hygrophila pinnatifada, alt. reineckii, anubias (barteri, mini, and heterophylla), some buce, and some crypts (parva, wendtii green, and beckettii. And of course some phyllantus fluitans.
Fauna? Amanos and otos to start, Then maybe some corys, chili rasbora, cherry shrimp, and a female betta, or maybe a sparkling gourami.
Going for a real jungle style, hoping for some cool emersed growth (does alt. reineckii flower), and just letting it do its thing.

Some pics of the hardscape.
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Depending on how much livestock your planning for the nano tank an eheim skim may be enough and a heater may not be needed. Aquarium Gardens had a nano tank with only an eheim skim fitted and it worked fine, think it may have only had RCS ( Red Cherry Shrimp) as livestock which are pretty tough and can tolerate colder water was well.
 
Zeus. said:
Depending on how much livestock your planning for the nano tank an eheim skim may be enough and a heater may not be needed. Aquarium Gardens had a nano tank with only an eheim skim fitted and it worked fine, think it may have only had RCS ( Red Cherry Shrimp) as livestock which are pretty tough and can tolerate colder water was well.
Click to expand...
I do definitely want some tropical fish in there, so I will need the heater. And the only reson for the pump is to circulate the water in order to get to a stable temp for the fauna.
 
Love the lamp! So retro! 😂
 
John q said:
Invitro? If so you'll be fine, 82.57% of tissue culture plants die within the first 4.67 days 😆
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Only the buce, the java moss, and the fluitans are in vitro. Epiphytes should be fine anyway, most will be close to or above the water level from day one.
 
John q said:
82.57% of tissue culture plants die within the first 4.67 days
Click to expand...
Very specific figures, where did you get the data from ? the tissue plants I have purchased in pass have always had a very good success rate for me
 
So, yeah, I definitely ordered waaay too many plants. LOL Does give the immediate jungle vibe, but still.
Had a bit of a disaster, well, two actually. First one was with the superglue. Thought I was being smart using the type that comes with a little brush, only for the brush to break like five minutes into planting. So had to drip it on most of the Buce and the Anubias, so there is quite a bit of white stuff visible. Will disappear with time, but was not the plan.
Second disaster was that the bloody wood started to float. It's heavy as can be, and had been sitting in a couple of inches of water for almost two weeks, but it still floated. So ignore the giant glass ashtray please.
I'm hoping the H. Pinnatifada will recover from all the stress and grow upright/ emersed instead of just flopping on the water. The Microsorum is already recovering and doing just that, so fingers crossed.
I'll be doing daily water changes for a couple of days, and then bring that down to once every other day, and then every third, just to ward off any major ammonia spikes, and prevent the Buce and Crypts melting. So, doing this, I hope to have this tank cycled in about three weeks, so I can start adding shrimp.
End of the day, this is just an experiment, I'm hoping to see some microfauna and create a bit of a stable ecosystem. And the plants will get a major thinning once I get my Rio 240 up and running. This tank will probably disappear then. I realised while planting, two things: I don't like nano tanks, and I don't like in-vitro plants, and for the same reason: too small and fiddly!

Anyways, hope you guys enjoy the pics.
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