No Filter 10L Neocaridina tank

[Heelllooo]

Hello everyone.

I decided i shoud start a journal for my second tank since the community here help me so much ! It will be a 10L no filter blue velvet neocaridina setup.

Tank Specifics :
A cheap Aquatic nature cocoon n1 10L (20x20x25)
Aquael Leddy Smart Black 4,8W

Plant Specifics :
At first mostly cuttings from my other tank and from my emersed growing tupperware. But everything can change.
Rotala wallichi
Rotala rotundifolia green
Java moss
Salvinia Natans
Anubias Mini
Maybe Echinodorus Reni
Maybe Helanthium tenellum or Pogostemon Helferi for the foreground
And the only thing i will maybe buy is some Fissidens moss

Hardscape :
Spider wood
Dennerle Scaper Soil
Quartz Sand

Critters :
Blue Velvet Neocaridina Shrimps
Bladder Snails

Water :
From my other setup water change :
1/5 really hard tap water 4/5 DI water
GH 5 / KH 3 / pH between 7 and 7,5
I dose half EI in the other tank.


So today I hardscaped the tank.

I put a really thick slope of aquasoil ( 0 to 10 cm front to back ), capped it with the sand, placed the spider wood, flood the tank squeezed the dirty sponge from the filter of my other tank and then put a black plastic bag over the tank.

I'm going to do a Dark Start because i'm going away for vacation ( not being able to intervene in any way ) and why not gain time over the cycle ?

Sorry for the quality of the pictures..

The color in the pics are washed, the sand is more beige than that.

Now i only have two concern with my procedure :

The aquasoil will surely mix with the sand over time and the slope will flatten.

That the cycle will not happen because of the lack of oxygen since there is no water movement and I just poked some holes in the plastic bag.
Shoud i put an airstone in the tank ?

 

[MichaelJ]

Shoud i put an airstone in the tank ?

Yes, that would be a good idea to get some water movement.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[ExcitableBoy]

Hi! You could also get a really cheap hang on filter, for example I have recently bought a sunsun hbl 301 for 10 €. It lets you control the flow too. You will need a small sponge on the intake anyway.
I would avoid Rotala wallichii and Echinodorus, the former is quite hard even with CO2, the latter might get too big.
Almost 5W LED on 10 liters might be too much, if it doesn't have a dimmer you could let Salvinia cover the surface.

 

[Heelllooo]

I don't plan on having a filter for this setup at all.
I will put an airstone just for the time that the bacterial colony establish itself.

I would avoid Rotala wallichii and Echinodorus, the former is quite hard even with CO2, the latter might get too big.

Funnily enough in my 60L Low tech i can't grow hygrophila corymbosa or elodea but the Rotala Walichii grow really well, really fast and is not susceptible to algae (even though it's not as red as in the picture I see online).

In the bad picture below you can see it on the left and the hygrophila corymbosa next to it which is dying slowly.

Concerning the echinodorus reni I've read that this species of echinodorus stay relatively small in low tech and i could always relocate it.

Almost 5W LED on 10 liters might be too much, if it doesn't have a dimmer you could let Salvinia cover the surface.

Yes i plan on covering the surface totally, i could use frogbit that i have too if i need to dim the light even more.

 

[Heelllooo]

Sorry for the eye soaring aquarium in the picture, i'm pretty much still learning and experimenting with what i'm able to grow.

 

[ExcitableBoy]

Ok, just be aware that the bacterial colony might be really slow at establishing on sand. If you have another mature tank you could use some "old" water from it. It can help a little.
I think that since Salvinia has quite short roots it will look better than Limnobium, but it's your choice and in case it will take 30 seconds to remove them. There is also Phyllanthus fluitans that would fit well.

About your R. wallichii yes, it's growing quite well! (Honestly better than my attempts with this damn plant 😂) I was thinking that H. corymbosa and Elodea are suffering because the nutrients (or one of them) are really low. I could be wrong, but Rotala wallichii can do really well in conditions where other plants starve. Just ask in Plant Help if you want. That tank is not as bad as you seem to think anyway.

 

[Heelllooo]

Yes I flooded it with water from my other tank + I pressed all the muck from the filter floss of the other tank into this one !

Concerning my problem with hygrophila I doubt it's nutrient related since I'm dosing half EI which is a lot for a low tech and my frogbit doesn't show any nutrient deficiency. Using the Duckweed Index I feel like I'm good in term of nutrient.

I'm leaning more towards a CO2/flow/light issue, but I will make a thread in the Plant help section to explain the situation more thoroughly since it's not the only plant I have problem with and it's not the subject of this journal.

Thanks for the helps

 

[Heelllooo]

Update time :

After 3 weeks in vacation I came back to the tank ( which been in a dark start for nearly a month ) looking like a sewer and smelling like a swamp.
The wood had rotted like crazy and there was a brown muck on every surface possible. There even was some part of the sand which looked like rust.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture.

So I cleaned everything : I had to take away the wood and wash it in the sink and I siphoned the top layer of sand and add some new one back.

I did mess up the slope a little in the process but I will get it back.

Overall I did 2x100% WC.

Then I added a little USB pump to outup a really gentle flow and started planting.

I will test the parameter later to see if there ammonia or nitrite but I'm pretty sure the tank is cycled more than enough to add the shrimp by now.

I just hope that the fungus on the wood will not come back and that the plants will do well.

 

[Heelllooo]

So the tank is doing well.

I've added the inhabitants a week ago : 9 blue velvet neocaridina and an orange ramshorne snail who hitchhiked with a plant.
Plus some more plant cuttings.

Everything seems to be growing or at least not dying.
The Rotala walichii growing crazy as it's used to.

The tank is really low maintenance.
I just do 2L water change a week for now.
I did the first real maintenance session today. Trimmed hard the rotala and the moss hoping it will grow along the wood and not stringy.

I had some green algae on the end of the stem of the rotala touching the water surface and the usual green algae on the glass plus a little bit of fungus on the wood but nothing that bad.

There is just something a little bit weird with the shrimps.
I already had 2 of the 9 shrimps and they come from my other tank.
One of them as started developing about 2 month ago a rust coloration on its back which didn't worried me at that time because it is not acting weirdly or anything
But now one of the new shrimp coming from the shop has turned entirely mauve/rust in a week. See picture below.
It doesn't look like rust disease, there is no weird spot or anything other than the change in color.

Now I just really need to buy a phone that take better pictures.

 

[Heelllooo]

A little Update :

Not much too say.

The tank is running really smoothly.
Everything is growing well. One shrimp is berried and the ramshorn snail has multiplied to maybe 50 individual in 3 week even though I feed once a week a small amount.
I even removed the salvinia and I don't have algae growing !


What takes me the most time is trimming the moss once a week to keep it compact.

Now I'm just waiting to have a full wall of stem in the background and for the moss to continue it's conquest.

 

[Heelllooo]

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to say I finally achieve the look I was going for.
Lots of trimming and replanting has been done over the past month.
Now everything is overgrown, the way I like it.

I have a bit of staghorn and green algae here and there so I reduce the light from 10h to 9h, we will see if it is sufficient.

And this week I've lost some shrimp and I don't know why.. mainly the older one. All the new generation seems to be unaffected. Now I'm waiting for them to start breeding.

Some pics while everybody is being fed.

 

[Heelllooo]

A little update.

I've neglected the tank for a few months now. I've totally abandoned the idea of controlling the javamoss growth.

I've removed the small pump so going totally no tech and I just do 1L WC each week.

The tank is now running at 0dKH since a few month which has killed the Pogostemon Helferi and I added some Hydrocotyle Tripartita.

The shrimp are breeding but very slowly which I assume is due to the small volume, the low temperature in the room during winter ( as low as 15degre at night ) and I only feed a small amount one or twice a week. But I really can't estimate how much there in total in the plants.

 

[dw1305]

H all,
That is looking great.

The shrimp are breeding but very slowly which I assume is due to the small volume, the low temperature in the room during winter

Temperature I think.

The tank is now running at 0dKH

Cherry Shrimps didn't enjoy soft water with me, although I had both low dGH and low dKH.

I've totally abandoned the idea of controlling the javamoss growth.

It is a quick grower for a moss.

cheers Darrel

 

[MichaelJ]

The shrimp are breeding but very slowly which I assume is due to the small volume, the low temperature in the room during winter ( as low as 15degre at night ) and I only feed a small amount one or twice a week. But I really can't estimate how much there in total in the plants.

The low temperature and possibly scarce food supply would be my guess as well.

Tank looks great!

Cheers,
Michael