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WaterBox 6025.

L

Le duke

Member
Joined
2 Jul 2023
Messages
135
Location
Colorado, USA
Been lurking for a while, and thought I’d finally introduce myself.

I’m Andy, and I live in Colorado, USA.

My current tank set up is a WaterBox 6025, set up in a roughly SA biotope. A few exceptions to that, with a few Java fern and some moss I scraped off a stone in a creek at 3,000m+ elevation.

Tank is set up with an FX6 + FX4 for filtration. In/out pipes are custom made 25mm jet pipes I made myself from 304 SS. Heater and Cerges reactor are DIY as well. Running a 36w UV filter 8hrs a day. The FX6 is connected to the heater, and the FX4 runs the Cerges + UV. I wanted one of them to have nearly stock flow, so I figured it would be best to have the FX6 closest to its normal output.

Lights are 2x AI Prime FW on AliExpress holders. Daily pH drop is about 0.7, from 6.8 down to 6.1, with 1.5 dKH.

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@Le duke Awesome thread, i had assumed some type of mandrel setup and love the simplicity of pre cuts and epoxy, looks seamless. I was a member at planted since 2017, but moved here. Always good to have more members from the states here, the uk guys can probably pick up this type of equipment at the corner store for like 10 pounds lol, we have to be more resourceful here in the states. Glad you're here and look forward to your contributions here!
 
blairgerman said:
@Le duke Awesome thread, i had assumed some type of mandrel setup and love the simplicity of pre cuts and epoxy, looks seamless. I was a member at planted since 2017, but moved here. Always good to have more members from the states here, the uk guys can probably pick up this type of equipment at the corner store for like 10 pounds lol, we have to be more resourceful here in the states. Glad you're here and look forward to your contributions here!
Click to expand...


I contemplated going the mandrel route but I wanted to configure and mess around with dimensions. I ended up modifying the inlet with the surface skimmer after it had been in use for a while. Long story short, the cost for four 180 bends in 25mm steel would’ve been high for something I wasn’t completely sure about.

A friend of mine has no mechanical aptitude and offered to buy a set if I made them for him, so might go that route at some point.

As an example, I ended up rotating the inlet/skimmer 90 degrees and shortening the bottom a bit, too.

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it really looks seamless, and you'll always be changing pipework. Possibly there is a market for this. The same job done by me looks like this, lol, but i know i'll be changing it many times to address flow matters.
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Hufsa said:
Which plant is this really nice grassy one, Blyxa aubertii or perhaps something else?
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It was sold to me by my local shop as a Valisneria variant.

I’d estimate that most of it is 3’/1m long so I doubt it’s Blyxa. Never seen any that big and most species profiles suggest it’s ~40cm or smaller.


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Le duke said:
It was sold to me by my local shop as a Valisneria variant.
I’d estimate that most of it is 3’/1m long so I doubt it’s Blyxa. Never seen any that big and most species profiles suggest it’s ~40cm or smaller.
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Oh thats cool, I saw the base looked like a rosette, but maybe you just planted it that way?
Im sorry for derailing your thread, I just really love plants 😅:lol:
 
Hufsa said:
Oh thats cool, I saw the base looked like a rosette, but maybe you just planted it that way?
Im sorry for derailing your thread, I just really love plants 😅:lol:
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I'm revisiting this and I'm thinking you might be right. It's definitely not a normal Val variety. The individual leaves don't have the starchy feeling that I associate with Val leaves; they are barely there. The rosette vs the typical Val pattern also makes me think it's something else. The plants are obviously healthy, though. I bought them 3 months ago, maybe less, and they've gone crazy since then.
 
Le duke said:
I'm revisiting this and I'm thinking you might be right. It's definitely not a normal Val variety. The individual leaves don't have the starchy feeling that I associate with Val leaves; they are barely there. The rosette vs the typical Val pattern also makes me think it's something else. The plants are obviously healthy, though. I bought them 3 months ago, maybe less, and they've gone crazy since then.
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Very interesting, will you keep us up to date on what you find out?
I dont know what I was thinking when I said rosette, because Vallisneria is a rosette plant.
But the rosettes themselves usually dont get super bushy with a ton of leaves for a single rosette, but rather send out more runners to spread that way.
As far as I know, the Blyxa species we know of are actually stemplants. Most of them just have a very bushy growth habit and have very short segments between the leaves, making them appear as rosettes.
If you get any stemplant like branching from your grassy plant eventually, that might suggest its some kind of large Blyxa species.
Perhaps there are some Sagittaria species circling around in the hobby in the US that grow this large as well, I have heard they can be difficult to tell apart from Val when they are the same size.

Its really nice looking no matter what it is 😊
 
Hufsa said:
Very interesting, will you keep us up to date on what you find out?
I dont know what I was thinking when I said rosette, because Vallisneria is a rosette plant.
But the rosettes themselves usually dont get super bushy with a ton of leaves for a single rosette, but rather send out more runners to spread that way.
As far as I know, the Blyxa species we know of are actually stemplants. Most of them just have a very bushy growth habit and have very short segments between the leaves, making them appear as rosettes.
If you get any stemplant like branching from your grassy plant eventually, that might suggest its some kind of large Blyxa species.
Perhaps there are some Sagittaria species circling around in the hobby in the US that grow this large as well, I have heard they can be difficult to tell apart from Val when they are the same size.

Its really nice looking no matter what it is 😊
Click to expand...

Yeah, I suppose I worded that poorly. Vals form rosettes but they don't go OUT quite like this plant. And, no runners so far with these three plants. Despite getting huge.
 
Tank is running very well right now. Cranked it up to 77F/25C a while back and that seems to have cut back the tiny little tufts of BBA I was seeing on occasion. pH drop from 7.4 to 6.1 holding steady. Somewhere between 30 and 35ppm CO2. May need to transplant or give away some swords soon.

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Le duke said:
Somewhere between 30 and 35ppm CO2. May need to transplant or give away some swords soon.
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HI @Le duke, Beautiful tank! PM me if you want to move some plants to Minnesota, I’ll be your huckleberry (I'll pay shipping and packaging of course).

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Love the stainless steel pipes, much less maintenance than glass and also unbreakable.
 
The hydrocotyle has taken over the top of the tank. It's several layers deep and I'm guessing that if I had a vampire crab in there, it could walk across from the stump to the rim of the tank, and escape. It's actually growing OUT of the tank on the right/inlet pipe side. I'll take a picture and update this post tonight.

If anyone is in CO and wants some free hydrocotyle verticillata, let me know.

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