# Desktop Spec Adventures



## tenzero1 (Nov 29, 2011)

Welcome! 

The tank is looking good. I would think you stand a fair chance at getting it to carpet out with excel. I would dose excel closer to recommended now until you have your carpet then just dose minimally to maintain when you have your shrimp. Also, you may want to get other ferts micro/macro to dose with as well to help your glosso carpet faster.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

Thanks! That sounds like a good plan with the excel dosing. I just started on the micro/ macros last week, with some tropica complete and Flourish. Just spotted some hair algae in there today, time to roll up my sleeves for the first round of battle.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

Tank is now set up at work, shrimp added, glosso carpet -kinda sorta carpeting! Very nice to watch the shrimp go about their shrimpy bidnass when I glance up from my screen. Oh and something I learned (that isn't exactly news to anyone who knows amanos)... Amanos are absolute BEASTS for cleaning the tank. The hair algae infestation was putting up a good fight until I added a pair of amanos, those guys just devastated the algae in under 2 days. I was pretty impressed, wanted to give them high-fives.

*April 26th FTS:*








A few close ups showing growth and shrimp amigos


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## Red_Wall (Mar 14, 2012)

Good luck with the glosso! How big is your tank?


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## pedropete (Feb 27, 2012)

looks terrific! lots of growth in a short amount of time  and i agree, watching shrimp carry on with their little lives is very much a stress-relieving break from the day-to-day grind!


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

Thanks! The tank is the Fluval Spec 2.2 Gallon, with the stock light swapped for the 13W fixture that is sold for the Ebi.

I'm figuring I'll probably take the tetras out if I see a berried female cherry, seems like the little shimplets would make for tasty snacks.


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## Quentin (Mar 16, 2011)

Good looking tank!


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## apocalypto (Apr 18, 2012)

Looks great! I'm looking forwards to seeing that carpet spread out. How many shrimp do you have in there now?


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

apocalypto said:


> Looks great! I'm looking forwards to seeing that carpet spread out. How many shrimp do you have in there now?


Thanks! Still got a long way to go to looking like some of the crazy dense glosso carpets I've seen on this board but its on its way.

Right now there are 7 cherries, 2 amanos, a pair of neons and a pair of small zebra nerite snails. If I can swing it, I want to throw a couple of super tigers in there. Maybe once I've found a new home for the neons.


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## apocalypto (Apr 18, 2012)

DanW11 said:


> Thanks! Still got a long way to go to looking like some of the crazy dense glosso carpets I've seen on this board but its on its way.
> 
> Right now there are 7 cherries, 2 amanos, a pair of neons and a pair of small zebra nerite snails. If I can swing it, I want to throw a couple of super tigers in there. Maybe once I've found a new home for the neons.


That sounds like a nice variety. Are you moving the neons because its too small for them? I've seen others with a pair of neons in specs before but it always seemed to contradict what i'd read about their tank size/schooling requirements.


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## GMYukonon24s (May 3, 2009)

That's a good looking tank and nice shrimp.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

Still so much to learn, plenty of unexpected curve balls and a mixed bag of wins and fails. The bullet points of what has happened recently:

- lost 3 shrimp in 3 days (1 amano and 2 cherries). Still not positive why, maybe excel dosing? Just glad it stopped at 3

- added a couple of pieces of DW with christmas moss, took out some java

- caved and went with an ultra-cheap C02 setup. First day while setting it up, I turned it up to high to fast and the tube popped out of the diffuser... BURP! Giant C02 release, knocked a bunch of substrate around. Felt like an idiot at the time but good for laughs afterwards.

- from day 1 of having C02 in there, the plants (glosso especially) were pearling like mad. After a few days, the growth on the glosso went bananas.

- carpet finally getting to where I had envisioned it. No idea how to trim this thing... My straight scissors seem woefully inadequate for this task, might need to look into some curved scissors.

- added a pair of juvenile CRS, holy crap these dudes are neat looking.

*Current FTS:*







*Juvenile CRS:*







*Group photo on the carpet:*


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## apocalypto (Apr 18, 2012)

Wow, glosso is looking great. Nice Shrimp! Can you give some more details on your Co2 setup? Pics? I've been considering adding one to my spec.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

thanks! the C02 setup is the Fluval 20g:

http://www.amazon.com/Fluval-Mini-P...L3H4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1337185770&sr=8-3

and instead of that ridiculous giant glass diffuser (which would occupy half the space in a spec!) I threw one of these on:

http://www.amazon.com/Fluval-Cerami...O35G/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1337185770&sr=8-6

Works great, I can dial it down super low and still get plenty of pearling going. Now the trick will be if I can cook up some kind of adapter and use standard paintball 12g cartridges so I don't have to buy fluval's overpriced cartridges.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

It's been quite a while since my last update, and the tank has gone into full jungle mode. I was really lazy with the trimming, but also interested to see it get really overgrown. It was a pretty fun layout to watch growing in, but I think I'll be tearing it down and re-scaping soon.


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## NWA-Planted (Aug 27, 2011)

Very nice! hmm... I may have to look into some glosso on my next nano!

"People who don't like bacon can't be trusted. - NWA-Planted"


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

That glosso looks amazing....I'm jealous.


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## pedropete (Feb 27, 2012)

woah! that is overgrown!  but...i like it! i like letting my moss get overgrown and "messy" bc it looks pretty sweet and the shrimp love it. your glosso looks really nice!


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## MameJenny (Jul 30, 2012)

I love this tank! Reminds me of a forest. I love the overgrown look.


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

Thanks all! It was really fun letting the growth go crazy on this tank. The christmas moss to a while to get started but gets super dense once its going. The shrimp definitely love all the grazing surface, but the tradeoff is you don't get to see them very often! I can share a few of the really basic things I found while trying for the glosso carpet:

- Cutting the glosso into individual plantlets and planting each one separately is a giant pain in the ass, but totally worth it. 

- adding a layer of small-grain substrate makes it way easier to plant those little buggers. Trying to stick them in the relatively large chunks of the fluval stratum drove me bananas. Adding a thin layer of the ADA (amazonia I think?) small grain stuff over this made a world of difference.

- just dosing with excel definitely works, but using pressurized CO2 almost doubles the growth grate.

-this ended up being the most useful guide/ info that I found, super helpful stuff:

http://www.fish-forums.com/board/cms_view_article.php?aid=147


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

Very interesting article about glosso...worth reading. I glanced over it quickly and bookmarked it. I've got some reading to do later!

...why do I suddenly want a spec packed with glosso and moss? :fish:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Great little tank you've got going here!


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## xenxes (Dec 22, 2011)

Now that looks overgrown! The 13w CFL is awesome eh? Even my shrimp look more colorful.


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## freph (Apr 4, 2011)

Did you have to repeatedly trim your glosso or anything or did it just naturally grow in that nicely?


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## DanW11 (Apr 3, 2012)

xenxes said:


> Now that looks overgrown! The 13w CFL is awesome eh? Even my shrimp look more colorful.


Yeah the 13W CFL is sweet, love how it works with this tank. Lots of 'pop' in the colours too!



freph said:


> Did you have to repeatedly trim your glosso or anything or did it just naturally grow in that nicely?


I did some trimming in the early stages, for about a month or so. I only trimmed ones that were trying to grow upwards. Once it started carpeting, it was pretty hands-off while it filled in.

One of the constraints I've found with the spec is the tall vertical shape makes it really tough to do any 'lawn-mowing' type trimming. Curved scissors aren't really curved enough, I'd love to find a set of right-angles scissors to properly trim in such a tank. So far, the only one's I've found online are surgical tools that cost waaaaaaay too much. Any ideas? Ideally something like this:


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

http://www.bluelakeproducts.com/scissors_kellys.htm

6" stainless steel kelly angle scissors currently $2.00 each from a CA based firm. Shipping to AZ was $9.94 whether it was 1 pair or 12.


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## bat_billy (Jun 2, 2011)

I am curious to know if anyone has found an adapter to go from the Fluval tanks to paintball tanks?


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## HighDesert (May 8, 2012)

Look at Metzenbaum or Castroviejo surgical scissors. The latter have a small cutting area, which would probably make them good for getting into really tight areas. We used to use them a lot on birds and small reptiles.


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## jemminnifener (Nov 23, 2011)

Wooooooow look at all that triangley frond goodness!


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## sketch804 (Mar 2, 2011)

Wow what a great looking little tank!! it grew in very nicely and I cannot believe it is only 2.2 gals! what kinda CFL light did you use? a lamp or a specific aquarium light?


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