# Fluval Spec V - Mopani Dreams



## clau74 (Apr 21, 2012)

Hi ,
Tank is beautiful . Good job .


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

very nice man!

Is that the orginally Petite from your 3g from me? lol!! theres a lot now!


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

very pretty!


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

clau74 said:


> Tank is beautiful . Good job .


+1
That slope will be hard to keep...
And I need to steal those nanas from h4n.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

h4n said:


> very nice man!
> 
> Is that the orginally Petite from your 3g from me? lol!! theres a lot now!


Yep!


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

OVT said:


> +1
> That slope will be hard to keep...
> And I need to steal those nanas from h4n.


I used clear plastic dividers inserted into the slope to try and maintain. Will see if it works!


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

wow! you've been hoarding those for a whle now! lol!


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

h4n said:


> wow! you've been hoarding those for a whle now! lol!


edit -- Looks like I bought 3 medium and 2 small in Dec of 2011. I would say I have around 20-25 plants if I cut to propagate some of the larger ones.


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## h4n (Jan 4, 2006)

TexasCichlid said:


> edit -- Looks like I bought 3 medium and 2 small in Dec of 2011. I would say I have around 20-25 plants if I cut to propagate some of the larger ones.


Wow that's nuts!

-Sent from my Samsung Note, a "Phablet"


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## Charrr89 (May 15, 2013)

Wow.. It looks so pretty.... My spec looks like a jungle :/


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## I<3<*))))>< (Jun 10, 2013)

Love it, the shape of the wood is fabulous, and really loving the nana petite on it as well. Course I may be partial to that, hehe.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

New light came in. Lots of fun settings. Manual settings are very bueno as you can manually adjust the RGB and the brightness of the white LED's. Very flexible for future if I ever CO2 or carpet the tank. Replacing the java fern with trident fern when it comes in.


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## Jack Gilvey (Jun 16, 2008)

Wow! Now I want one!


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

Quick video showing the custom presets and RGB/dimming capability.

http://youtu.be/4wFyhH-vOsk


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

Little over a year later. I have not cleaned, trimmed, added fertilizer or changed the water in 8 months. This experiment was not born from purpose, but laziness I am afraid. That being said, everything is doing fine.


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## mpooyan83 (Jun 4, 2014)

You should add a carpet of some sorts to change things up. Maybe some DHG Belem, or some Downoi would look really nice on the empty space on the right.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

mpooyan83 said:


> You should add a carpet of some sorts to change things up. Maybe some DHG Belem, or some Downoi would look really nice on the empty space on the right.


I want low/no maintenance. I had the marimo over there but it eventually died off for some reason. Something slow growing but interesting?


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## mpooyan83 (Jun 4, 2014)

With the Current USA LED+, I am doing Microswords, which are very slow growing, after 6+ months its just starting to carpet the area it was initially planted in. I use eco complete for the substrate with root tabs every now and then, no Co2, once a week Seachem Flourish. Even tho it says the Lighting requirements are "High" its fine in medium light, just grows a little slower.

Here is the link for the plant:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/m...Brazilian_Micro_Sword_Lilaeopsis_brasiliensis

Bump: weird.... everytime I hit "Go Advanced" so I can attach a pic of the how it looks in my tank, it "bumps" my previous post.

finally got it to work. So the top pic is maybe at 2 months, bottom at 6


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

2015 Update - did my first real trim today, mostly moss removal and some java trimming. Top offs with RO only still. Still no ferts. Everything is happy.


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## Dawagner (Jan 20, 2015)

Love the tank! What setting are you keeping the Current LED+ on and what lighting schedule?

No dosing anything? Not even excel?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

I'm curious as well, since I'm nearly done setting up a tank with the same light. 

DHG Belem should grow at a snail's pace with no co2. Would look great in your tank. It's a slow grower even WITH co2! Shouldn't add much, if anything, in the way of maintenance.

Where are the fissidens mentioned in the OP? I don't see them in the photos.

Of course, it's sort of cheating to say you're not adding any ferts, since the AquaSoil Amazonia brings quite a bit to the table.


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## Dawagner (Jan 20, 2015)

Exactly why I'm asking. I have the same setup and am intrigued by the no water change or fert.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

kman said:


> I'm curious as well, since I'm nearly done setting up a tank with the same light.
> 
> DHG Belem should grow at a snail's pace with no co2. Would look great in your tank. It's a slow grower even WITH co2! Shouldn't add much, if anything, in the way of maintenance.
> 
> ...


Sorry for the late response. The fissidens have not done well and are being taken over by the other moss. They are at the base of the mopani.

My light period is 8 hours a day, with a photo period split of 2 hours in the middle.

I will fiddle with my remote a bit when I get home but it's on a fairly low light custom preset I made.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

I changed the water for the first time a couple weeks ago. All the fish have since left this world and I was starting to see BGA build up. I changed the water, re-scaped a bit and started low light EI dosing nitrates and doing half a cap of Flourish Excel daily. BGA disappearing after manually removing most. I think I was getting nitrate deficient with no feeding/waste buildup. Everything is great now.

Went, essentially, 5 years with only trimming and no water changes/ferts added. Water top off only.


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## novv (Jun 14, 2012)

I’m really sorry the hear that. I’m not an expert so I hope people who have more experience here have some ideas.


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## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

I found that the Spec V has great biological filtration. I want to say it's a 30 ppi sponge foam, but I'm not sure. I have some 15 ppi foam laying around that appears much more coarse. The fluval sponge foam rarely ever clogs and filters great to not have any polishing pads in there. It's like a HM filter behind a wall essentially. I'm guessing it attracts more than just nitrifying bacteria, most likely has a large colony of bacteria that's feeding off organics (lacto bacillus and such) due to all the plant matter that gets's stuck in there. It pretty much balances itself out. I still like to change water myself, but I'm not fussy with percentages and frequency when it's running in a low tech environment.


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## IntotheWRX (May 13, 2016)

TexasCichlid said:


> I changed the water for the first time a couple weeks ago. All the fish have since left this world and I was starting to see BGA build up. I changed the water, re-scaped a bit and started low light EI dosing nitrates and doing half a cap of Flourish Excel daily. BGA disappearing after manually removing most. I think I was getting nitrate deficient with no feeding/waste buildup. Everything is great now.
> 
> Went, essentially, 5 years with only trimming and no water changes/ferts added. Water top off only.


Sorry for your lost. I too have lost my fishes after a water change. 

I have battled many people on this forum about water changes. It's me vs the world here. Everyone's telling everyone else to do 50% water changes weekly. I'm glad you can be an example of someone who has found a balance.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

IntotheWRX said:


> TexasCichlid said:
> 
> 
> > I changed the water for the first time a couple weeks ago. All the fish have since left this world and I was starting to see BGA build up. I changed the water, re-scaped a bit and started low light EI dosing nitrates and doing half a cap of Flourish Excel daily. BGA disappearing after manually removing most. I think I was getting nitrate deficient with no feeding/waste buildup. Everything is great now.
> ...



Oh. Perhaps I was not clear. The fish all died of natural causes over time. No fish at all for the past year or so.


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## TexasCichlid (Jul 12, 2011)

Been about a year. Changed the water once when I added a new betta a couple weeks ago. Will be doing some water changes now that I have fish again, not many, but some. I put sponges on the overflow and outflow, but will be building a spraybar for the outflow when parts get here.


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