# Planted Marina Cubus



## Lisa816 (Nov 4, 2010)

After moving my 21 yr old daughter's Betta, McDreamy, to a 10g tank, his little Marina Cubus was left empty. The Cubus holds just under 1 gallon of water. I decided to try to make it a planted nano based on the info in this article by Diana Walstad: http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/00388Shrimp.pdf

There is an inch of Miracle Gro Organic Choice in the bottom, coverd by 1/2 inch of pool filter sand. I used a piece of Plastic Canvas to sift out the fine part of the soil. 










You can really see the difference sifting makes.










I used clippings and plantlets from my other tanks. There are clippings of Rotala Rotundifolia, Limnophilia Sessiliflora, and Staurogyne repens Tropica 049. There are also Crypt and Java Fern baby plantlets. 

I know these plants are probably all wrong for a nano tank, so please post suggestions on what plants would be recommended for this tiny nano, so I can be on the lookout for some more suitable plants. 

I have it sitting on a south-facing windowsill. The window is 4'x4', so there is plenty of light, but it has 3 layers of glass with one frosted layer, so the sunlight is indirect. Will the natural light be sufficient for the plants? I thought I'd just leave the stock light off, since it doesn't do much for the plants. 

Here's how it looks so far. The water is kind of cloudy from the planting.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

I just planted the same exact cube today! The same way too(substrate wise)! Look at mine, I posted it on this forum too!


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## Lisa816 (Nov 4, 2010)

10gallonplanted said:


> I just planted the same exact cube today! The same way too(substrate wise)! Look at mine, I posted it on this forum too!


Wow, what are the odds that we would both plant the same cube on the same day? That's so funny.  I just checked yours out and it looks great with the rocks and HC. I'm going to be on the lookout for a hardscape and some smaller plants to replace the stem plants.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

I just went to my creek and somehow I found two good rocks right away. Try some Glosso? That was going to be my next plant if HC somehow dies out.


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## Lisa816 (Nov 4, 2010)

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to go look up some info on Glosso right now. I've never had that plant before either. How do you find out if the rocks are safe? I have a bunch of rocks that I bought at a stoneyard place. I hand picked each one out to go around my garden pond. I tore out the pond a couple years ago, after I got a leak in the liner, but I still have the rocks. I wonder if any of them would be safe to use?


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

I don't know too much about stones, I just boil them for a good 15 minutes and wait for them to cool and plop them in. But in this tank i didn't even do that just a good scrub, im so lazy.  What kind of rocks are they?


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## Lisa816 (Nov 4, 2010)

I really don't know what kind of rocks they are. I just went to one of those landscaping places where they sell huge pallets of big rocks. It's where people go to buy those boulders and rocks for their landscapes, since we don't have nice rocks and boulders on the side of the road here like they do in other places in the US. I just picked the ones I liked, all different shapes, sizes and colors. I used them in and around my little pond (one of those hard plastic ponds that you get from Lowe's), until it started leaking and I took it all out.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

They should be fine if there from a landscape rock yard, just boil em.


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## Lisa816 (Nov 4, 2010)

And I just bought some rocks for my Ebi from the lfs. I didn't know I could use the rocks I already had.  These are some of the landscaping rocks I have. The smaller ones are inside the flower pot, and they will all fit in my hand. Some of the larger rocks on the ground are up to about a foot long and heavy.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

Yeah those will work! They're pretty nice too


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## Quentin (Mar 16, 2011)

Looks nice. You gonna put some shrimp in there?


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