# Dean's 12g planted (and 1st ever aquarium)



## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

I'm running this journal elsewhere on the webernet but I've been lurking on this forum as well and figured I would share here too.

Background:

This is my 1st aquarium and right out the gate I wanted it to be a planted tank. The LFS I went to set up me up with what I thought at the time was a decent enough system for what I wanted.

Equipment:

12g JBJ Nano Reef Tank
DIY type co2 canister connected to an airstone (DIY because all the included ingredients it came with expired a number of years ago)
A number of plants that came with no names.

The plants as it turns out where:

Cabomba
some sort of Dwarf Grass
Echinodorus Ozelot
Alternanthera reineckii
Bacopa australis - I planted this in a badly chosen area and only 2 stems now survive in a replanted position.

Fauna:

7 Cardinal Tetras - the overall count over the last 6 weeks has been both more and less, but now I'm at a steady and healthy 7
about 10 Red Cherry Shrimp .. little buggers are hard to get a head count on. As above I've also had more and less than this, but it seems to have stabilized.


I have since removed some of the Dwarf Grass and have planted HC all around the foreground. I plan on replacing all the remaining dwarf grass with addional HC when I can find more (even though I'm surrounded by LFS's, I have only found one source of it thus far).

I had a hard time with the lighting that was designed for a reef tank, 50/50 atinic and a 10k, both 24w for 12gallons for a total of 48watts of PC lighting. I found I was fighting algea pretty early in the game which I beat back with blackout periods and overdosing Excel. I've since changed over to a couple of 6700k lights and that has made a huge difference. The only place that ever shows signs of a thin layer of algae is the drift wood which is fine as it gives the Cherry Red Shrimp somthing to pick away at.

Currently things are pretty smooth other than a snail invasion (the pics will tell the story) and drifting plant matter that never completely filters away. Lots of Pond Snails, a few Ramshorns and a few MTS - these last two I actually like, but I am probably going to have to get agressive with them soon.

I am disenchanted with the Reef Tank for this use though. The filtration can't seem to keep up with a tank planted to this level, the tank gets pretty warm with the lights on (81.5F) and there is little space at the surface for air-exchange (I had to introduce an airstone for the lights off period). Now that I'm figuring my way through this new hobby I've decided to replace this tank with a 24 inch 15 gallon rimless - but that will be a different thread.

Despite the shortcomings, I've managed to get by and its been a great learning experience.

The tank on Day 1:









The tank as of today:


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

Well done! your first tank? Hard to believe 

Im really diggin that drift wood cave piece.

The Dwarf grass looks like Micro sword to me.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

EntoCraig said:


> Well done! your first tank? Hard to believe
> 
> Im really diggin that drift wood cave piece.
> 
> The Dwarf grass looks like Micro sword to me.


Thanks  

Could be microsword, I have no idea ... I had to use the internet to ID all my other plants as it is  It's all on its way out eventually what ever it is as it didn't suite my tastes in this condensed space - all the wrong scale.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Now for my regularly scheduled updating, here is today's:

*Day 51*

Our 7 Cardinal Tetra are still tetra'ing! This is the 1st time I've introduced new fish and not had to medicate or do corpse recoveries. They are now hiding a little less (other than the one guy who still likes to stay low and out of the way out of the original 4). There are now defined territories and when they are in defense mode there will be no trespassers tolerated.


I've started using the Seachem dosing chart to see if I can get my Alternanthera to perk up a little. Everything else seems to be doing well, even the newly planted HC. I probably left them in clumps a little larger than most chose too but they are not melting and have started to spread out a bit, since I've only started the dosing yesterday, this has not been a factor on the growth rate of the plants yet. I have been only using some Excel now and again coupled with Flourish Complete now and then up to this point.

I will be giving the Cabomba a heavy trimming today, if your local and want a few free bunches of healthy (bleach dipped) Cabomba, just send me a message and I'll hook you up.

As you can see in the pics below I have a snail invasion with all three common snail species represented. I actually don't mind a few of each, but the breeding is out of hand with the pond snails. I see an Assassin or two in my near future, even though I actually like Ramshorns and MTS in the small numbers of those I have. I am only feeding once a day and its all consumed by the fish and what little drops gets claimed by the shrimp, this is just an after effect of my inexperience earlier on with over feeding and not pre-dipping plants before planting.

*Front:*









*Side:*









*45 degree*









Here is my HC progress shot .. makes me wish I took one of my initial planting about a week ago:


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*Day 53* - Macro Day! -sorry for the oddly indented formatting but I could not for the life of me get Planted Tanks to recognize carridge returns in my posts tonight so I had to trick it more or less.​ Not much going on tank wise but I introduced 6 more Cherry Red Shrimp last night. They all seem to be doing well today and have coloured up a bit overnight. All I've done since my last update is trim the cabomba down so I decided today would be a macro day as its been a while since I've gotten in close. The new Cardinals are coloured up now to the point where the only way I can tell the difference between them and the older ones is body girth:​ 





 





 All the shrimp are looking healthy (the ones I can see I've probably seen them all at some point today but trying to count them is ... well ... fruitless). I have two that I would call closer to fire rather than cherry and one that could possibly be amano the rest all are pretty much like these guys:​ 





 





 The potential Amano .. I've had him now as long as the orginal shrimp and his colour has pretty much been as you see it here. I thought he would shift to a darker red as the others have but nope:​


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## wrangler (Oct 14, 2007)

The last pic.... Its not an amano....its a BOY cherry shrimp....and that is prolly all the color that he is going to get.... ;-)


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

wrangler said:


> The last pic.... Its not an amano....its a BOY cherry shrimp....and that is prolly all the color that he is going to get.... ;-)


Poor little guy looks so naked without his red coat on 

I guess on the upside, I'll most like be able to tell his offspring apart from the rest should he ever decide to breed.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*Day 57*

The fish and shrimp are thriving ... as is my echindorus ... which btw should never have been sold to me (person who sold it to me sold it to me at the same time as my tank so he KNEW how big these start to get) as its a fight to keep it from blocking the light to all the other plants, I trim it almost as much as the cabomba. The Renekii is doing better, I piched off a few tops and its showing some new growth now, it was pretty stalled before then.

My biggest obstacle is my Cabomba, I love the way it looks as it climbs towards the surface closing up at night like a flower, but my problem with it is the lowest itty bitty branches, eventually they just get cut off from the light and melt away, making a bit of a mess. I'm always skimming bits of dead/melty cabomba now. 

The fish love it - it's their clubhouse when things start to overwhelm them, the shrimp love it as the little branches are filtering the odd flake missed by the fish, its love/hate with me though.

I need something tallish in there (substrate to surface is roughly 9 inches). I was thinking Bylxa Japonica as I understand that at low light it will grow taller than when at high light and my tank is "high" as best as I can tell so I'm thinking it won't try to outgrow the 9 inches. Should it end up needing a trimming, how well does it hold up to having its leaves trimmed height wise?


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*Day 62*

The HC seems to be doing well, even though I have to poke down a bit here or there once in a while. Cabomba is still messy but I've removed a little of it to allow for deeper penetration of light. Its not as thick in there as I like but it's doing the job for the ever nervous fish. I have attempted to track down some Bylxa Japonica to replace it and have struck out but a LFS is going to see if they can track it down for me.

The Alternanthera is doing well after its 1st pinching. Its almost reached the top of the tank and I'll have to shorten the stems sooner than later, not that this is a bad thing since the lower leaves are starting to attract algae and are not all that healthy being out of the light. 

I'm hoping that as my experience increases my algae decreases. So far its just showing up on the slowest growing and on my driftwood, as well as a little on my glass, but little enough that a once a week cleaning takes care of what little shows up there. I finally managed to source some phosphorus to add to my regular Seachem schedule, this stuff was surprisingly hard to source out here. I've also read that fluctuation in co2 levels can actually promote algae growth to some degree, this is going to be hard for me to overcome until I can get a proper pressurized system. I'm not too worried about the drift wood (seems to be a nice place for the shrimp to gather, but I would like to see it off the leaves of the slower growing plants.

No matter how much I trim the Ozelot it just comes back stronger. This is one that I'll be hard pressed to keep up with if I want the rest of my plants to enjoy the light. It's by far the strongest grower I have in the tank. I'm sure this plant is single handedly the reason I only have a little algae vs a lot though, so I'm not even considering replacing it even though its a potential tank buster at this scale.

*Front:*









*Side:*









*3/4 view:*









*HC progress shot:*


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 62]*

Something is happening today thats not happened to this level since the tank was new. I have so much pearling is like I have tiny airstones throughout the tank.

The only thing thats changed is that I finally sourced seachem phosphorus saturday so it is now included in my dosing regime (working off a 7 day seachem dosing chart). The rest of the elements of the regime have all been going in already. What ever it is thats changed in the last couple of day, it's making me (and my plants) a happy camper.

While I'm stopping by, I thought I would post some shots from the weekend, something other than full tank shots anyways. 

Stretching his legs (pretty sure its a 'he' anyways):









The MTS are getting bigger ... at least the pond snails never get this big, they just seem to break apart into 20 more based on my population:


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## celine (Nov 19, 2010)

i absolutely love your tank! so pretty! and all your rcs are so cute! keep the pics and commentary coming, it's very fun to read!


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## Chafire (Jan 6, 2010)

For your first tank it looks great! I love the colors especially the pop of red. The Macro shots have so much detail, I'm dying to get that lens.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 61] *pt 2

This is a quick vid taken with my iPhone, started low and to one side where I can almost see through to the other side. Pearling coming out of the Ozelot, Alternanthera and HC. The Cabomba is also pearling but not nearly as much.



celine said:


> i absolutely love your tank! so pretty! and all your rcs are so cute! keep the pics and commentary coming, it's very fun to read!


Thanks  One thing I definitely can't stop doing is taking pics ... the shrimp and tetra are just far to fun to try and get shots of. I wish I knew how to promote RCS hanky panky though ... would love to see some shrimpettes in there as well.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Chafire said:


> For your first tank it looks great! I love the colors especially the pop of red. The Macro shots have so much detail, I'm dying to get that lens.


Thanks for the comments, I'm hoping tank #2 turns out even better  

This lens is one of my favorites, has been on my camera a LOT more since getting this tank going  This lens is probably #2 in my list of 'must haves' for the camera, the #1 is the one I use for the full tank shots.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 63]*

*Dean*: OMGBBQ .... is that BBA?!?!?!









*BBA*: haha! I have arrived to crash your party, where should I leave my luggage?

*Dean*: oh hell no .... 

*BBA*: I may be small, but I WILL be the life of the party for the remainder of this tanks life!









*Dean*: I see you have set up in the penthouse (highest point in my tank on my driftwood)

*BBA*: What of it dude, this is my perch now, close to the rays so I can get a nice tan

*Dean*: We shall see about that! This penthouse is more like a tent ... soooo not a permanent stucture. Into the Red Bucket of Doom (tm) with you!









*Dean*: and say hello to my little friend!!! 









*BBA*: NNNOOOOOOOoooo o o o o o o o .... I will be bach!

*Dean*: huh? you will be a dead composer?

*BBA*: no .. you idiot, bach, BACH .. you know, return?

*Dean*: huh ... there is an Austrian strain of BBA, whoda thunk it? Well, bad accent aside, you were nothing to me, n.o.t.h.i.n.g



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So ... after letting the stick soak up the excel for about 30 mins or so, I gave it a soaking in some dechlorinated water so as not to shock my shrimp who like to climb all over it and then put it back into the tank.

After looking over the larger Malaysian driftwood cave like piece, it too could probably use a treatment. There is nothing puffing up like it did on this, but there are some areas that are starting to show the same colour. I'll yank it on the weekend and give it a good going over. I may have to source some metricide.

This is the 1st non dust type algae to really show up in my tank so far so I guess I can count myself lucky considering my n00bness. I did have a little teensy hair algae in my 1st week or so, but with no fish or shrimp in the tank at that point it was easy to deal with.

I guess with drift wood being both static and closer to the light, that it will attract algae more thanb plants that are constantly growing, this would be a good time for me to consider tying on some moss to the stick I think.

On the upside, I got a call from my new fav LFS and they have my requested Fluval co2 systems in. I have a 20 (this tank) and an 88 (for the 15g I'm peicing together) waiting for me. This should give me a little more control over my co2 injection vs the diy I'm messing with now.


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## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

One thing you could do that would really help the tank would be to ditch the DIY co2 and go pressurized. There is a thread in the DIY part of the forum that details the items to purchase to put together a paintball injection system. The total cost of the system I built for my 10 gal. was under 50.00, and man the tank pearls like there is no tomorrow. not to mention the increase in growth


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Noahma said:


> One thing you could do that would really help the tank would be to ditch the DIY co2 and go pressurized. There is a thread in the DIY part of the forum that details the items to purchase to put together a paintball injection system. The total cost of the system I built for my 10 gal. was under 50.00, and man the tank pearls like there is no tomorrow. not to mention the increase in growth


Last paragraph in my post address this 

The snow is flying today so I don't know if I'll be getting out to pick it up, but its Fluval to the co2 rescue!


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 65]*

Small series of updates:

*1)* My Cabomba is not cabomba. It's been pointed out that what I really have is Limnophila Sessilfolia (pic from a couple of nights ago):









*2)* I've noticed my shrimp get deep underneath my HC ... I'm hoping they see this as a place to lay eggs since I've offered them no cave.

*3)* The Fluval co2 kits (both the 88 and the smaller 20) came in for me this week and I picked them up tonight. Other than the obvious positives that come from switching to pressurized there was also a few dissapointments:
*A)* The amount of tubing included with the 20 sized (smaller) kit; there is only about 12-14 inches of it. I know that in the Flora tank they have coming out that your expected to hang the canister on the tank itself, but alas ... my tank has no place to hang this. I'll be forced to use the tubing that came with my Nutrafin yeast/sugar system instead. This is fine as far as solutions go, but if I did not have that system already in place I would be out of luck until I purchased additional tubing.​*B)*The other item I will most likely not be utilizing is the diffuser assembly that comes with this kit. It's big ... _really big_. In my small tank I have no place I can put this and not have it be the center piece. I'll be using the small airstone I have on my current co2 system for now until my ebay ordered glass diffusers show up. For bubble counting I'll use the counter that came with my 88 system for now and get a replacement counter for the 88 system before I finish setting up the 15g.​
Fluval's 20 beside the larger 88 with a credit card sized costco card for scale, the big thing at the bottom is the diffuser for the 20 sized ... did I mention 'big'? (sorry about the crappy iPhone pic):









*4)* I leave you with another video of the pearling going on. The tank is pearling so much now (probably double what I shot before) that the Limnophila is actually streaming air (due to youtube compression you only really see this when I zoom out a bit). I know its just another video of more or less the same thing, but I did it from the front of the tank and I take you on a bit of a shaky tour so that your at least not watching more of the same ... even though technically you are


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## !shadow! (Jan 25, 2010)

If I didn't know any better l'd think that Limnophila Sessilfolia was a plastic plant , it looks real good. Also nice battle sequence with your algae friend  very entertaining and funny.


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## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

theDeanorama said:


> Last paragraph in my post address this
> 
> The snow is flying today so I don't know if I'll be getting out to pick it up, but its Fluval to the co2 rescue!


lol I missed that part.


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## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

theDeanorama said:


> *[Day 65]*
> 
> Small series of updates:
> 
> ...


Where were you able to pick up the Limnophila Sessilfolia at? lol I had looked all over for it, but LFS's cannot carry it as it is on the noxious weed list  which is a shame since it is an absolutely beautiful plant that tends to grow more compact in low light.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

theDeanorama said:


> *2)* I've noticed my shrimp get deep underneath my HC ... I'm hoping they see this as a place to lay eggs since I've offered them no cave.


RCS don't lay eggs:red_mouth The eggs stay in the female until they hatch. But maybe they're getting under the HC to have a little privacy to make some eggs:wink:


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Noahma said:


> Where were you able to pick up the Limnophila Sessilfolia at? lol I had looked all over for it, but LFS's cannot carry it as it is on the noxious weed list  which is a shame since it is an absolutely beautiful plant that tends to grow more compact in low light.


I picked it up in a shop here in Vancouver called Aquariums West. In my tank they grow pretty leggy (probably due to my near high light) and the bottoms melt away frequently as they get cut off from the light due to density. I do like the looks of them but the mess outweighs the appearance. Of course now that I've threatened their existence the mess has subsided a bit but time will tell since I still see the melting cycle continuing.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

ZooTycoonMaster said:


> RCS don't lay eggs:red_mouth The eggs stay in the female until they hatch. But maybe they're getting under the HC to have a little privacy to make some eggs:wink:


lol, well, hopefully I'll see some 'berried' shrimp soonish. I have a lot with a 'saddle' but nothing I see actually carrying an egg.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 67]*

Well, I may go from 'saddled' to 'berried' soon I think on at least 1 female. 

I just saw a couple of males doing some fast laps looking for the particular female that must be getting a little randy. At first I was worried that I was gassing them out with my new pressurized co2, but the fish and the rest of the shrimp are all calmly doing thier thing, showing no signs of oxygen starvation. 

With all the pearling going on right now I would have to guess without running my test that there is enough oxygen in there for them, especially since I'm only running 1 bubble every 3 seconds right now. I can't wait for my drop tester to show up so I can feel more at ease about this new co2 :icon_eek:


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[day 69]*

Well as I was guessing up above; I think I have a berried shrimp, hopefully I can keep the water stable enough:









My Limnophila Sessilfolia is looking rough on the lower end of the stems as the light once again gets cut off from the top. I keep cutting off the tops, and replacing the lowers with the tops but its a messy messy job, if I get some time I will be re-scaping that end of the tank, or if the right plant comes up at the right time (though right now the 'right time' feels like last weekend).


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 71]* Tank picture day! (It's been a while since I've updated with progress pics):


The Limnophila has once again more than reached the top, shading itself off, killing off the lower fronds. This plant is growing too fast for its own health I think. Thin leggy stems. The rest of the plants are doing well, the Alternanthera is plugging along even though I got a little pinch happy (oops), the growth of it even over the last 10 days tells the story itself. As you can see from the back of the tank, I'm starting to get some green spot algae back there, not sure yet what the overall solution is. I'm planning a couple of 3 day lights out for the tank as I'll be out of town this weekend and over xmas, so I'll just leave the lights off (and the co2 of course).

On the non-plant updates I have spawning Cardinal Tetras and a berried CRS. The Cardinal eggs are just food for the inhabitants as I don't really have a place to let them spawn safely and even if I did I wouldn't know what to do with the offspring. I'm hoping the shrimp carry to term though would be nice to see a few babies floating around in a month-ish.

My ebay ordered co2 diffusers showed up today intact (better than my last attempt at this, the other seller I dealt with did not do a good packaging job and I ended up with a box of ground glass). I now have it hooked up as you will see in the photos, the bubble stream you see it emitting is generated by a very miserly 1 bubble every 7 seconds right now as I dont want to shock the inhabitants. The DIY I had before bubbled through an airstone tucked under my biomedia so the tank was never infused direcly with bubbles like this current setup is doing. I'm not sure if I will use this style diffuser in the new tank or not. I don't mind the appearance of it, but the bubbles being blown around the tank are a bit distracting. I may end up getting an inline reactor to inject into for that tank.

*Front









Side









3/4 view









HC Update







*


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 78]*

The ebay purchased nano glass co2 diffusers I have (all three of them from 2 different vendors) are essentially inadequate as best as I can tell. They do not do a very good job of diffusing the co2, the bubbles are fairly large and they give off a bit of a whistling noise that you can hear across the room.

I swapped today to Fluval's diffusion disc (same one that comes with their 88 sized pressurized co2). Its not as attractive as the glass but it does a 100% better job at diffusing the gas and it doesn't whistle while doing it 

I received a call from one of my LFS's ... they have in 3 Blyxa Japoinica plants for me. I can now replace the Limnophila! I trimmed it again and moved tops down to bottoms, but a lot of the remaining bottoms are definatly getting worse for wear. Sadly I can't get out there until Saturday to pick them up, but at least I know they are waiting for me :icon_smil


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## Senior Shrimpo (Dec 4, 2010)

Great tank Dean! Can you post a picture of the 88g diffuser?


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

I'll post one when I get home this evening, showing it in action (or as best as I can with probably a 1/30ish shutter speed :icon_conf). Here is what it looks like out of the box though (random image dug up from my googling).

I get an extremely fine mist of micro bubbles out of this diffuser.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Here are the promised pictures. The tank water is clear, all the floaties you see in the tank are actually microbubbles floating around from the diffuser. I have this diffuser in the same place I had my eBay purchased glass one, right under my filters outflow. The outflow never really distributed the bubbles from the old diffuers, the bubbles where just too big and the ended up on the surface right in front of the outflow. As you can see here, this is no longer the case. I've not changed the co2 output either, I'm still running 1 bubble every 3 seconds ... and best of all, no whistling sounds  I grabbed this out of my 88 (but its connected to my 20 sized). If I end up using the same thing for my new tank I can get them for 10.00 at my LFS, little more than the glass ones on ebay, but work so much better.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[Day 81] *

I finally got my chance to pick up the Blyxa Japonica from whats quickly becoming my fav LFS, even though its not as local as many others out here. The Limpholia has now been removed (though I notice I missed a single stalk) and has been replaced with what is in the long run going to be too much blyxa. I will transplant some into my pending 15g once I'm ready to plant it.

The change in scenery caused a new and short lived power struggle amongst the Cardinal Tetras as they vied for new territory. They seem to enjoy it, swiming in and around it (but its hard to tell with a fish). It really fills in the tank visually. I think I can now consider this little tank "heavily planted". Once the Blyxa starts to get some length I think its going to look really good in there, not that it looks terrible currently.

As you can see in some of the pics I'm also storing some weeping moss in there now. I picked up a healthy bunch of it on Friday for the driftwood going into the pending 15g. I'm just temporarily storing it here until I can transfer it. I'm also holding on to a few cuttings of the Alternanthera and letting them float on the surface as well, not sure if I'm actually going to use these in the new tank or not but it can't hurt to hold on to them until I decide.

The larger driftwood cave is now only home to dying algae as I gave it the Red Bucket of Doom™ treatment last week. 3 or 4 days of no light in a bucket that was near 33% excel. Its currently not too pretty but its slowly getting better.
*
Front









3/4 View









Side









HC Growth Update









Blyxa-licious:








*

While at my LFS I also decided that I needed more shrimp, because really ... can you have too many? Only this time I departed from the RCS I normally get and picked up a couple of Amanos. I figure I have enough algae on the Alternanthera's lower leaves and here and there on the driftwood and substrate that I won't need to be overly concerned with feeding them algae flakes or blanced veg. I'm not sure if they will climb the back wall or not for algae, I may pick up some Oto's for that if I thought they would survive my ever shifting temperatures (81 in the morning to almost 83 in the evening).

*One of the two Amanos:*









*An Amano beside an RCS to show the difference in size, also shows the dying algae from the Red Bucket of Doom™ treatment:*


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

Your plants are so green and healthy! What kind of sword plant is that?


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## LICfish (Oct 9, 2010)

Your tank is beautiful. I wish my 12 gallon looked half as good as yours.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

LICfish said:


> Your tank is beautiful. I wish my 12 gallon looked half as good as yours.


Thanks, though the credit should go to all the forums I've studied cover to cover 



ZooTycoonMaster said:


> Your plants are so green and healthy! What kind of sword plant is that?


If you mean the big leafy plant in the middlish it's what I believe to be an Echinodorus Ozelot "Green" (I didn't get the name of the plant at the time I purchased sadly).


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## Senior Shrimpo (Dec 4, 2010)

Mind me asking how much co2 you're dosing? It seems to be working for both your plants and animals.


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## Zareth (Dec 13, 2010)

I love this tank a lot, but from a photographic stand point I think it would look very nice with the driftwood situated where the light cast on it is viewable from the front, as opposed to the dark center that is the cave of the driftwood. My eye just keeps getting drawn into the cave and up out of the picture. Really pretty HC and Cherries!


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Mind me asking how much co2 you're dosing? It seems to be working for both your plants and animals.


This is a tough one to answer. I'm currently TRYING to run 1 bubble per 3 seconds. Sadly the downfall to my little 20 sized fluval co2 is that it cant actually maintain that pressure through an entire day. I set it up in the morning and when I come home after work its dropped off significantly, I then tweak it back to 3s/bubble and then it falls over through the night again.

I will end up running an 88 sized canister on this tank I think just so I can maintain an even keel on co2 injection. To compensate for co2 still running after the photoperiod I have an air pump that comes on for 15 mins every hour overnight. I tried turning off the co2 in the evenings but then it starts to siphon a bit even though I have a 1 way valve installed (I probably need a better one). When I switch over to the 88 (or pick another up) I will consider getting a solenoid installed inline. To clarify on the siphoning, it only backs up about 4 or 5 inches, but its a PITA to push the water back out the airstone using co2 pressure.

As I am still waiting for my drop checker and reference solution to arrive, my only co2 guage is to actually watch the fish and shrimp. I've only once had it up too high and the shrimp started to panic, darting all over the place and the fish's mouth action doubled in speed. Thankfully I was watching and killed the co2 and ran the airpump and didn't loose anyone.

Its been almost 3 months ... when do we stop looking in the tank to see whats gone wrong today vs looking in the tank to relax and enjoy?


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Zareth said:


> I love this tank a lot, but from a photographic stand point I think it would look very nice with the driftwood situated where the light cast on it is viewable from the front, as opposed to the dark center that is the cave of the driftwood. My eye just keeps getting drawn into the cave and up out of the picture. Really pretty HC and Cherries!


Thanks  

It took me a while to decide on the direction of the driftwood, but because of its shape the cave feature would not be visible, hiding the fish and shrimp that like to hang out under there. I have one tetra that has claimed it for himself during the lights out period, you can just make out the reflection of his eyes peeking out at you  

I see where you are coming from though and if the base of the triangle shape was less symetrical or taller on the sides I would probably have it climbing right to left or vis versa.

Photographically speaking (purely photographic) ... I can't stand the curvature of the tank, it distorts my macro shots far too much. When you are looking at the macro shots they are all done from the right side of the tank, I wonder how much I would be liking the DW cave's orientation if I was able to utilize the front of tank. 

The pending 15g will draw the eye through the tank, probably lower right to upper left (has always been a personal preference photographically) rather than up and out.


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## Zareth (Dec 13, 2010)

theDeanorama said:


> Thanks
> 
> It took me a while to decide on the direction of the driftwood, but because of its shape the cave feature would not be visible, hiding the fish and shrimp that like to hang out under there. I have one tetra that has claimed it for himself during the lights out period, you can just make out the reflection of his eyes peeking out at you
> 
> ...


The pictures look really good though - and the human eye can see the different light intensity zones, whereas a digital camera can't except perhaps in an HDR shot - I bet it looks even better in person


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Zareth said:


> The pictures look really good though - and the human eye can see the different light intensity zones, whereas a digital camera can't except perhaps in an HDR shot - I bet it looks even better in person


HDR gives me inspiration ... I'll have to see what I can do about that in the next few days


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## Zareth (Dec 13, 2010)

I can see plenty of difficulties trying to do an HDR fish tank shot, you may have to turn off the filter so the plants stay still, but It would look amazing to see the full range of highs and lows either in a fairly realistic tone-mapping or even stylized like you see a lot of car photography these days


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Zareth said:


> I can see plenty of difficulties trying to do an HDR fish tank shot, you may have to turn off the filter so the plants stay still, but It would look amazing to see the full range of highs and lows either in a fairly realistic tone-mapping or even stylized like you see a lot of car photography these days


In the words of Barney Stinson .... *Challenge Accepted!* 

The only thing I wont be able to do properly is the fish and most of the shrimp I'm thinking.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

Zareth said:


> I can see plenty of difficulties trying to do an HDR fish tank shot, you may have to turn off the filter so the plants stay still, but It would look amazing to see the full range of highs and lows either in a fairly realistic tone-mapping or even stylized like you see a lot of car photography these days



HDR acheived at 5 exposures (-2 through to +2). Sadly it really shows the horizontal scratch I have about mid tank. The white vertical line on the left hand side is a stream from a pearling plant, the white lines on the right hand side of the tank are from the diffuser (side effect of the longer exposure on the -2 frame).

*Standard HDR*:










*Surrealistic HDR*:


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## danieldega (Dec 30, 2010)

*colors of the aquarium is very impressive, congratulations ... *


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## Killowatt (Jan 5, 2011)

Deanorama
Good looking tank ....i also have a 12g nano , i have been toying with the idea of doing a planted tank with it and was glad to find this forum and your thread ....question was your tank ever a reef ?...mine was many moons ago and has since been banished to a shelf ! is there something that has to be done to the tank ( other than the obvious ) to get it ready for freshwater ?


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## Killowatt (Jan 5, 2011)

Duhhh! pay no attention to the man behind the last post he was busy looking at pretty pictures , he failed to read that it was your first tank
:iamwithst


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

lol, no probs. Sadly other than getting those 50/50 bulbs swapped out for 6700ish ones, I have no further input when it comes to dealing with prepping this tank for planted. 

Since I have zero knowledge of marine tanks other than they are salty, anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt (lame pun so totally intended). This is probably a question more suited for "General Planted Tank Discussion". I'm sure there has to someone here has gone from marine to FW within the same tank.


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## theDeanorama (Nov 6, 2010)

*[day 105]*

Its been awhile since I've posted an update so here we go:

The Blyxa took to the tank well, almost immeasurable loss while it acclimated. I even have new growth coming up! If this was a few inches shorter I would consider it for my pico tank. Sadly I'm getting either green dust or green spot (or a bit of both) moving in. I've decided to try leaving it be rather than scrubbing it off the tank to see if it starves itself out ... its hard to do as it drives me a little nuts every time I see it. I may end up breaking down and scrubbing it away.

The Echindorus is still growning in fast and healthy as is the HC and Alternanthera, all of which is in dire need of trimming. The the 1st for the HC actually, I just hope its rooted down well enough to stay down when I do. The Alternanthera (as you can see by the white runners popping out of the stems) has reached the surface. I ran into what I think is a potassium deficiency while I was away for 4 days over the holiday (no dosing while I was gone). I ended up with a bunch of pin holes on the lower leaves, I will trim away the lower stems this time around to clean those away, and just replant the stems (as much as I hate doing it that way).

Even the weeping moss I'm storing in the tank for the 15g is growing nicely and the shrimp love it. Although (not sure how well it will be depicted in the smaller images here) the hitchicker unnamed moss I've been cultivating over the last few months also near died out while I was gone for those 4 days, it was very brown when I returned (from a lush green before I left). Its starting to come back here and there now, but its still looking rough (lower left hand corner in the "front" picture).

Please excuse the green algae spotted glass and all the white spots (co2 microbubbles) in the images:

*Front*









*3/4 view*









*HC growth update*









*Happy fish and happy HC - any white spots you see on the fish are actually microbubbles in the water ... not ich *


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## Cmeister (Jul 5, 2009)

very nice!!

"Canada is like your attic - you forget about it, but once you're there, you're like "hey, there's some really cool stuff up here!"- hahahaha (i'm Canadian btw)


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