# 3.5g NPT (first tank thread)--UPDATE



## Danno79 (Mar 14, 2011)

Those dwarf sag are bad ass. They put off new plants on runners. I planted about four or five in January and now have about fifteen or more of them. Really great plant imo.


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## firefiend (Sep 3, 2009)

well, my main comment would be that I like the after shots so much more than the before, lol.

I'm just a couple weeks into my first NPT tank and already I've learned that patience the best tool of the trade, which is really hard sometimes, so I understand what you mean when you say you've learned so much, lol.

I look forward to seeing how your tank progresses.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Danno79 said:


> Those dwarf sag are bad ass. They put off new plants on runners. I planted about four or five in January and now have about fifteen or more of them. Really great plant imo.


Your not kidding! I woke up this morning to a new runner from the dwarf sag...


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

firefiend said:


> well, my main comment would be that I like the after shots so much more than the before, lol.
> 
> I'm just a couple weeks into my first NPT tank and already I've learned that patience the best tool of the trade, which is really hard sometimes, so I understand what you mean when you say you've learned so much, lol.
> 
> I look forward to seeing how your tank progresses.


Hey thanks! I want to do so much much cuz my brain is filled with so much information. But my budget doesn't allow me to... And my girlfriend. ;-) if it were up to me I would already have a 30-40 gallon south american biotope setup. I have it all planned out in my head and on paper. Lol


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Updated July 23rd


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Here is the latest pic of this tank from a week ago. It now houses about 6 or 7 baby black bar endler fry(thx gnod) 1 baby platy(she's moving to 10 soon, gettin big!) and 6 Sakura shrimp(thx Gordon). Took some sag and a red crypt plantlet from here and put in my new 10 setup. 

... And the beer is a Sam Adams summer ale.


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## firefiend (Sep 3, 2009)

frrok said:


> Here is the latest pic of this tank from a week ago. It now houses about 6 or 7 baby black bar endler fry(thx gnod) 1 baby platy(she's moving to 10 soon, gettin big!) and 6 Sakura shrimp(thx Gordon). Took some sag and a red crypt plantlet from here and put in my new 10 setup.
> 
> ... And the beer is a Sam Adams summer ale.



Man, if there was a hockey game on in the background it would be PERFECT!


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

you guys are killin me with all these cool nano tanks
having a weed box in my house without angelfish would break a long standing tradition LOL


nice!


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

wkndracer said:


> you guys are killin me with all these cool nano tanks
> having a weed box in my house without angelfish would break a long standing tradition LOL
> 
> 
> nice!


Lol... Weed box! My excuse for nanos is that I live in small apt at the beach in nyc... I don't have much room. Buuuut that doesn't mean I don't have future bigger plans for when then gf and I get a bigger place. 

Thx for liking it. Dirt for life!


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## wkndracer (Mar 14, 2009)

could be wrong (all the time LOL) but all the 'aquatic plants' we buy, sell, trade, love, hate, whatever are nothing more than a water weed somewhere in the world.
so I have water boxes full of weeds and fish


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## nonconductive (Jan 29, 2010)

sam adams..... nice choice!


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## gnod (Mar 24, 2011)

nicely done! the beer too.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Thanks guys.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Update. 
Berried shrimp!! , my red crypt has really taken off. And 3 different species of floating plants, frogbit, duckweed and salvinia. Thanks for looking.


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## firefiend (Sep 3, 2009)

Dude... ditch the duckweed. It's cool at first but quickly becomes a PITA to manage. I have it my tank and with the rescape I'm doing in the next week or so I'm going to be taking it out in favor of other floating plants.

I'd keep the frogbit and add a stem or two of Pennywort.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

firefiend said:


> Dude... ditch the duckweed. It's cool at first but quickly becomes a PITA to manage. I have it my tank and with the rescape I'm doing in the next week or so I'm going to be taking it out in favor of other floating plants.
> 
> I'd keep the frogbit and add a stem or two of Pennywort.


Haha. Duckweed hate! I don't really mind it actually. I forgot to reply to your earlier post. I like hockey but mostly watch soccer, so there would have been a match on the flat screen next to the this tank. 

I think I'm going to Petland that's in downtown manhattan after work today. I remember last time I was there they had some nice looking plants. Might pick up some bacopa monnieri(moneywort?) or is pennywort? I have some hornwort in there right now. But it floats I have a rock holding it down in the background. .


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## firefiend (Sep 3, 2009)

frrok said:


> Haha. Duckweed hate! I don't really mind it actually. I forgot to reply to your earlier post. I like hockey but mostly watch soccer, so there would have been a match on the flat screen next to the this tank.
> 
> I think I'm going to Petland that's in downtown manhattan after work today. I remember last time I was there they had some nice looking plants. Might pick up some bacopa monnieri(moneywort?) or is pennywort? I have some hornwort in there right now. But it floats I have a rock holding it down in the background. .



I enjoy soccer as well but my passion is hockey.

I don't hate duckweed.. and if I can come up with a way to keep it from spreading all over the tank I'd totally keep it. But I like having emergent stems and love my floating pennywort and that makes it hard to maintain the duckweed, lol.

B. Monnieri is moneywort; Hydrocotyle Leucocephala is Brazilian Pennywort; both are awesome plants


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Got it, cool. They didn't have monnerri so I got Caroliniana. Very similar. I want it to grow out if the tank. Looks pretty easy to keep. 3.99 for a pot of it. I tried to pick the one with less crappiest leaves. Lol. They had some ludwigia in there too. But it wasn't in good shape. I'll post a pic once it's settled.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Ok so now for the bad news. This tank has been running for the better part of 2 months now and I've had some great growth and still do. Today I get home to find that my crypts are melting away. I noticed it the other day. A leaf here and there. I thought that maybe it was a fluke. No. It's not. One by one, the leaves on my three crypts red and green have started to melt away. I really don't understand. They were doing great. My parameters have not changed. Ph is about 7.6(blue in the API chart) ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 5. The rest of the plants are fine. Fish and shrimp are fine. No signs of stress. The only thing I can think of is that maybe it's too cramped in this little tank but ive seen tanks with plants grown in tight spaces. Anyone have an idea what it could be? I know about crypt melt but I already went through that when I first got the plants and they quickly
Bounced back. Here is a pic. It's a little hard to tell but you can see the stem of one plant is just melted. Only
Other thing is that I added 3 stems of that bacopa. Anyway. Your help would be much appreciated.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Anyone have any ideas?


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## demonr6 (Mar 14, 2011)

I have had unexplained crypt melt due to a change in water temps. Not sure if you have a heater or not, I did not read that far back.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

demonr6 said:


> I have had unexplained crypt melt due to a change in water temps. Not sure if you have a heater or not, I did not read that far back.


Hmm. I haven't put a heater in yet cuz it was so hot for awhile. It has cooled down considerably tho up here in ny. Temp is always about 76 or 78. Do u think it would cool down alot at night?


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Slowing but surely my crypts are
Coming back. Thankfully. The red crypts have atleast three new full leaves and the green guys have a few babies coming through. On other great news. I finally have shrimp babies. So far the Endler's haven't eaten them. (not that I've seen anyway). So stoked. They are tiny!
Kinda hard to see but I attached a pic anyway.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Here is a pic of my red crypts. One or 2 leaves are curled but the others are bumpin!


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

update on the 3.5, red crypt really came back nice. green ones, not so much. dwarf sag is spreading... I'm going to let it carpet as much open space as possible... my baby shrimp are loving this little tank and the endlers don't seem to be bothering them too much. I probably lost a couple here and there, but there numbers are strong and there is plenty of cover in the java moss. I also added an amano shrimp in this tank to help with some of the algae growing on some of my stem plants and back glass. I also reduced the photoperiod and added more floating plants. I'm hoping to get that under control. Im pretty sure its gsa. whats weird with this tank is the Rotala Rotundofolia(or Indica). Its not growing straight up but sloping down. and some is even creeping along the bottom! The tips are almost pink on the leaves that are open to the light. so I know most of the plant is healthy. there are some stems that do not grow at all and others that grow but in towards the substrate(see pic 3). Looks ok, but I kinda which it would grow to the surface and fill in the backround...


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## firefiend (Sep 3, 2009)

Tank is looking sweet! I love watching the Dwarf Sag spread in my nano.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

firefiend said:


> Tank is looking sweet! I love watching the Dwarf Sag spread in my nano.


Yea! It's cool how it's growing out to the front of the tank so you can see how the runners spread.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Some rotala love. They are finally settling in nicely. Somehow I lost one of my male Endler's. I had three in this tank now one is gone. I don't get it. I have a top but it's got some open space in the back for the filter and wires. Weird, maybe jumped out?. My shrimp are flourishing. I count atleast 7-8 babies everytime I look. They are everywhere!


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

here is a vid!http://youtu.be/LHdyk7WTttk?hd=1


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## mjbubbles (Aug 26, 2011)

This is such a nice project. Thanks for sharing it. I really like the variety of plants you have.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

mjbubbles said:


> This is such a nice project. Thanks for sharing it. I really like the variety of plants you have.


Cool! Thanks. This was really my first planted tank. I used this to really work out the kinks and didn't really plan on a scape. But I like how it's grown in. Very natural, jungle kind of style. I want to get a mini m in the future with a nice scape.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Haven't updated this thread in awhile. I guess its time for an update. I added some staurogyne repens since the last update. The Rotala has reached the surface and is growing intensely. I've pretty much given up on trimming. When I set this up I didn't know anything about trimming, hence all the stems are different sizes. I am just going to let it grow out. the Bacopa Carolinaia has emerged from the tank and is growing emersed. Eventually, this tank is going to get an udpate. I hoping i get a mini-m for christmas, if do i will move all the plants in there and re-scape! I'll probably keep this tank an use it as a quarantine or fry rearing.
p.s. sorry about the black suction cup, i know its a bit distracting. I use that with fishing line to prevent the duckweed and salvinia from going into the filter outlfow.


3.5g 12/1/2011 front


3.5g 12/1/2011 side


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

My bacopa is growing out of the tank emersed now. And I trimmed up the rotala a bit. Anyone know how long it will take to flower? The bacopa that is...


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## MitchellLawson (Nov 8, 2011)

How many shrimp do you have in there now?


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Probably 4 or 5 females. A few males and tons of babies. I honestly don't know how many. Lol


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## austinz33 (Nov 6, 2011)

May I ask where you got this tank, and what company makes it?


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

i got this at petco. It is branded as a GloFish tank. Its a 3.5 gallon acyrlic tank and comes with a hood and an LED light that has white and blue lights. When I first got it , I really didn't know what i was doing and baught way too many fish, did not cycle the tank and had fake plants. Now that I know what I know, its amazing that this company can brandish this tank as a "glofish" tank, when the genetically modified fluorescent colored danios obviously need a larger or longer tank with plenty of swimming room. these fish are very active! most of my fish died. I did more research and eventually re-did this tank with dirt and real plants. and stocked it much lower.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Most recent FTS. I did trim some of the longer pieces of Rotala from the left side and gave away the clippings but thats the only thing thats different. This tank will get broken down soon. I learned alot from it but its time for an upgrade and step up my aquascaping.

FTS 12/24

Emersed Bacopa Caroliniana 

first day planted! 6/15..

Plant order has arrived.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Last shots of this tank. I broke it down today. Farewell 3.5. Been fun. On to new things.


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