# 45U Bonsai Scape



## Nigel95 (Mar 5, 2017)

Nice scape


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## Brian Rodgers (Oct 15, 2016)

Wow and it looks like you really have fun doing scapes too.


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

8/1/17

Added frosted window film to the back of the tank

Lowered the brightness to 50% to see if that will help my algae problem. 

HM seems to have grown a bit over the last week

Going to a 30% water change later tonight









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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

8/7/17

Lowering the light to 50% brightness definitely helped with the algae. Also, nerite snails are amazing algae eaters. 

Hydrocotyle 'Japan' and Staurogyne Repens got some notice growth over the last week, and HC is starting to fill in. 

HM not doing so well, but not too sure why. There's new growth but older stems look like they get covered in some green algae and then die and snap off, causing new growth to fall with it.

Riccia magically appeared [emoji848]

Berried CPO is about to drop her babies any day now so I put her in a breeding cage because I somehow have scuds in this tank and don't want them to attack the baby crays.

Added another horned nerite and CPO(male) temporarily until my other tank is cycled.


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## Bleuwater (Aug 5, 2017)

that tree on the hill is awesome


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Pictures taken 8/16

Saw this beatiful halfmoon plakat at Petco and had to get him. He's the boss of the tank now all the fish make way for him but he doesn't actively attack anyone which is good. I was afraid he'd bully the other inhabitants, but he usually just minds his own business. Hopefully he'll find and eat the scuds in the tank.

HM isn't really growing, can't seem to figure out why :/

The berried CPO dropped her babies but only two survived and I moved them into a fluval spec III but I haven't seen them since the day I put them in so they're probably dead now too  but good news is that they're mating!

I have some plans for the filtration and co2 setup - I want to move away from the ceramic diffuser and use a reactor instead. I'm afraid the eheim 2213 isn't going to have enough flow to make the reactor work so I also ordered a 365gph external pump. I'm gonna unplug the eheim and remove the impeller and use the external pump to drive the canister. We'll see how that goes























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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

8/21 

Starting EI dosing this week. Female CPO is berried again. Trimmed back all the unhealthy parts of the HM so maybe it'll grow now.

Took out the impeller of the 2213 and added an inline 396gph pump to drive the filter instead because I also moved away from a ceramic diffuser and am now using a co2 reactor. With all the things I have inline, I'm still getting pretty much the same flow as if I was just using a bare 2213. 

This week I took some pics at different angles























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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

8/28

I think I dosed too much fertz last week so now I have staghorn... it's mostly in my fissidens. Gonna cut back the dosage amounts by 2/3 and see how that goes this week.

Female CPO dropped all her eggs, probably because of the increase in co2 levels and nutrients in the tank. Otherwise she is fine, still out and about.









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## Angella (Aug 11, 2017)

:surprise: Ahhh I'm sad she lost her eggs. Your tank is beautiful!!! I really love how it is filled in, I don't know which plant you are talking about not doing well but I think everything looks really good. awesome.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

I love betta fish, but in the past I experienced rapidly diminishing numbers of RCS when I added a betta to my tank... Usually they don't attack tetras because they are very fast and their fins are small. I like the crayfish... How big do those get? - the ones you have.


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Angella said:


> :surprise: Ahhh I'm sad she lost her eggs. Your tank is beautiful!!! I really love how it is filled in, I don't know which plant you are talking about not doing well but I think everything looks really good. awesome.


Thanks! The plant that wasn't doing well is the plant in the back right corner



Chizpa305 said:


> I love betta fish, but in the past I experienced rapidly diminishing numbers of RCS when I added a betta to my tank... Usually they don't attack tetras because they are very fast and their fins are small. I like the crayfish... How big do those get? - the ones you have.


In my experience, the temperament varies from betta to betta. The one I have is really passive; he doesn't bother anyone else in this tank, not even the Amano Shrimp. CPOs max out at about 2", they're roughly the same size as the betta without fins. People also have mixed experiences with CPOs and Bettas, with some saying that CPOs will attack the betta. The CPOs in my tank aren't aggressive either though. Everyone seems to get along quite well


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

9/4

Been have some staghorn algae issues with my fissidens this past week so I tried the one two punch method with 2 tbsp of h202 for 15 minutes and then 5ml of excel afterwards. Didn't seem to do much though so I might try it again with 3 tbsp next weekend if the staghorn is still growing a lot. Gonna lower the EI dosing amount amount again to see if that will help.

Also set up another tank this past week, a 3g shrimp tank with a DIY fountain off a ohko stone. Will make a journal for that soon.






























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## Penny (Sep 16, 2011)

I am just getting back into planted tanks. Had a nano a few years back, fell in love with a betta in Petco last night and had to bring him home. Waiting for his permanent aquarium to arrive and looking at scape ideas. I love the bonsai!! How did you do that? Is it a special kind? or wood with moss attached to the "branches"?


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

One Two punch method cleared my tank of staghorn, HM is growing a bit now and I trimmed back the hydrocotyle. I'm considering removing the anubias nana petite and buces and replacing them with something else [emoji848]

Pictures taken yesterday


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Penny said:


> I am just getting back into planted tanks. Had a nano a few years back, fell in love with a betta in Petco last night and had to bring him home. Waiting for his permanent aquarium to arrive and looking at scape ideas. I love the bonsai!! How did you do that? Is it a special kind? or wood with moss attached to the "branches"?


I'm not exactly sure how the bonsai is made, but it is entirely wood. I have fissidens edged into crevices on the 'branches' and it grew from there

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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Well the light fixture died on me today. Anyone have any suggestions for something similar in terms of looks? I would like the light fixture to be raised without having to add my own legs.


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## jsankey88 (Nov 6, 2016)

Chihiros light systems are cheap but really effective. I have one on my 60litrw scape

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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

jsankey88 said:


> Chihiros light systems are cheap but really effective. I have one on my 60litrw scape
> 
> Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk


I agree. For the short amount of time that I've had the chihiros fixture, I really loved it. For the price point, there aren't any other fixtures that are nearly as nice or look as nice. I might just end up buying another one. 

For now, I threw on a 24" Finnex Ray 2 and a 24" fugeray planted+ which seems to provide the same level of brightness as the chihiros unit at around 70% or so

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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Nice betta, I have a very similar boy in one of my tanks. Be mindful of diamond eye (scales growing over the eyes) it looks to already ave started on your boy and will lead to partial or full blindness.
My boys probably 95%+ blind now. Get use to feeding him in one area every time you feed so he can learn where to go before he can't see it. My boy does well with stinky foods like thawed frozen blood worms, but needs some help getting pellets (can only see them if they are all bunched together to make 'one big pellet' he can lung at). Some people use little floating rings (air line tube) to feed betta in so food doesn't move around (also helpful if you have a lot of floating plants).


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

AquaAurora said:


> Nice betta, I have a very similar boy in one of my tanks. Be mindful of diamond eye (scales growing over the eyes) it looks to already ave started on your boy and will lead to partial or full blindness.
> My boys probably 95%+ blind now. Get use to feeding him in one area every time you feed so he can learn where to go before he can't see it. My boy does well with stinky foods like thawed frozen blood worms, but needs some help getting pellets (can only see them if they are all bunched together to make 'one big pellet' he can lung at). Some people use little floating rings (air line tube) to feed betta in so food doesn't move around (also helpful if you have a lot of floating plants).


Yeah, I always feed in the same corner of the tank and he is always the first person to eat so I think he'll be okay in the long run. The diamond eye has definitely progressed since I got him a month ago though


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

What do you feed your ember tetras. I bought a few and I've been trying to feed them a variety of things like flakes, but they spit it right out after eating it. It's been like that for more than a week and I am starting to worry that they are not getting enough food.


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

LIGHT IS FIXED! So it seems that the power brick that runs the light got wet somehow and it failed on me. Fortunately, the light itself and the power brick are not attached to each other permanently and the power brick is just a standard 19v power supply, which is the same thing as most laptop chargers so I just bought one on Amazon and it works fine. :laugh2:



Chizpa305 said:


> What do you feed your ember tetras. I bought a few and I've been trying to feed them a variety of things like flakes, but they spit it right out after eating it. It's been like that for more than a week and I am starting to worry that they are not getting enough food.


I usually just feed them Hikari Micro Pellets and occasionally frozen bloodworms. They eat the pellets most of the time although they don't really go after the larger ones which is fine because the cories will eat them.


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