# Spit1A's Low-Tech 60P



## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Hey everyone,

I'm still new to this aquarium hobby but but I'm enjoying it so far. Currently I have 1 tank. A Fluval Flora with a crazy little Betta in it. 

I'm about to move to a slightly larger apartment so I'm using that as an excuse, to get a second aquarium :icon_smil









It's probably going to be 2 weeks before I can even set up the tank but I would be interested in getting some feedback.

Before I start, I should mention that I've learned a lot from reading these forums. In particular, I've been following these excellent journals:

Brian_Cali77's journal
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=441873

AnotherHobby's journal
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=371193

I've pretty much just stolen ideas I like from these journals and other journals on this site....:redface: 

Anyway...

I want the tank to be pretty low maintenance (no Co2, minimal water column ferts, etc.) so it will be a low tech tank. 

However, I really like the idea of using the dry start method to get some plants to root and spread faster. I've read people have used the dry start method, filled the tank and dosed Excel, and then gradually reduced the dosage until they are not adding any. I'm thinking of giving that a try.

Here's my equipment list so far

*Tank:* ADA 60P with black background
*Filter:* Aquaclear 50
*Heater:* Aqueon Pro 100W
*Light:* Current Satellite Led + 
*Light Controller:* DIY Arduino IR controller
*Stand:* Reinforced Ikea Besta with door & DIY riser box 
*Garden Mat:* Camping sleeping pad from MEC

*Substrate:* ADA Aquasoil Amazonia + Caribsea Sunset Gold 
*Hardscape:* Ohko Stone (Dragon Stone) + Manzanita Branches

*Possible Flora:*
- Staurogyne Repens
- Marsilea
- Anubias Nana
- Anubias Nana Petite
- Needle Leaf Java Fern
- Rotala Colorata
- Ludwigia Brevipes
- Blyxa Japonica
- Weeping Moss

*Possible Fauna:*
- Amano shrimp x3
- Harlequin Rasboras x6
- Corydoras x6 OR Dwarf Corydoras (Habrosus) x 8
- Maybe a few Otos?

Here's the mock up of my hardscape. 










And here's my current planting layout.
*Question 1:* Any thoughts on this layout? I was hoping using the DSM would let me 'cheat' and use foreground plants that typically need CO2 to carpet. Once the tank is running as a low tech tank I was hoping to basically just keep the foreground plants alive...Am I setting myself up for failure?










I'm planning on embedding some sort of plastic divider between the sand and the aquasoil. 

*Question 2:* Even with a permanent divider, am I setting myself up for a lot of pain by having separate aquasoil and sand regions? I have the sand region there because I like the look and I really want some Corydoras. But I can imagine them just causing chaos and mixing the substrates together... 


Most Recent FTS (06/10/2014)










Thanks for looking!


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## MountainPool (Jul 13, 2014)

Hardscape looks brilliant! Seeing a lot of people using egg crate, are to using it to get the extra height, or to tie down the wood? Lovely stone, too!


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Thanks!



> Seeing a lot of people using egg crate, are to using it to get the extra height, or to tie down the wood?


I'm using it for a bit of both.


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## Dantrasy (Sep 9, 2013)

Very nice hardscape.

I'd consider having the sand all to the left (as you have it) and a thin band across the front. Tanks with soil and sand across the front look a bit wrong imo.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

I'm using the Besta stand but I decided to reinforce it a little bit because I'm paranoid.
I glued some 3/8" MDF to the thin hardboard back panel and added a cut out for cables to pass through. 









I also added a 2x2 frame to the inside. 









I also added some vinyl self adhesive shelf liner (same I used for the black background) to the top of the stand to help protect the stand from water damage.

Instead of the ADA garden mat, I used a camping sleeping pad from Mec and used a sharpie to colour the edges black.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Another update. 

Yesterday was the big day! I got the tank set-up.

I used the egg crate/ light diffuser panel trick to tie down some of the wood.









Here is the hardscape with the aquasoil and sand. I ended up using Caribsea Sunset Gold sand.









And here is everything planted! I lucked out and a local guy was trimming his tanks so I got a whole bunch of plants on the cheap. 

I'll try not to kill them all. Although a few of them may not survive my low-tech setup...









Here's a shot from the side.


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## eat2muchrice (Sep 22, 2014)

Beautiful tank! :thumbsup:


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## ConfidentBlue (Aug 27, 2013)

Beautiful planning and execution. Looks great! Can't wait to see this one grow in. 

Once again, great job.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Hey everyone, 

Thanks for the kind comments!

No real updates so far. Just waiting for the tank to cycle. I put some of the biological filter media from my Betta tank into this tank but it doesn't seem to be doing much. I think I may have accidentally killed off the beneficial bacteria in my Betta's tank too =(. I was doing a water change and I forgot to add Prime to the water. I poured the un treated water directly into the HOB filter...I'll be checking the water params more frequently for awhile now...

Anyway, I'm looking for opinions on stocking!

I was originally planning to add about 6 Harlequin Rasboras, but on another forum someone said a 60P tank doesn't have enough room for them... Is that the consensus here as well? 

I also like the look of a school of Cardinal Tetras, but it looks like they get to about the same size as the Rasboras...

I was considering Ember Tetras as well, but I'm a little bit red/green colour blind so I'm worried they won't stand out from the plants for me.


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## cephelix (Apr 8, 2013)

liking the layout for your 60p. I'm going to use that for when I get mine set up as I have the same type of rocks and wood as you and wondering if I should go with just one type of hardscape.
Looking forward to the progression of your tank...and as always, more PICS!


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Little update guys,

Most of the plants seem to be doing alright aside from losing some of the darker colouration. 

I was surprised at how fast the Ludwigia Brevipes is growing!









The rotala is turning more light green but it seems to be growing decently too. The original clump I planted is looking much denser now.









The S. Repens are doing alright for the most part. The leaves are covered with specs of algae or diatoms? 
The Blyxa is still alive but its leaves are definitely starting to melt. Not unexpected I guess with my setup.









I've started to see a few little pond snails milling about as well.









FTS


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## pewpewkittah (Jan 14, 2014)

Looks very clean and the photos are excellent!! 

Blyxa can lose some leaves for the first few weeks after transitioning, same thing happened to mine. But, I now have huge bushes of them in my low tech 60P and they are doing great! I think it helps if you have some fertilizer tablets of some kind in the soil.


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## Asu1776 (Mar 5, 2013)

Nice job! Subscribed!


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## AnotherHobby (Mar 5, 2012)

Really great job on the scape! The stone is awesome, and I love the sand bar on the perimeter. I think it's a very clever layout that will work well for low tech.

I don't know if all of your pants will do okay without some help though. I've never had luck with blyxa or s. repens without CO2. You may want to look at dosing excel daily if you don't want to do CO2. 

That does look like diatoms on the leaves, and you might get a bit of them due to the sand. Just do lots of water changes, and suck them out as much as you can.


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## Onyx165 (Jul 16, 2013)

Looking good! I'm thinking of doing a similar setup with my 60p. 

How do you feel about the AC50? Do you feel like it gives you enough flow?


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Thanks for the comments everyone!



> I love the sand bar on the perimeter


Thanks! I've seen some other people use a similar layout and really liked the look. 





> Blyxa can lose some leaves for the first few weeks after transitioning, same thing happened to mine. But, I now have huge bushes of them in my low tech 60P and they are doing great!





> I've never had luck with blyxa or s. repens without CO2.


Sounds like people have mixed experiences with Blyxa without CO2. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. 

I have read that some people have had success with S. Repens in low tech set-ups so I thought I'd give it a try. Currently I'm adding a little bit of CO2 with the little Fluval diffuser thingy but I hadn't intended to keep that up...

I checked today and noticed that a bunch of the S. Repens that are in the shadow of a branch have really started to melt away =(. If the S. Repens don't survive maybe I could switch to dwarf sag?



> How do you feel about the AC50? Do you feel like it gives you enough flow?


I think so. I'm not really sure what is considered enough flow but it seems to create flow such that there is some current in most parts of the tank. Right now the AC50 is centred in the middle of the tank so the flow in the two back corners is very gentle. 

I actually had a problem with the flow slowly pushing sand away from the centre of the tank. It was creating a depression in the sand along the front plane of glass. I ended up moving the rocks a little closer to the glass to help deflect the flow a bit.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Weekly Update

My S.Repens seem to be melting off one by one...

You can see the plants in the centre of the picture are melting away...
I thought it was just due to them being in the shade under the branch, but even the plants right in the light are starting to melt. I guess they are melting due to the lack of Co2? 

EDIT: I just realized that the flow looks very weak around the area where the S.Repens were melting. Could a lack of water flow cause the melting?









I've removed quite a bit of the S.Repens now =(. But for whatever reason, the Blyxa is looking pretty good. At least it's not melting away like the S.Repens.









The Rotala is starting to get pretty dense. Do I have to worry about the shaded parts of the plants dieing off?

I'm starting to toy with the idea of Co2....If I add Co2, would I have to upgrade my light and start dosing ferts?

Thanks for looking!

FTS (19/10/2014)


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

So I'm still waiting for the tank to cycle. 

It's been about 3 weeks now I think... I was expecting it to cycle faster since I added filter material from my Betta tank.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the Betta's tank is cycled properly? I've been testing it pretty regularly and the water parameters are always fine..

Anyway, I thought I'd try to make an animated gif of the plant growth over a week and a bit.
The Rotala really grows fast! And the Blyxa actually seems to be doing quite well even without CO2.


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## Dantrasy (Sep 9, 2013)

The changing pics looks great on my phone! We should see this more often. 

It's impressive for <2 weeks.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Little update. 

It's been about 6 weeks now and the tank still shows no signs of cycling . Ammonia is still up around 3-4ppm, temperature is at 26-27 degrees, I use Prime for water changes, I've added filter squeezings from my other tank...I'm not sure what else I can do at this point but wait...

If anyone has an idea as to what I'm doing wrong, please let me know.

In the meantime, I've been working away at setting up an Arduino IR remote control. It will allow me to set an automated light schedule. For example, I have it set up right now so that the light turns onto the 'sunrise' setting in the morning, switches to 'full spectrum' during the day, and then cycles through the night modes in the late evening.

I am using a fantastic tutorial by Indychus (and others that contributed to the thread) that pretty much shows step-by-step what to do and also includes the required code. All the hard work is done for you, you just need to follow the instructions. 

Here is the hardware. The only change I made was I went with a slightly more accurate real time clock (DS3231 instead of DS1307).









Got everything working today. Now it's time to figure out how to mount everything in an enclosure. I'm actually thinking it would look cool if I mounted the LCD in the door of my aquarium stand.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

I finally got the light controller set up. Still waiting for the tank to cycle though...

Please excuse the messy wiring, I'm kinda new to this kind of work...

Here are the guts of it. The big enclosure houses the arduino uno, RTC, and IR LED. I also added a waterproof temperature sensor, which you can see at the top of the picture.
The smaller enclosure holds a 20x4 character LCD display.









I mounted the LCD display to the cabinet door









Here is how it looks when looking at the tank.









Here is a close up. It displays the time, the last light setting command sent to the light, and the temperature.









I was really happy with how things turned out. Until tonight when I was fiddling with things inside the aquarium cabinet. I closed the door to see this...









I checked the connections and they all look fine. The display flickers at time intervals that correspond to the times when the clock and temperature values should be changing, so I think it's getting commands from the arduino to some extent. The infrared led, RTC, and temperature sensor are still working fine based on the serial monitor output of the arduino. 

Anyone have ideas as to what might be wrong?


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## aqua-botanicae (Jun 4, 2013)

Nice setup, especially the hardscape. Despite the title, however, this tank is becoming quite "high-tech" in a way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Finally a slightly more interesting update
11 weeks in and the tank is finally cycled. 

Today I picked up 6 Espei Rasbora (although looking at them, I think they might actually be Trigonostigma hengeli?) and 1 Amano shrimp!
I'm hoping to pick up a small school of Cardinal Tetras as well. 



















At this point they will school briefly, and then break up and explore the tank for a while. One of them seems to like the current that runs along the front of the tank near the bottom. He's just swimming in the current there.









Here's the little Amano shrimp









FTS









Thanks for looking

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!


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## mistuhmarc (Oct 1, 2013)

Spit1A said:


> Finally a slightly more interesting update
> 11 weeks in and the tank is finally cycled.
> 
> Today I picked up 6 Espei Rasbora (although looking at them, I think they might actually be Trigonostigma hengeli?) and 1 Amano shrimp!
> ...


Beautiful tank! Those fish are adorable. I want to use a besta stand like you, any suggestions on keeping it more structurally sound?


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

mistuhmarc said:


> Beautiful tank! Those fish are adorable. I want to use a besta stand like you, any suggestions on keeping it more structurally sound?


Thanks! 

I've seen a lot of people use these without any modifications at all so it would probably be alright as it is. However, I'm a little paranoid so I did end up adding some MDF board to the back panel to stiffen up the structure a bit. I also added a simple internal brace made of 2x2. I included pictures of the changes earlier on in this thread. I think it's on the first page.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Picked up some Cardinal Tetras, more Amano Shrimp, and some Red Cherry Shrimp!


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## Kayen (Oct 14, 2007)

Hey man this tank is great. No idea why it doesn't get more posts... I suppose most threads here in TPT die anyways. 

One of my favourite low-techs so far.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Kayen said:


> Hey man this tank is great. No idea why it doesn't get more posts... I suppose most threads here in TPT die anyways.
> 
> One of my favourite low-techs so far.


Thanks a lot! I appreciate you saying that.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with the tank and I had to drain the tank 

Hopefully getting a replacement tank soon and I'm going to try a different layout.


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## Kayen (Oct 14, 2007)

Spit1A said:


> Thanks a lot! I appreciate you saying that.
> 
> Unfortunately, there was a problem with the tank and I had to drain the tank
> 
> Hopefully getting a replacement tank soon and I'm going to try a different layout.


Staying with ADA? Must be nice having an ADA supplier in BC. I gotta ship them in, and it gets costly .

Looking forward to the next layout, planning to keep it low tech again?


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

Kayen said:


> Staying with ADA? Must be nice having an ADA supplier in BC. I gotta ship them in, and it gets costly .
> 
> Looking forward to the next layout, planning to keep it low tech again?


Yea, since the distributor agreed to replace the tank I'm sticking with ADA for now. I'm hoping I was just really unlucky and the next tank will be fine...

It definitely is nice having the distributor local. On the Miyabi-Aqua site there looks to be a retailer in Alberta that sells them. Do they up their prices to cover shipping?

For now it's going to stay low tech, but I'm starting to think about maybe an Arduino controlled excel dosing pump for Excel or even paintball CO2. Not sure about the CO2 option as I don't really want to upgrade my lighting....


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## Grumpy1415 (Oct 15, 2013)

Bugger...the tank looked very nice. Sorry you had to drain it.
Very nice photography, too. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the next setup.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Great looking tank, sorry you had to drain it! What happened?

The Sat+ should give you the high end of low lighting in a 60P. Should be fine for low tech, or if you dose excel you can handle a little more light if you get into medium lighting, and add a second light. That's what both Brian and AnotherHobby did. (ultimately they've both gone to E-Series, but did very well with dual Sat+ as well) Bear in mind they both had co2, though, so your plant choices would need to be different.


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

kman said:


> Great looking tank, sorry you had to drain it! What happened?
> 
> The Sat+ should give you the high end of low lighting in a 60P. Should be fine for low tech, or if you dose excel you can handle a little more light if you get into medium lighting, and add a second light. That's what both Brian and AnotherHobby did. (ultimately they've both gone to E-Series, but did very well with dual Sat+ as well) Bear in mind they both had co2, though, so your plant choices would need to be different.


Thanks! 

I think I just got a defective tank. The silicone between the glass panels was starting to detach. you could see algae growing at the glass silicone interface, meaning that in in those locations the silicone wasn't attached to the glass. At one location the algae was about halfway through the silicone. (about a 3mm thick bead of silicone attached to the glass instead of 6mm)

At that point I just didn't trust the tank so I broke it down. Fortunately ADA agreed to replace it. I was expecting to get the replacement last weekend, but the shipment got delayed. It's going to be about another month before I get the replacement ...=(

The dangerous thing is now I have more time to dream. 

I really like the set-up both Brian and AnotherHobby have and I definitely stole a bunch of ideas from them. 

My plants are starting to die now so I'll have to get new plants. Maybe I could try a carpet plant? But that would need CO2 and better lighting...

So that means maybe paintball CO2 and another Sat +, and why not replace the HOB with an Eheim 2215 while I'm at it? And maybe I could make an Arduino controlled auto doser too!....

This is bad....


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## Spit1A (May 27, 2014)

I've got a question. 

Are there any problems with adding CO2 but still having low lighting? 

Would excess CO2 cause any types of algae to grow? Or is the only downside that I would be wasting CO2?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

^^ LOL

Yeah, things kinda snowball that way in this hobby. 

Right, now that you mention it, I think I saw your thread about the ADA tank gone bad, in the past couple months. That's a shame... certainly an anomaly, but that's little comfort when it's YOUR tank that's anomalous. :/

Simplest upgrade is just a second Sat+ and dose Excel daily. That will get you into Medium tech levels without too much outlay or effort. Just dim your lights a little (don't use max output) to avoid high lighting levels that would necessitate co2. If you use a soil-based substrate like AquaSoil or even MGOPS, you might be able to pull off a carpet with just Excel.


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## ayobreezie (Aug 12, 2011)

I really like this tank.. You've given me inspiration to redo my 60p.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Yeah, this was an awesome low tech tank, that is of course if you referred to low light when saying "low tech" because that light control system that you had installed looked pretty high tech.. lol. The plant selection and positioning was excellent IMO. They all looked healthy.


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