# Planted 25 liter (6,62 gallon) small tank



## Nigel95 (Mar 5, 2017)

I don't think the eleocharis parvula will spread nicely w/o co2 and high light. Not sure if that is the plan to get a carpet?

Beside that I like the path you made with the tiles.

I had a similar tank and was blasting 1200 lumens on my eleocharis acicularis mini. But if you don't use pressurized co2 you can beter keep it lower light I guess.


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

I've seen tanks with lower light and no co2 dosage where parvula created nice carpets. The absolute minimum for this plant is 0.3 W / liter of fluorescent light. I've got 0.6 W / liter and hope parvula will create a nice carpet. The only thing you have to do with this plant is to trim it regularly, trimming encourages it to produce new stems with leaves. Fertilizing with liquid carbon also helps this plant to grow nicely.

Parvula is also the easiest Eleocharis to keep, other ones demand a lot more light.


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

It's time for a little update. I've decided to get rid of Egeria densa because it was growing far too fast, now I've got Pogostemon octopus. All the plants are growing nicely, especially crypts and Hemianthus. The tank is cycled so I've put 5 red cherry schrimps and 2 Anentome helena snails.









Wysłane z mojego E5603 przy użyciu Tapatalka


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

*Update - 16.9.2017*

There is time for another update.

Plants got bigger  Pistia is a new plant. A small group of newborn Endler Guppys moved in. I'll keep only the males, but I have to wait with the selection until they get more mature. Also a neocardina shrimp group found a home in my tank.

New light also came. I made a DIY led lamp from standard led stripes. It works far better than the old fluorescent bulb, I see that the Hemianthus grows better and stays in better condition. Now the light parameters are: 6500 K, 860 lm.


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## NYCAquascape (Sep 23, 2017)

very cool tank - great job!


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

NYCAquascape said:


> very cool tank - great job!


Thank you for your kind compliment. But I think it could be a lot better. I'm thinking about channging Hemianthus to Hydrocotyle "Japan" because of the light. Hemianthus is all nicely light green and after growing higher than 10 cm, the lower leaves are getting very dark green.

I do not want to give this tank stronger light (because I don't want to use a co2 system). That is why I'm thinking about changing from Hemianthus to Hydrocotyle "Japan".

What do you think about it?


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

Now it's time for a little update.



Hemianthus got better when I decided to slightly increase micro fertilizer. The major change is getting all the Parvula out, it was alive and growing, but I'd have to wait morę than 6 months for a nice carpet. That is why I decided to use marimo balls istead, still waiting for their arrival.


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

*Shrimps during feeding time*

I'm posting a short movie from shrimps feeding time.


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## Aquatic Athlete (Oct 7, 2017)

Beautiful tank! Congratulations!


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

Aquatic Athlete said:


> Beautiful tank! Congratulations!


Thank you.


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

*Short tank video*

I'm also posting a short video of the whole tank.


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

It's time for an updated. I decided to get rid of Hemianthus and spread Pogostemon.























Wysłane z mojego VTR-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

Looks good dude, plants look healthy


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

mgeorges said:


> Looks good dude, plants look healthy


Thanks

Wysłane z mojego VTR-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka


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## eltila (Dec 18, 2017)

tmich said:


> There is time for another update.
> 
> Plants got bigger  Pistia is a new plant. A small group of newborn Endler Guppys moved in. I'll keep only the males, but I have to wait with the selection until they get more mature. Also a neocardina shrimp group found a home in my tank.
> 
> New light also came. I made a DIY led lamp from standard led stripes. It works far better than the old fluorescent bulb, I see that the Hemianthus grows better and stays in better condition. Now the light parameters are: 6500 K, 860 lm.


Beautiful! Well done. 
Could you please share more details about your DIY light?


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

eltila said:


> Beautiful! Well done.
> Could you please share more details about your DIY light?


The DIY lighting is made from inexpensive LED stripes, aluminium bars for self adhesive LED stripes and plastic cable holders used to hide wires. Also a power supply is needed - you can get in the same store you bought the LED stripes.

First I decided to have something between 850 and 900 lumens of light. Then I was looking for LED stripes available in my country. These self adhesive LED stripes come on different varations, i just looked for the ones which would give me the required amount of lumens from two 24 cm long stripes. The final choice was defined by the light color temperature - 6500 K is ok for my plants.

Next I just sticked led's to the alu bars. Then i just soldered these separate stripes using some thin wires I already had at home, I also soldered the cable from the power supply (in my case 12 W output, 230 V input).

At the end i just put all the parts together as seen on the pictures. Because I've chosen plastic wire hiders (or holders, don't know the best English word for it) I din't have to use glue nor special tools - only a sharp knife.

Wysłane z mojego VTR-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka


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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

Sometimes you have to make changes. The time for my aquarium has come. All of the plants were growing so rapidly leaving almost no space for guppies, so I decided to keep only crypts and moss. I also made some stones movements to create little caves for shrimps. Soil is the same, light and filter also. It was just a change of the whole aquascape.

I Hope it was a good decision to make these changes.









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## tmich (Jul 9, 2017)

Some fresh shrimp photos.


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## coco4pr3z1 (Apr 2, 2018)

Your new aquascape looks really good. Nice tank!


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