# NEW 29g Low Tech (with pictures)



## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

A New setup. I want a very *Lush Green Overgrown Forest feel*, but have No to very little CO2 Added. 

Scrapped my old setup, starting Fresh! (sort of!)

29g Tank
2x 36watt coral life t5 fixtures

Step one! Dolomite ($4 for 20kg at home depot) and Potash ($8 for 2kg at Nursery) , Sprinkled on the bottom. Used Bulk Drainage Pebble as a cover (hence the slopes)



















Step 2: Mineralized Topsoil / Clay mixture. Of course, I live in Vancouver, and the weather is here is... wet. So Two weeks of adding water, then spreading it out on a garbage bag to dry, and getting impatient after 3-4 days since it never dried and then just immersing it in water again. Still had a very slight earthy smell, I know I'll regret rushing later!

Top Soil, Premium black $7 for a big big bag. 
Clay, Michaels $6 on sale. 









Step Three, Cover the mud mixture with a plastic guard of sorts! Also used this to anchor moss to rocks. $16 enough of it to roll around a house. 










Step Four: Arrange Aqua Scape. 5 Rocks I found near the beach, wood covered with anubis/java moss/Windov.(sp?) Also placed some anubis around the base of the rocks. Java moss mounted on the rock on the left, Flame on the rock towards the right. Still waiting for a box of flame and 5 batches of Christmas mosses to arrive by mail. 










Step five: Add water! = Cloudy Mess! 










I have 2 HOB filters running and an Internal filter, so it's really not clearing up quick. Two of the filters should still have good bacteria in them. I will probably just end up using the internal filter (mostly for circulation) and hope for the best. Also added a bunch of Salvinia to help cycle the tank and to help with the Over abundance of light. 

No co2, will do very light fertilizing (Potassium Sulfate and kno3 one a week or so), and if there's algae issues, Excel (or matricide 14)

Any Suggestions? Comments? I was thinking of getting some wood (like branches) and nailing them together and have it go from the back right towards the front left and growing flame moss all over. Now I'm not sure it that will crowd the tank a bit. I was also going to have a Christmas Moss carpet (which will be anchored down with the thick black mesh pictured). Though I've been considering maybe having Ricca as a carpet (or at least on one of the rocks)

I'll add More photos when my plants come in and my tank clears up! This will be my Second serious plant tank.


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## Huzzah (Jan 10, 2010)

Aleks said:


> A New setup. I want a very Lush Green Overgrown Forest feel, but have No to very little CO2 Added.
> 
> Scrapped my old setup, starting Fresh! (sort of!)
> 
> ...


Am I correct in assuming that you are using TWO Coralife 2x18W T5 fixtures? That's what I intended to use on my 36 Gallon bowfront in hopes of a high light/high tech setup... and I was told that using both fixtures for 4x18W of T5 light should be considered "high light..." that said, I'm not sure how well the lighting/CO2 will work out for you algae-wise. (Of course, considering that my tank isn't setup yet I'm just repeating some opinions I've received, both offering and seeking help.)


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I agree, you should only go with one of the Coralife T5 fixtures if you want to avoid CO2.

I'm running just one over my own 29gal, and IMO it's perfect for a low tech setup.


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

Yes, 2 fixtures for a total of 72 Watts = ~ 2.5 watts a gallon of t5. Now I'm really just going to touch and go with the lights. Between playing around with the settings and the Salvinia I should be ok. Right now, the Salvinia covers around a quarter of the surface, just being moved around by my filters, and you can totally notice darker spots in the aquarium (Like clouds!) as it moves around. 

My plan is that if there's algae, clean it off, and let the Salvinia just take over the entire top. If the Salvinia Covers 75+% of the top and I have no Algae I'll scoop some out. If I have 75% coverage And I have algae, then I'll have one light on for 8 hours, and the other on for 2 hours. Etc.

While esthetically Duckweed/Salvinia/frogbit may not look great, they are able to Soak up Light, and Soak up tons of Nutrients from the water as they get CO2 from the air in my apartment (with 2 tall people, a great dane and a cat stuffed into 700 sq ft) Or at least that's what I was led to believe. 

On a side note, would apple snails go well with RCS? I wouldn't mind a tag team of cleaners, and a localish petsmart seems to have a bunch of nice and healthy (for petsmart) Apple snails. I also have one in a 5g that will need a new home when I start fiddling with that aquarium.


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

Just an update. It's been a week, cycling the tank, but it keeps clouding up White. At first I thought it was poor washing of the gravel, but after 3-4 water changes of 75% or more, it's clear, but then clouds up the next day. I'm assuming it's a bacterial infection. I have a Golden mystery snail and two zebra snails in there, they seem very happy, but I don't want to fork over a ton on shrimp to have them die ! 

Also as for lighting, with the Salvinia that I have, I'm getting 0 algae. In fact, I'm running a 12 hour photo period and dosing Kno3 and k2so4 and still have 0 Algae. 

I'm wondering if I should increase the photo period so that my Zebra snails don't die (and I'll be happy when there's a bit of algae for them to eat), and what can I safely increase it to? 

Also Cloudiness: a bacterial infection or just gravel and dirt. I do see specs of white being pushed around by my internal filter (dust like). I have some antibiotics that I can use to see if I can clear it up, but i'm not sure thats a wise course of action.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

If it's a bacteria bloom you probably just need to let it run its course and go away on its own. You definitely don't want to use an antibiotic on a cycling tank.

I suspect it's Green Water, though.


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

I cleaned it out. Turned off the lights and the next morning, wham, cloudy again when I turned the lights back on. (can Algae grow in the dark?) But reading up on both bacterial infection and algae, in both cases it's an excess of nutrients AND light, and there are 0 nutrients in the tank =/ I checked. I have those cheapy test everything test strips, and nitrates and Nitrites were both at Zero. Not even a bit of hue change. 

I'll do another water change and kill one of the lights. 

In either case, I found a fellow willing to sell me RCS shrimp for cheap, Would a bacterial infection harm them? I've already promised to buy em so it's too late to back out now =D


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## Tuiflies (Jan 14, 2010)

I don't think your light will be too high (with all those floaters in the tank), if you run both sets for 4 hours each with a 2 hour overlap to start (6 hrs total, 2 hr burst, so you get equal usage). You can always modify it from there.

I'd wait for the bloom to clear before adding the shimp because they'll probably just make it last longer.


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## webgirl74 (Dec 2, 2009)

Aleks said:


> Just an update. It's been a week, cycling the tank, but it keeps clouding up White. At first I thought it was poor washing of the gravel, but after 3-4 water changes of 75% or more, it's clear, but then clouds up the next day. I'm assuming it's a bacterial infection. I have a Golden mystery snail and two zebra snails in there, they seem very happy, but I don't want to fork over a ton on shrimp to have them die !
> 
> Also as for lighting, with the Salvinia that I have, I'm getting 0 algae. In fact, I'm running a 12 hour photo period and dosing Kno3 and k2so4 and still have 0 Algae.
> 
> ...


Bacterial blooms are very common on new set-ups and they will clear in time. Some people use UV sterilizers to help clear that up. I think there are other tank additives by Seachem (Can't think of the names right now) that you can add to combat the bloom. Having zero algae after only a week is normal as well. I have 2 low tech tanks set up and just started seeing some algae starting after several months of being set up. I have them both heavily planted at the moment, so the other plants take up most of the nutrients. Are you getting an ammonia reading at all from your water tests? If your tank is in the first stages of cycling, you wouldn't necessarily register a nitrite or nitrate reading. I would recommend getting yourself a liquid regeant test kit. You can get a lot of tests out of one kit and they are far more accurate than test strips. Even a very low ammonia/nitrite reading can do serious harm to fish and shrimp.


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

So, 
Well I definitely think it's a bacterial bloom, cut the light to a quarter and it's starting to cloud up again after taking out 75% of the water and dosing what was left with about 1-2ml of peroxide. I let it sit for a while before adding/removing water for a little while. 

I did add shrimp, not because I wanted too, but I a local fellow sold me a bunch of RCS for around @20. Around 20 adults + a ton of microscopic babies. I couldn't say no!

Instead of buying a $40 test kit, they can be my water testers. The day after adding them, I do see them scurrying about. Don't see many of the microscopic ones, but I hope thats just because they are in my mosses. 

On a side note, I had a huge colony in my 20 gallon, but... I added an assassin snail to kill some hitchhikers, the assassin disappeared so I added a pea puffer and wham, no more red cherry shrimp. A few weeks later the pea puffer disappeared and after a 2 month hiatus the Assassin snail reappeared. 

Now I still have a good 10-20 Cherry shrimp in there, but they are all 1 inch or bigger, and haven't seen any babies in a little while. I think my platies have discovered shrimp are tasty. They even eat their own young, it's terrible. Imagine me feeding them, and all the while they seem to prefer their young to fish flakes.


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

Forgot to ask my question. Now that I have shrimp (in my 29g) I'll add some females from my old tank when the bacterial bloom goes away. But I'm wondering, I want them to breed, and breed prolifically. But I'd also like some fish (that don't eat shrimp!) I hear ottos are a good choice, but what about other types of fish? I recently read that pygmy cories just gobble them up, as do cardinal tetras (which is a bit disappointing), anyone have luck with microrasboras?


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## JennaH (Sep 28, 2009)

microrasboras may be a good choice because they are so small, possible dario dario too. but i think just about any fish besides maybe ottos are going to find newborns to be a tasty snack. btw, i have an assassin snail in my rcs tank and i only see him once every few weeks too, but there is a small, steady amount of empty snail shells on the bottom


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## pianofish (Jan 31, 2010)

Aleks said:


> I recently read that pygmy cories just gobble them up.


Where did you find this info at, I've read that drawrf corys generally leave, RCS alone provided that you have adaminte hidnig places. (Maybe its just one of those unique tank things where everyone has a different expirience.)

PS. I just ordered 30 RCS and 9 Cory Hasborus so I'll let you know how they do


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## Aleks (Jul 9, 2008)

Not quite sure. I'm sure I googled cories and shrimp or some such. I read that pygmy cories are much more likely to go into smaller areas and in between plants, hence eating baby shrimp more so then their bigger cousins.


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## pianofish (Jan 31, 2010)

http://www.franksaquarium.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=124

and here 

oh and here

Take a look at those.

Hope these help,

PS. Those are all Cory Habrosus (salt and pepper cory)


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I kept Boraras briggitae with my RCS, and though I know they ate some shrimplets, as long as you have plenty of moss in the tank and are sure to keep the fish well-fed, most should survive.


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