# 5.5 gallon low tech office tank



## FriendsNotFood (Sep 21, 2010)

Omg that's beautiful! Details please  Are you running CO2?


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## Eldachleich (Jul 9, 2011)

Puts my 5.5 to shame...


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## kcartwright856 (Jan 16, 2012)

Gorgeous!


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## keilatan (Jan 22, 2011)

Gorgeous setup!


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Thank you for your compliments! No CO2 supplementation, but I dose with Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and Excel from time to time. Lights are on a 12 hour photoperiod, but I may play around with increasing it to promote additional growth.

I try to keep the algal populations in balance with the red cherry shrimp, nerite, MTS, and red ramshorn snail populations. The snail and shrimp diets are supplemented with Ken's veggie sticks with calcium.


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Very lush. It looks bigger than a 5.5 gallon. How often do you have to trim the stems?


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## adriano (Nov 4, 2011)

Impressive. Looking forward to more pictures.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

nice work here!


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## Durgidog (Jan 16, 2012)

Beautiful tank! I agree that it looks much larger than 5.5. great use of scale.


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## poppyseed (Feb 23, 2010)

I love that the moss (I'm assuming) in the back looks like trees poking out or something. Interesting to see instead of tall background plants.


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## EnigmaticGuppy92 (Jan 31, 2012)

liking this its easy to make a mess of a small tank but this is an excellent example of how to do it correctly


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Thanks again, for your encouraging comments.

kcartwright856- Your 29 gallon dwarf puffer tank is looking a lot like my 10 gallon dwarf puffer tank. The plants haven't fully grown in, but I'll have to get some photos of it up on a new thread. Our visions are remarkably similar.



Monster Fish said:


> Very lush. It looks bigger than a 5.5 gallon. How often do you have to trim the stems?


The stems vary dramatically in growth rate depending on species and tank position, but once every two weeks sounds about right. I tried to place fast-growing plant species on the perimeter and the slow-growing plants in the center to balance the growth rate and to minimize the frequency of tank maintenance (this aquarium is, after all, at work).



poppyseed said:


> I love that the moss (I'm assuming) in the back looks like trees poking out or something. Interesting to see instead of tall background plants.


Thanks, it's flame moss and that is exactly the look I was shooting for. I think moss can be used effectively in the background, but surely not in the form of a sparsely-covered mesh screen (no offense if that's your taste, but it's unsightly in my opinion). I haven't seen my method described previously, so I'll post a photo. I basically tied moss to a glass dowel using fishing line (like tying a beef tenderloin) and tossed it into the back of the tank.


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## poppyseed (Feb 23, 2010)

muntwo said:


> Thanks again, for your encouraging comments.
> 
> kcartwright856- Your 29 gallon dwarf puffer tank is looking a lot like my 10 gallon dwarf puffer tank. The plants haven't fully grown in, but I'll have to get some photos of it up on a new thread. Our visions are remarkably similar.
> 
> ...


That's awesome! I have some flame moss thrown in a tank right now that has not done much of anything for me. I nearly got rid of it. I should try this! Though the lighting in that tank is beyond low.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

I picked up a few CRS this weekend. After a quick acclimation, I threw some food in and snapped a few pictures.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

The colony of RCS has grown to at least 50 shrimp and they all came out to eat.


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## Drink_soy_sauce (Sep 15, 2009)

What reddish colored stem plant is that on the right? Your tank looks so healthy!


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Thanks! The reddish stem on the far right should be _Rotala rotundifolia_ 'Singapore' and the slightly lighter stem just to the left of it should be _Rotala rotundifolia_ 'Colorata'. If I'm mistaken, please correct me. Here's another photo. In this picture, I recognize: 

_Lindernia rotundifolia_ 'variegated'
_Micranthemum umbrosum_
_Anubias barteri_ var. _nana_
_Anubias barteri_ var. _nana_ 'Petite'

but, I can't remember the two in the top right. Any suggestions?


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## aa79606 (Sep 22, 2010)

Gorgeous tank! I just set up a 10g at my office, and this tank is puts mine to shame as well!


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

I did a quick trim on a bunch of the stems and figured I'd update this thing as well. Everything is thriving, though the _Micranthemum umbrosum_ and _Limnophila sessiliflora_ really grow like crazy in this tank.

On a side note, I entered a shot of this tank into Southern Oak Aquatics' February contest and won, so I'm totally psyched about it. :icon_surp


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## skindy (Jan 30, 2012)

Awesome tank! I do love that moss background and congrats on winning!


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## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

Do you ever get any green dot algae on the larger leaves?


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

radioman said:


> Do you ever get any green dot algae on the larger leaves?


I used to get it on the anubias, until I added nerites to my tank. Now I only see it on the glass if I overfeed.


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## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

I will have to look into nerites since I get it pretty bad on my anubias nana in my nano.


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## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

Also would you consider your tank to be low or medium light? I'm asking since I am thinking about setting back up my 5.5g and am trying to determine the lighting and plants to use.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

radioman said:


> Also would you consider your tank to be low or medium light? I'm asking since I am thinking about setting back up my 5.5g and am trying to determine the lighting and plants to use.


Not really the easiest question, since I don't have a PAR meter. On the whole, I guess I'd say medium-high, but it's all relative.

All of the plants that are capable of producing large amounts of red pigments under high light, are producing those pigments and the plants that produce thinner leaves under high light, are producing thinner leaves. So, that suggests that it's a high light setup. right?

Well, since the light is not spread uniformly across the tank (one of the potential pitfalls of this design), the middle of the tank directly below the single CFL is receiving pretty high levels of light, while the sides are only receiving medium levels. Also, plants in the middle can shade the plants on the sides, reducing light levels further. Just keep this in mind when you plan out your tank. I tried to keep the fastest growing plants on the sides and the slowest growing plants in the middle to balance out their growth rates (so that the fast-growing plants don't shade out the slow growers). Then of course, balance out the placement of different leaf colors and shapes to produce good contrast in your aquascape.

Oh yeah and on nerites- the horned nerites look really cool and do a good job at removing algae, but the olive nerites do it much faster, in my opinion.


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## k8wma (Oct 22, 2011)

You're famous.


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## radioman (Oct 29, 2007)

Thanks a lot for your response. I will probably still run a little co2 so to much light shouldn't be a problem.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Just received my tools from Southern Oak Aquatics and I'm looking forward to trying them out in this tank. Thanks again!


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## inka4041 (Jul 27, 2008)

This is a stunning little tank. Congrats on the win!


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## zherico (Mar 19, 2009)

muntwo, would you please describe your process was for breaking in your tank, and what was your choice of substrate?


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

inka4041 said:


> This is a stunning little tank. Congrats on the win!


Thanks!



zherico said:


> muntwo, would you please describe your process was for breaking in your tank, and what was your choice of substrate?


I am using EcoComplete substrate and had only plants growing in it for a few months prior to adding any fauna. While this was probably more than sufficient for nitrogen cycling, I needed time to properly research my prospective tank inhabitants and would encourage everyone to do the same.

As far as breaking my tank in goes, I added about 3 cm of established substrate, threw in a piece of driftwood, and topped off the tank with RO water. I added 12 red cherry shrimp from a fellow plantedtank member back in November and gradually added algae-covered plants from a poorly-maintained aquarium to provide food for the shrimp. Once I started running low on fresh algae, I increased my photoperiod to promote additional algae growth and purchased Ken's vegetable sticks with calcium to supplement the shrimp diets.

I had read that malaysian trumpet snails were good for loosening up the substrate, so I asked a local guy about them and he gave me about a dozen of them. Their movements really had me mesmerized and I decided to add a couple horned nerites to the tank too. Fast forward a month or so and I wanted to try Amano shrimp, so 3 of them went into the tank. Then I got some plants in from another plantedtank member, who apparently had red ramshorn snails and I had a snail explosion. A lot of the baby ramshorn snails were pulled out and fed to my dwarf puffer, but I decided to maintain a small population in this tank. Sometime last month, I discovered an assassin snail cruising around and figured that it must have come as a hitchhiker egg from the same batch of plants. A couple weeks ago, I decided to try crystal red shrimp and purchased 3 SS grade (1 hinomaru and 2 hinomaru no entry) shrimp from a guy in Cincinnati, who was nice enough to let me pick my own shrimp. We'll see in a couple months if I selected a pair correctly.

That's basically it as far as this tank goes. The plants are healthy, animals are healthy, RCS have been breeding like crazy, and maintenance is minimal (can't ask for anything more out of an office tank).


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## zherico (Mar 19, 2009)

congrats, i think you've def achieved in success and have given the rest of us some belief. thanks for the detailed description too!


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

Congrats on the success of your tank. I enjoyed reading this journal


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## GMYukonon24s (May 3, 2009)

That's a beautiful setup.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Thanks for your comments! Here's a quick update - Since establishing the tank, the driftwood has always tinged the water yellow due to the leaching of tannins, despite boiling and soaking prior to use. To see if I like how the tank looks with less yellow, I replaced the 5500 K, 27 watt CFL with a 6500 K, 23 watt CFL. The amount of light emitted by both bulbs are comparable at 1400 and 1450 lumens, for the old and new bulb, respectively. I am not expecting much change in plant/algae growth, but the plants under the two bulbs look dramatically different. I'm not sure if I really like how the flora/fauna look under the 6500 K bulb, but it may just take some getting used to. I'll give the new CFL a few days of use before I take some comparison photos, but as soon as I do, they'll go up so I can get your opinions. :icon_smil


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Finally took some photos of the tank under the old (5500 K) and the new (6500 K) CFL bulbs. The difference is pretty clear- the 5500 K bulb gives the tank a slightly yellow appearance, while the 6500 K bulb gives everything a slightly bluer look. I'll probably stick with the 6500 K bulb, but tell me what you think. Also, if you have any tips on avoiding overexposure with a point-and-shoot camera, please share with us. 

5500 K









6500 K


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## nosebleed (Apr 2, 2012)

your office tank is amazing.


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Just noticed that the photos don't always show up properly, so I'll try this again. The tank is under 5500 K in the first photo and 6500 K in the second.


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

Really, really nice. Good job all around.

I wonder what you could do with a 40B?


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

Thanks! If I had the space for a 40B, we could find out. Until then, I'll only be keeping nano tanks


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## ali0chka (Apr 9, 2012)

Nice tank. I particularly like the Paxinos brain atlas background


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## In.a.Box (Dec 8, 2011)

Eldachleich said:


> Puts my 5.5 to shame...


same here, im so going to tear my 5.5 down. lol


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## muntwo (Sep 6, 2011)

ali0chka said:


> Nice tank. I particularly like the Paxinos brain atlas background


ha ha, thanks. I'm assuming you use it too- what's your brain area of interest?



In.a.Box said:


> same here, im so going to tear my 5.5 down. lol


don't get discouraged- post some pictures and I'll try to give you feedback


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