# Shumpei's 2.5 gallon



## rnakas (Jan 11, 2007)

Looks nice,keep up the great tank!


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## Matthew Mahling (Sep 4, 2005)

Scape looks real rice. That wood is just to petite for Java fern IMO.
Just stick with the moss.


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Petite nana?
Will look great grown in, maybe something tall in the back left centerish.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

rnakas: thank you!

Mathew: Yes I feared that the wood is too small for java fern. I could go with a tree type look with the driftwood though. I saw it on APC on a much larger tank and it was beautiful.

dufus: I'm not a real fan of anubias. It's too round. I've never loved a scape with anubias. Of course I've seen it used amazingly but I still think it could be replaced by crypts or something else.

Maybe some vallisneria nana? Would that be way too big? Of course with trimming I could pull it off but I've never tried it before.


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## Lucky_13 (Apr 18, 2006)

hey! are you copying my wood???










lol, jk. i used dead branches off my maple tree. what kind of wood is yours? i like the long branchy look too.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Hey nice tank! Did you post it on here before? I've been looking and looking for a small tank with branchy wood with no success. Thanks for sharing! The wood I'm using is Red Shank. "Associated overstory species of red shank include Eastwood manzanita" according to this http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/shrub/adespa/all.html
A local hobbyist gave it to me and it sinks and it seems fine. She claimed it to be fine in her tanks and why would she lie to me? She gave me two huge branchy ones so I just took some off and boiled it and used the pieces I liked.


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## frozenbarb (Dec 16, 2006)

expect hes wood doesnt looks moldy =-D


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## Lucky_13 (Apr 18, 2006)

that's algae  the maple wood does well, i don't even remove the bark, its way too fragile. i don't get any noticable tannins from it, but it can cause an ammonia spike, so either add it to a well established tank, or seed or be ready to cycle from scratch. and it only takes about a month or two to sink for small pieces, but i always tie mine to a piece of plexi buried under the substrate anyway.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Well for mine I boiled it, brushed most of the bark off, and then it sank right off the bat. The after boiled water was really nasty looking lol. Green, slimy looking and thin layer of crap on the top.


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Boiling ussually makes wood sink fast, it saturates it thouroughly.


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## Color Me Blue (Nov 10, 2005)

Shumpei: The tank looks very nice!  It looks like a 10G instead of a 2.5G.  Some nano fish would look great in there.


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## FelixAvery (Jan 11, 2007)

looks nice needs a midground on the right hand side though
i suggest e.tennelus or just buy a javafern thats already grown on a peice of wood or laval rock and put it iin the center of were all the sticks meet


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## screename (Dec 8, 2004)

What kind of filter are you using? I didnt know they made canister filters that small! Great looking tank too. Looks much bigger than it is.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Felix: Maybe I could use my existing Dwarf Sag. It is very slowly spreading, but it is spreading. 

screename: Thanks very much. I am using a Zoomed 501 filter. It usually wouldn't be used in a tank this small but I didn't mind the extra filtration because I wanted to make this an invert breeding tank. I also cut the intake and outtake tube so that it would actually fit in the tank :-D.

Christin: Thank you! I don't know about nano fish. I plan to use this tank for my crayfish/craylets. I'm planning to get nano fish for my other nano though :-D. Maybe once I get over invertebrates (will it ever happen?) Mostly I just want some extra money to pay off my hobby through these crayfish. I COULD make money breeding Celestial Danios... That would be very fun. I dunno if I could do it though. Only fish I've breed are white clouds and endlers. :-D. Two of the easiest fish to breed.

Keep the suggestions coming! And can someone ID the plant on the back right? The red one. I could get a close up at request.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Update. I like this hardscape much better. And its easier for me to maneuver around the aquarium without causing my whole hardscape to change every time.

I found out what the plant was. Ludwigia Arcuata.


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## Haeun (Mar 9, 2007)

Nice. I like.
Would look pretty sweet with some foreground, like HC. Looking forward to the moss on the branches grow in some more.

 _I_ would've hid the sponge intake behind the clump.


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## fish_lover0591 (Nov 11, 2006)

wow that looks nice i agree with Diana a foreground of hairgrass would look nice also


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

thanks. I tried dwarf hairgrass but my dwarf crayfish ate it... Good thing it was only one plant.

So I'm gonna go for HC. I had a few plants rooted and they were pretty healthy looking until I tried creating a slope. Then I tried to root it down again but they would always rise up (dwarf crayfish I'm suspecting) and the slope slowly got flat again (dwarf crayfish's fault again).

I think I'm having lots of problems because I'm overcrowding. The big adults hide out in the HC bush. The juvies roam around everywhere else.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Oh how it has grown ;-).




















Comments/critique welcome!


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Is that HC?
it looks huge, more like Hm.


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## frozenbarb (Dec 16, 2006)

Looks well like Hm.. too


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Well I never said it was HC? It's HM... Just started crawling from my original bush and I kept it like that and now its halfway covered!


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

cool, hope it stays low!!!


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Umm so is it a nice tank? Or not enough to make you say anything I guess . Just comment on the size of my "HC"


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## dufus (Nov 13, 2006)

Lol, it looks nice.

I love the "Driftwood" arrangement, it's very unique in such a small tank.


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## slickwillislim (Nov 9, 2005)

I like it. Well done. I had few thoughts, just my opinions. 

I think a sloped substrate would help. You can't see much of the foreground and what you do see is patchy. Perhaps taking the picture from a slightly higher point looking down. I don't know if it was intentional but the right side of the tank is pretty dark. I think those red stems in back would be a lot stronger with a little more light. 

I really like how you used tiny twigs as driftwood in this tank. It makes it seem much larger.

The couple blades of grass are a little distracting. 

The hm allows for a seamless transition from foreground to background despite much in the way of midground plants. I tried to do something similar with rotala sp. goias and I couldn't pull it off so I am kind of jealous that your hm did that. 

I think with a little bushier foreground would help alot. 

I think you did a great job with such a small tank. 

BTW. Those are some big snails.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Thanks Will! I have until the 30th to finish it up so I think I will get better lighting before that and trim a wee bit more. And take out the dwarf sag.

I was gonna enter it in the AGA 2007 contest and I already paid so I need to finalize everything first. There's still time!

And originally I had a nice slope, but overtime the slope turned flat... for some STRANGE reason. I think it was the crayfish making a huge mess. That's why I got rid of them ;-).


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## slickwillislim (Nov 9, 2005)

Yeah it usually does. Plants usually slow that down but your foreground looks like it grew in when it was already pretty flat. 

I haven't decided whether to enter AGA 2007. I don't have anything I am happy with. 

Good luck, I hope you do well.


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

To make a slope and have it stay, I use long chunks of petrified wood to "outline" the area of your slope. Bury the wood all the way to the floor of the tank and have some of the wood exposed several inches higher than your substrate. Then fill in behind the "outline" where you want your slope. 

Using this method your substrate will not have any place to level out because the wood keeps it in place. 

If you prefer the exposed wood to be covered you simply have plants to cover/hide the wood, but it looks nice when it is exposed in some areas and covered in others.


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## Aquamadman (Aug 10, 2007)

What kind of wood are those twigs ?
İ am very curious if these are just twigs u picked up from the woods or if u bought these at the petshop .
Very nice concept by the way with the moss on the twigs , as soon as the moss wraps the twigs it will look as if the moss is floating very original .


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Yah they're twigs. Not just random ones found outside. They were random one's found outside that were sitting there for a long long time and the type of wood is known to be a relative of manzanita, a common wood used in aquariums.

They weren't bought, but a friend of mine found them around and she's also used it in her tanks without ill effects. I still see no ill effects from using them in both my 2.5 gallon and my 10 gallon. Perhaps one thing I might mention that in the 10 gallon tank, I use thicker pieces, and they tend to have fungus on it but it's easily controlled by my snails/shrimp/otocinclus.

Thanks for the comment too!


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## Haeun (Mar 9, 2007)

Oh hey! I totally missed this one. Looking great! I love how that HM made its own foreground. And I like the spark of red behind it.


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## frozenbarb (Dec 16, 2006)

Are there any AGA winners in this Forum?. Maybe Jason B. was one.

is there any other?. Myabe your the First Kid to Win


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

I haven't won... lol. I haven't even entered a final entry. I gotta start trimming.....


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## vibes_jedi99 (Jun 20, 2007)

nice setup I like your rescape.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

vibes_jedi99 said:


> nice setup I like your rescape.


thanks, but I didn't really rescape it. Just let the plants grow in and took the blyxa out.


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