# Lowtech Nanos - The Mossy Spider & More



## shangman (20 Oct 2020)

This journal is for my new tank, a 30cm-cube which sits on my desk. I got it to keep shrimp, as they don't like my main tank's rainwater, so I'm giving them some good, old-fashioned London tap.

I started my first tank in June, and have been completely taken over by it, MTS was inevitable! Along with this tank (my personal second), I've also "helped" set up a tank with my dad in his office, a 45L cube with a jungle-y style (I'm somehow already doing all the water changes :Z ). My first tank was 'sortof' aquascaped (will share some pictures in a later post), it's got some lovely plants but the hardscape isn't very dramatic or structured (it's a flat-ish bottom with some river-like stones I pinched from my garden), and I want to try something more sculpted this time. I also feel that my first tank is almost 'done' and right, so I wanted to give myself a new challenge 

I got some nice rocks that are black with white marbling from a garden center as the base, so the bottom isn't too boring. Apologies that I didn't wet them before the photo, the next post will show them in their full glory! They are darker than the sand when wet.






Since I couldn't use bogwood, I got 2 pieces of spiderwood and glued them together with resin putty. I also just bought some spiderwood twigs to add some complexity (you can see the different coloured twigs below, the additions), which works really well, it a bit like a Louise Bourgeois Spider sculpture. As the wood has a raised bit near the top, I'd like to try some emersed plants coming out of that, but not really sure how, and if they'd need soil or not amongst moss. Was planning on winging it and just sticking some hydrocotolye and things like that on there and seeing how it goes.





This is my view from my chair, so it has to look nice from this angle particularly. From this angle I get a (quite) good view of the top bit of the wood that I think should have some emergent plants amongst some emergent mosses. I also have that weird stick coming out, not sure if I'll try to grow something up it but it seemed wrong to saw it off.





I would've made this tank jungle-style, but my dad's tank uses all of those kinds of plants (LOTS of buce, mini java fern, echinodorus, etc) and bog wood, so I want to try something with a different vibe. I also want to try a carpet, though I'm not using CO2, and the water is hard which I think will make it more difficult. Also under some of the wood it's rather dark, so I need to make sure that whatever goes there doesn't mind that.

I think that shrimp look very cute on both tiny leaves, and giant leaves, so it's going to be mostly mosses and liverworts, ideally with a carpet of moss, and moss covering spiderwood branches, with a bit of pgymy sword and marsilea and mini crypts for detail. I think I'd like a nice "bigger" crypt in the background for lushness (any suggestions??), and an anubias coffefolia for a dramatic large leafed plant. Might have a few tiny buces on the branches too, but the focus is really the moss with highlights. I want thinking since the tank will be mostly green, then there should be a few brown/red/purple highlight plants in there.

I've got all of my mosses and liverworts - riccardia chamedryfolia, fissidens fontanus, christmas moss & a bit of pelia from my dad's tank that's thriving. I was thinking of doing a dry start tomorrow, whizzing the mosses/liverworts up individually and painting them in all the wood so it's nicely evening covered. My thought was that tying all this moss to the many branches with be extremely annoying, though would love your thoughts.

Still not sure what colour cherry shrimps to get, currently considering red rillis, orange or yellow. Or all of them and just accept the wild types. Would also LOVE a rabbit snail, but I'm not sure if they'd eat everything/escape/be too big.


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## shangman (13 Dec 2020)

Ok... so I've been very lazy about updating it, lots of things have happened. I didn't photogrpah them all, because I forgot... but will keep documenting. There's a long way to go!!

So I started with a dry start with marsiela hirsuta, and some mosses & liverworts... fissidens font, christmas moss, mini pelia and monosolenium tenerum. I blitzed the mosses with water and yoghurt and did that technique. Then I left it for 3 weeks. It worked quite well, but the wood kept sucking all the moisture from the plants.. even though I soaked it it didn't seem saturated enough.  I'm afraid I've failed you all, as when the plants came I was so excited that I just started planting and forgot to show the results of the dry start. Whoops!






This is the base which I planted first, I just added in some crypt lucens, and crypt albida. The marseila worked particularly well with the dry start





This is with the wood added, I used the same mosses and added a few extra bits of the mono, and I got some mini Christmas moss that I just glued on. I also added a variety of buces which were interesting from aquasbai, including biblis and mini kedagang. A while ago my dad also bought me one of those interesting tiny ferns which I put in.

I'll post another update for how it's growing in later this week, as I took these photos a few weeks ago. Then going to the shop on Tues to hopefully pick up some extra plants!


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## shangman (6 Feb 2021)

Thought I would update this journal 

I've been v lazy about it because I have baby apistogramma in my other tank, that's been my main focus that takes up all my time. 

The tank is now doing very well, but had some hiccups. A nice fern I bought brought with it spirogyra, which very quickly spread and took over the tank. I was really freaked out because online most people said it was impossible to treat, especially as I have red cherry shrimp, 2 amanos & a few rabbit snails (thanks @Steve Buce!), I couldn't OD it on various chemicals. I did a 3 day blackout, and it almost completely went away - there are still a few strands around, but it hasn't tried to take over again. I'll do another blackout to hopefully polish it off in the next few weeks. Success!!

After the blackout everything was fine, except that my buces had MAJOR staghorn on them, so I've started spot dosing with Excel Flourish, which has pretty much knobbled it, along with just having sponge ni the filter to add some more flow. The excel also made the mosses just that bit more green and luscious. The tank now has about 6 species of moss (including a riccia and monosolenium which aren't really mosses but they're similar enough), I'm really happy with how the dry start has developed, it's a great technique. Took about 5/6 weeks to properly grow in, but it's all thriving now. I have some crypts growing in the back that hopefully will slowly get bigger and give it more depth too.

Thinking of getting some yellow shrimp to go with the red, I don't mind some wild types that comes with the interbreeding really. Or maaayyybbeeeee considering a betta, a colourful fish would look so great in this green tank, though idk if I want the extra effort/worry/a fish that eats my shrimps.









This is the angle I see it at from my desk chair:


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## noodlesuk (6 Feb 2021)

Beautiful aquascape, love all the different green textures, mosses, mixed leaves. Looks great, I bet, especially with the spots of red from the shrimp.


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## EA James (6 Feb 2021)

Looks great @shangman good job 👍


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## shangman (9 Feb 2021)

Thank you both  I've been really happy with this tank, it's looking really lush and lovely now, the dry start looks so rubbish at first moss-wise but long-term it's brilliant! It was really nice to learn a new technique and have it be successful. Next question... how does one trim and maintain a mossy tank and keep it looking good? 😆

The red cherries do look great in there, I'm planning to get some really high grade red ones for my birthday to boost that too, as a lot of their offspring are loosing the red and going wild on me


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## shangman (2 Mar 2021)

Recently I got some hygrophila pinnatifida from @Konrad Michalski which is super beautiful, I'm really obsessed with it!. I hope it survives in this low tech! It really adds a feeling of oak saplings, the leaf shape and colour is fantastic. I think this tank is pretty 'complete' and grown in, I relaly enjoy watching it every day. I'm hoping the HP might shoot up and out of the tank, I think that a bit of emergent growth would be the last step in making it great. What I really like about this one is I haven't had any problems, I just do a small wc and clean the glass weekly and when things go wrong they are simple and effective to fix. The shrimp did have some tiny worm paracites on their nose, but some discus de-wormer has got it with no casualties. I also got an outbreak of spyrogira, but with one 3-day blackout it completely went (not like my other tanks annoyingly).

I recently added some MTS which are very cute, like mini rabbit snails. I've also noticed a lot more tiny life in the tank in the past few weeks, like tiny ostracods, limpits, a few small planeria and some mysterious worms I think might be leeches, or maybe large blackworms. Either way I don't mind, I don't feed the tank that much so I think it should remain in balance easily. I've never vacuumed any mulm or waste out of the bottom, only from the water because I can't really reach the substrate, maybe that's why interesting things are popping up. I have 2 amanos in here which are very funny and very very active, swimming around quickly and always the first to steal food from the cherries. 







 



I have some brown stuff growing on the side of the tank which you can see on the right, but I leave it there because the baby shrimp really love it, I usually have 30+ on there at all times. 

I have started netting out the wild-coloured shrimp, they go into my main tank where they either get eaten by the cichlids, or get big enough to be ok. 













Finally, a cherry on a pinnatifida leaf shot from the top of the tank, looking fabulously aesthetic.


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## mort (2 Mar 2021)

Which plant species is that on the emersed wood in the first picture? Looks an interesting species that I can't quite make out.


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## shangman (2 Mar 2021)

mort said:


> Which plant species is that on the emersed wood in the first picture? Looks an interesting species that I can't quite make out.


It's an interesting species of sorts... it's a lasercut, heat-shaped & gold leafed polypropylene version of a dog rose I made as a student a few years ago, which used to be on a hat but I thought it would look nice hanging on the light in lieu of an actual emmersed plant. I studied fashion & textiles and made all sorts of fake nature accessories and things  below is it scanned & on a model for my final project.


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## Matthew Robinson (2 Mar 2021)

Very nice


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## CSouthgate (2 Mar 2021)

Looks so good, I'm jealous of the fissidens as i have never been able to keep it alive =/


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## shangman (2 Mar 2021)

Matthew Robinson said:


> Very nice


Thanks 



CSouthgate said:


> Looks so good, I'm jealous of the fissidens as i have never been able to keep it alive =/


Thanks!! I don't do anything to it at all really - the water is hard, the light isn't fancy, small wc each week. I do fertilise though, and I set it up with a dry start which I think really helped - it started off with tiny growth for a good 2 months looking crap, but now it's come in lovely and bushy from those tiny bits. I dosed a bit of excel flourish for a month to kill off some bba & staghorn, it quite liked that, but life's too short to dose things every day.


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## EA James (2 Mar 2021)

My HP that I also got from Konrad has grown out of the tank, it’s lost all its submerged growth but seems to be loving life above the surface. Shame I have a lid on the tank so I can’t even see it 😂


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## shangman (2 Mar 2021)

EA James said:


> View attachment 164045
> My HP that I also got from Konrad has grown out of the tank, it’s lost all its submerged growth but seems to be loving life above the surface. Shame I have a lid on the tank so I can’t even see it 😂


Absolutely LOVE THAT. 😍 I'll hopefully trim it at the front so it stays submerged since it looks great with moss, and let it grow up and out at the back. Emergent growth somehow makes things look so much more magical, I love watching plants joyfully growing up and out the confines we've set.


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## Aqua360 (4 Mar 2021)

Looks superb!


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## CSouthgate (4 Mar 2021)

shangman said:


> Thanks
> 
> 
> Thanks!! I don't do anything to it at all really - the water is hard, the light isn't fancy, small wc each week. I do fertilise though, and I set it up with a dry start which I think really helped - it started off with tiny growth for a good 2 months looking crap, but now it's come in lovely and bushy from those tiny bits. I dosed a bit of excel flourish for a month to kill off some bba & staghorn, it quite liked that, but life's too short to dose things every day.


I'll have to have another go when I move and set up a new crystal shrimp tank, I fall into the fairly lazy fishkeeper category if it ain't broke don't mess with it and I will forget about daily dosing, I'm lucky if I remember to feed every day


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## shangman (4 Mar 2021)

CSouthgate said:


> I'll have to have another go when I move and set up a new crystal shrimp tank, I fall into the fairly lazy fishkeeper category if it ain't broke don't mess with it and I will forget about daily dosing, I'm lucky if I remember to feed every day


Life's too short for daily dosing!! I only fertilise with a WC. With your new tank I 100% recommend the dry start for the fissidens, it's worked really well with only a bit of moss to start with. Takes a while to really establish but then is great.


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## CSouthgate (4 Mar 2021)

shangman said:


> Life's too short for daily dosing!! I only fertilise with a WC. With your new tank I 100% recommend the dry start for the fissidens, it's worked really well with only a bit of moss to start with. Takes a while to really establish but then is great.


Oooo i have not done a dry start for a long long time but it may be worth it in this case, going to be a few months until im actually moved and ready to set up, hopefully plants will be more readily available again by then.


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## shangman (8 May 2021)

CSouthgate said:


> Oooo i have not done a dry start for a long long time but it may be worth it in this case, going to be a few months until im actually moved and ready to set up, hopefully plants will be more readily available again by then.


Dry starts are awesome, I think I'd do them on every tank, especially lowtech where you need all the help you can get!


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## shangman (8 May 2021)

I'm very pleased, today I made a little stand for my desk nano, and now I can see it so much better - before I had to crouch down to get a proper look in. Also, I can shove my papers and things underneath, so it's useful too. It's made from leftover wood from the desk so it matches nicely, even though it's very basic.





The actual scape is a total mess cos the mossy-spider-wood temporarily lives in my other tank as cover for my apistos, but the crypts have growth really well. I know the water's still filty from doing such a big water change and disturbing the soil when moving it, but I kinda like the ghostly glow - the light now has to be much closer to the water, which gives it a kinda cool effort.

I had a plan to try wabi kusa in this tank as it'd be easy to plcce them on top of the moss wood half-submerged, but now the light is so close I think that won't work very well! Might have to get another light.... definitely want to do a lovely rescape kinda soon, I'm thinking lava rock and tiny rooty bits and wabi kusi cute and tiny, and I miss the moss! It will be mossy again, maybe even more mossy. I'mplanning on stealing the crypts and moving them to the hightech new scape I'm doing in a month or two, so will be easy to change! Even though I did this tank only in October last year, I feel like I've learnt so much that I already want to try new things!! Very bad, I know. But this time I won't be afraid to build hardscape all the way to the top!

You can't tell in this photo, but I've got a skylight right above my computer, so it now gets a tiny bit of light from that, and I think I might also be able to grow a lovely little ficus pumila from the tank now, to grow up and around the skylight. Would be sick, once I can finally go to the hairdressers again and become ginger again I'll be like poison ivy!


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## shangman (23 May 2021)

This tank has returned to it's rightful state, with mossy spider taking centre stage. The mossy spider grew A LOT of moss while in the big tank with the high light (that I very lazily never lowered, yikes), so it grew a lot. It also grew a lot of filamentous thread algaes. I did a blackout on the big tank with the mossy spider in it, but it didn't seem to do that much, so I pulled off the easiest algae, and then chucked it back in this nano anyway. The shrimp/snails seem to have eaten the worst of the algae off already, hooray! This tank is also quite low light (except right at the surface), which helps loads. The cherry shrimps eem very happy that this wood has returned, I've seen a lot more of them now than I did when there wasn't much in the tank.




 







Where the moss was at it's fluffiest and needed a trim, I pulled it off to use in wabi kusa balls. I really want to add some emergents to this tank, and because of the placement of the wood I can easily balance 2 - 3 on the wood, so I experimentally made a few yesterday. I used hydrocotyle tripartita japan, pelia (this grew CRAZY big in the high light tank, I have a huge puff of it right now), and a mix of mini Christmas and phoenix moss to make the base plants for the balls (the balls were made of a golfball sized amount of wet ADA Amazonia new, wrapped in sphagnum moss and lots of cotton thread). Then I added little sprigs of hygrophila pinnatifida, ludwigia super red + ar mini, rotala hra, brazillian pennywort and a nice little pot of marsiela hirsuta that my dad's friend bought but didn't need so gave to me to try. They're in bowls for the first few weeks to adapt and to get the ammonia out of them. If they work well, I'm going to make lots of them to form a lot of the riparium growth for the pond tank. I really like the idea of taking the excess plants grown in the hightech and using them in the pond tank, so I get to see both versions of growth. This is a photo of 2, I have 6 total. Might buy clear plastic bags on top for humidity.









I really need a new light, now the tank is raised this light is way too close to the surface, especially for the emergent growth. I want to try <this light, the Chihiros C2 LED light>, though I'm trying to avoid spending too much cos I have to buy loads for the new big tank. Omg, way too addicted! 

My dad bought a huge bag of tiny twigs from Riverwood aquatics for the hightech/pond tank, so I took a few out and tried adding them to this one to see how it looks, it was very bloody fiddly. Not 100% convinced yet, I think things need to grow on/around them a bit. It does give it a bit more of that fancy aquascaping vibe though!



 







I think the tank could use a little more shaping, which would involve getting rid of some of the pellia and crypts in the front, but I'm waiting for the big scape to be ready so I can use whatever extras I have in there.


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## shangman (29 May 2021)

Got myself a beautiful new snail from Riverwood Aquatics - it's a White Wizard snail, and thus was immediately named Gandalf. Gandalf has a beautiful cream-coloured spiral shell, and is grey with mustard spots. It's mouth is big enough that I can see the "teeth" rasping on the glass with is p cool. Gandalf is about an inch long atm, but should get up to 5cm. I only got one, but now I've reserved a second so I can have Gandalf and Saruman together. Anyone else kept these snails? I haven't come across them before. Now I've been researching interesting snails and would also like a hairy snail too...

The amanos are strangely attracted to Gandalf, and like to give the shell a good clean regularly, as you can see !!


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## shangman (9 Jun 2021)

This tank is currently a bit hmmmmmmmmmm to me...

2 weeks ago one of my large amano females died from a failed molt. I noticed a few planaria so I made a trap and put the shrimp body in and caught a few. Have been noticing more planaria around!

Then last week I bought 2 more white wizard snails go with with the first, as the first had been active and eating and going about the tank seemingly happy.

The 2 new snails are also much less active, they've buried themselves in the substrate since I got them. I made sure to turn the temp of the tank down just in case it's from the weather. All my rabbit snails and MTS are active and normal, no problems.

Then 3 days ago, my first white wizard snail died. It had been actively going around the tank looking fine, but then stopped appearing. I found it floating underneath the floating plants. I did a big waterchange as I know that snails can really gross up the water, the snail didn't smell bad so I think I caught it early, but still.

This morning, I found another large female amano dead, and an UNPLEASANT number of planaria around it. I think they've become an actual problem now, and my shrimp numbers haven't gone up massively even though they breed a lot so it's time to nuke. I guess I should do another big wc again now too, I suspect it was there a few hours.

Not really sure what to do about the snail + amano deaths, I haven't been doing anything differently recently. I generally do smaller wc on this tank as it's lowtech, so will go back to 50% to see if that helps! Otherwise not that sure what to do, I did get the big amanos secondhand and the dead ones are the biggest so I suppose it could be old age, but still... hmm. The only other thing is that due to the wood I don't really hoover the substrate at all in this tank, so maybe will also take the wood out briefly and do a proper hoover. Any thoughts?

Will be buying some no-planaria and taking all the snails out to a quarantine tank next!


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## Wookii (9 Jun 2021)

shangman said:


> This tank is currently a bit hmmmmmmmmmm to me...
> 
> 2 weeks ago one of my large amano females died from a failed molt. I noticed a few planaria so I made a trap and put the shrimp body in and caught a few. Have been noticing more planaria around!
> 
> ...



I had a fair few planaria in my low tech tank a few months back. They created something of a snail graveyard from all the empty shells at the front of my tank.

I grabbed a sachet of Panacur from PAH and dosed (0.1g per 40 litres) twice, two weeks apart, and haven't seen any planaria since. My shrimp population definitely increased afterwards also.

It had the added benefit of getting rid of the Hydra that had accumulated where I regularly fed BBS also.


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## Karmicnull (9 Jun 2021)

Be careful with Nerites and no planaria - I dosed a tank to get rid of Hydra and even a month later when I dropped a test Nerite in thinking there would be no problem in it, it lasted about 2 days before dying.  'Pest' snails (mini ramshorn and pond snails)  were all fine.  You might be better going the Panacur route.
Cheers,
 Simon


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## shangman (9 Jun 2021)

Wookii said:


> I had a fair few planaria in my low tech tank a few months back. They created something of a snail graveyard from all the empty shells at the front of my tank.
> 
> I grabbed a sachet of Panacur from PAH and dosed (0.1g per 40 litres) twice, two weeks apart, and haven't seen any planaria since. My shrimp population definitely increased afterwards also.
> 
> It had the added benefit of getting rid of the Hydra that had accumulated where I regularly fed BBS also.


There are a few small empty shells are the front 

This morning I did a 80% wterchange so I could suck up all the mulm in the bottom and to hopefully take out some planeria... OMG there were literally HUNDREDS in the bucket once I'd done it, mostly hidden in the mulm. Will need to do another big change to get the rest of the mulm, I totally underestimated how much there was in the bottom and what could be lurking there. My general thought before was mulm/shulm, it doesn't matter in this small lowtech with shrimps and snails, but considering the enormous number of planeria I've just caught (easily over 100), perhaps not!

Will do the second big waterchange just before dosing the tank so there are as few as possible to die dirty the water, probably this weekend so I can also set up a little snail quarantine tank too. Hopefully the white wizard snails prefer a cleaner tank!

Just bought some No-Planaria earlier, didn't realise I could use Panacur! But after seeing them in a large number.. I MUST DESTROY. Some of the are red/pink from delicious cherry shrimps 😭

Super annoying, I have good number of blackworms and tiny creatures in this tank I really like! Had to suck a load out and feed them to the fish!


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## Wookii (9 Jun 2021)

Karmicnull said:


> Be careful with Nerites and no planaria - I dosed a tank to get rid of Hydra and even a month later when I dropped a test Nerite in thinking there would be no problem in it, it lasted about 2 days before dying.  'Pest' snails (mini ramshorn and pond snails)  were all fine.  You might be better going the Panacur route.
> Cheers,
> Simon



Agreed - I should have mentioned the nerites. I removed all my horned nerites, and added them back in two weeks after the last treatment, and they have all been fine - though my system is set-up for 20% daily water changes.


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## Wookii (9 Jun 2021)

shangman said:


> There are a few small empty shells are the front
> 
> This morning I did a 80% wterchange so I could suck up all the mulm in the bottom and to hopefully take out some planeria... OMG there were literally HUNDREDS in the bucket once I'd done it, mostly hidden in the mulm. Will need to do another big change to get the rest of the mulm, I totally underestimated how much there was in the bottom and what could be lurking there. My general thought before was mulm/shulm, it doesn't matter in this small lowtech with shrimps and snails, but considering the enormous number of planeria I've just caught (easily over 100), perhaps not!
> 
> ...



You'll never remove them all manually - I used to see several half an inch or more below the substrate surface - though it's worth sucking them out where you can to avoid an ammonia spike when they all die.


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## shangman (9 Jun 2021)

Karmicnull said:


> Be careful with Nerites and no planaria - I dosed a tank to get rid of Hydra and even a month later when I dropped a test Nerite in thinking there would be no problem in it, it lasted about 2 days before dying.  'Pest' snails (mini ramshorn and pond snails)  were all fine.  You might be better going the Panacur route.
> Cheers,
> Simon


Ahh damn!!! Well I've bought it now.. Will make sure to do lots of extra waterchanges and add some carbon to the filter for a week too. Maybe the snails will need an extended summer holiday 😂  When I dosed my old tank for hydra it killed all my MTS which I was very fond of, and since I have such lovely snails in this tank will be very careful when returning them!



Wookii said:


> You'll never remove them all manually - I used to see several half an inch or more below the substrate surface - though it's worth sucking them out where you can to avoid an ammonia spike when they all die.


Yeah they'll never all be sucked out they are too well adapted, I can still see them in the tank even though I've removed loads, but like you said wanted to get rid of as many as possible to reduce the ammonia spike, and also to give the baby shrimps a bit of a break from what must be constant harrassment! I have a few berried females atm and would like to protect & grow this colony.


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## Hufsa (9 Jun 2021)

I heard white wizard snails can be hard to keep alive, but I dont remember why, it was many years ago. Sorry not very useful information perhaps.

If you are planning to keep burrowing snails in the substrate in your tank I would be careful, snail medications of various kinds can get "attached" to it and will slowly kill any burrowing snail you try to introduce. Ive had this happen before with completely inert sand and NoPlanaria. I was also unable to keep Nerites alive but cant say 100% that it was caused by the tainted substrate.

Maybe best course of action would be to remove all the substrate, nuke tank contents and then add a brand new substrate?
Ugh these unwanted pests are a b****, my sympathies


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## shangman (9 Jun 2021)

Hufsa said:


> I heard white wizard snails can be hard to keep alive, but I dont remember why, it was many years ago. Sorry not very useful information perhaps.
> 
> If you are planning to keep burrowing snails in the substrate in your tank I would be careful, snail medications of various kinds can get "attached" to it and will slowly kill any burrowing snail you try to introduce. Ive had this happen before with completely inert sand and NoPlanaria. I was also unable to keep Nerites alive but cant say 100% that it was caused by the tainted substrate.
> 
> ...


That's really interesting about the snails... everything online says that they're easy to keep but with the death of my first one I feel like I must be missing something! Especially since it seemed totally fine and  active for a week or so and then quite randomly died. And I've got rabbits thriving in the tank with no problems. I have lowered the temp a bit just in case the hot weather heated the tank to just a bit too much for them, otherwise I'm really not sure what to do. Of my new two (bought before the first died, from the same source), one is still very burrowed into the sand, and the other is exploring around. I did wonder whether there might be a reason that they're not more commonly kept, because they're very nice. Would love to keep these two alive and thriving if I can, will put a blanched leaf in and see if that gets their attention.

The medication and sand thing is a really good point, I'll remove the substrate and replace, I'd much rather do that than have dead shrimps w/ planaria, or dead snails w/ no planaria! 

Luckily the best bit of this tank is the mossy wood which is rather easy to remove and preserve. I was planning on taking out some of the plants into the new big scape, so I can wait 2 weeks and do this "rescape" at the same time as the big tank. I don't mind making the change, and maybe this time I'll try something different and do 100% sand with root tabs, one of the big problems will mulm in this tank is escaped soil from the underlayer, so this'll make it nice and clean again  

Should the snails have some sand in their holiday tank too? Maybe they'll like a bit of playsand to try.


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## Deano3 (11 Jun 2021)

Firstly love the tanks and journals, I had planeria a while ago and they killed off all my pest snails what I loved but then started on my nerites and killed them then my shrimp so certainly have to go.

I purchased a treatment off a knowledgeable man on ebay and he sent the treatment and I dosed never seen planeria since but it did kill off my shoul of rummy nose tetras aswel unfortunately .

Make sure don't take any plants out and place in other tanks incase planeria on there as that's how I ended up with them unfortunately. 

Best of luck
Dean

Sent from my SM-T595 using Tapatalk


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## shangman (12 Jun 2021)

Deano3 said:


> Firstly love the tanks and journals, I had planeria a while ago and they killed off all my pest snails what I loved but then started on my nerites and killed them then my shrimp so certainly have to go.
> 
> I purchased a treatment off a knowledgeable man on ebay and he sent the treatment and I dosed never seen planeria since but it did kill off my shoul of rummy nose tetras aswel unfortunately .
> 
> ...


This is great advice thank you! I made wabi kusa balls recently (see earlier in this journal), and just yesterday saw planeria trundling along with them in one of the bowls! It must've come from the moss in this tank that I used, so the wabis will be going in too before I treat everything, it would be so annoying to treat this tank then add the wabi kusas and get the problem all over again! And def won't be taking any other plants out before the treatment.

Sorry about your fish  These medications seem like quite a dice roll somtimes!


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## shangman (15 Jun 2021)

Waiting a bit to treat the planaria, until after the big scape is finished. In the meantime, the wabi kusas have done really well - leaving them to grow in bowls by the window really helped their growth.

Of the plants I used, the hydrocotyle tripartita and leucocephala worked the best. Of the mosses, the best was the mini Christmas moss, though I think the pelia will work well too given time (it looks great semi-emmersed in my other tank where ti was glue to wood). The Marsilea hirsuta that came in an invitro pot has also worked fantastically, I would definitely use invitro pots again for this kinda thing. The pinnatifida and rotala didn't convert from emersed and died, but the ludwigia ar mini has converted very quickly and easily. A great experiment, will definitely be doing more.

So, onto some pictures... I put them in two tanks, including my lesser photographed 45L, so I'll show you both!

The Mossy Spider first... this one didn't have any emergents in it before, when I planned the mossy spider I always wanted some emergents but didn't have the knowledge on how to do it... this technique has worked perfectly for what I originally envisioned. I think I will add another one or two to the back higher up so it's half in/half out of the water. And maybe raise these 2 up as well. Ignore the sad buce, it melted in another tank so I put it in here to keep it from melting any more. 

This tank needs a good clean up to get it looking really good again, I want to really tart it up once I've killed the planaria.









This is the 45L which is a tank I scaped with my dad. The back has a pocket of soil behind some horizontal wood (which is now covered in pelia and Christmas Moss), with lagenandra and eleocharis in it. It has had a small crypt but that didn't like it. I just aded the wabi kusa in front of the wood on the right side, to give the grass some variety. In the emergent wood in the middle there is usually an echinodorus, but the greenfly really hurt it a lot, so we've cut it back to keep them away. My dad wants to try SB Invigorator on them if they return, but that makes me go hmm.
















Behind the echinodorus is some tiny white fungus of some sort. Quite interesting, I love it when random stuff like this appears! Any idea what it could be?




Full tank shot, the camera makes it hard to photograph the top and bottom together. The scape is finally looking quite nice, though it's got sme very sad buce in it that I'll soon be nabbing for my hightech. I want to get it looking great for the end of summer, I did a big clearing of plants from it a few weeks ago and realised that it wasn't bad and algae-filled, it just needs some attention. Stuff I thought was algae ended up being 30+ java fern babies growing on the end of the leaves with their roots waving about!

One day I will take a proper photograph where you see that the light is an old wooden Chinese lantern.


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## shangman (10 Jul 2021)

​Well I'm VERY pleased this morning, as I just found a 4mm tiny baby white wizard snail crawling about the moss! As the first wizard snail died mysteriously, and the snails are generally so inactive I have been worrying that they weren't very happy, but I think this shows they are  They spend the majority of their time buried in the sand, occasionally crawling all over the glass, maybe one day every week, sometimes a bit more. Even when they're buried though, I can see their feeding tube sticking out slightly, which they use to filter feed. I have one more active, and one less active one. I think I have a male and a female - apparently you can tell from the eyestalks, the female one has 2 straight eyestalks, the male one has 1 straight eyestalk, the other is fat and curly. I don't know how long they take to have babies though, so they could've been pregnant when I bought them (just over 6 weeks ago), though a few weeks ago I did notice them crawling on eachother so perhaps that was ~the act. They don't lay eggs, they are like rabbit snails and give birth to small live babies. Fingers crossed this continues and I can spread them around to those that are interested!

This tank is looking much better atm, I've been doing weekly and sometimes twice weekly waterchanges with substrate vacuuming to get rid of all the mulm in the bottom, which is where the majority of the planeria live, so I've been able to get rid of quite a lot of them, several hundred easily. I still haven't treated the tank as I want to have the big one stable with all my fish in my 60L tank in there, so I can convert that to a temporary snail quarantine. And now I know there are precious baby snails, I want to make sure I'll be able to find and catch all the snails so they don't get killed by the treatment. 








I also moved some plants from the front to further back, which has really helped give some better balance, and during that moving found lots of clumps of moss at the back hidden in corners which was v useful for adding to the big tank. Even in lowtech with hard water the phoenix moss grows very well. The tank composition isn't fully there yet, I added a small brand on the right with moss which needs to grow in, but it's getting there slowly. I want to add some more buces, but will wait for them to grow in the big hightech rather than buy them, I like to keep things cheap in this tank.

I've culled the shrimp in the tank as I've been getting a lot of wild colours, who now live in my little waterlily pot-pond outside. I easily pulled 80+ shrimp, and only 6 or so were actually properly posh red, I need some more good quality ones to help with breeding rich red ones, I'm v jealous of people with properly red shrimps!! Can't complain too much though as my first cherries were like £10 for 30. I also had 4 lovely black shrimps in there somehow, who have gone into my new hightech, they look v nice so I've ordered some more, I thought the black colouring might make them less obvious to any greedy fish, at least less obvious than bright orange which was my second colour of choice.

The emergent wabi kusa are doing great, so much so I added another one on the right. I ended up raising them higher than what I showed you last time, so a bit of the ball is always out of the water. This has been super effective, I love them. I think all my tanks from now on will have a few emergent plants, it just feels so natural and pretty, and the shrimp really love to pick at them when I top the water up. My light is currently taped to the sloped ceiling to give enough light to the wabi kusas, really need to replace it at some point!


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## aec34 (10 Jul 2021)

@shangman how do you get your moss so tidy?! Is this topiary skill, or does the variety just grow like this? Mine is always v unruly - think I bought it as spiky moss


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## shangman (11 Jul 2021)

aec34 said:


> @shangman how do you get your moss so tidy?! Is this topiary skill, or does the variety just grow like this? Mine is always v unruly - think I bought it as spiky moss


I don't ever trim the moss, other than pulling off bits of undergrowth to put in other tanks when I think it could do with being less of a big blob. Never used scissors on a moss, it can just be pulled off (never just the tips, I pull off small clumps) and tied somewhere else it needs to be.

I think the topiary effect just the natural growing pattern of the moss, I originally used quite a few types in this tank but the one that's grown the best and now dominates is pheonix moss _Fissidens fontanus. _I did originally do a dry start on this tank which meant the moss is very spread out all over and creates the undulating blobs, but I'm sure it would be similar with tying as well. On the top left there is a ball shape from the wabi kusa which had some christmas + phoenix moss wrapped around them which does def enhance the pleasant blobby look. 

I have some mini pelia, when I put it in a big tank with high light it wasn't attached to anything but formed a pretty neat large blob, I think most mosses/liverworts like to be blobs, but phoenix moss does it on a small and neat scale.


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## dw1305 (12 Jul 2021)

Hi all, 


shangman said:


> Behind the echinodorus is some tiny white fungus of some sort. Quite interesting, I love it when random stuff like this appears! Any idea what it could be?


It might be a <"Bryozoan">.


shangman said:


> This tank is looking much better atm,


It looks lovely.

cheers Darrel


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## shangman (13 Jul 2021)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> It might be a <"Bryozoan">.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much Darrel 😍 That means a lot!! Even though I've got a big hightech tank now, I still want to make sure I try to makepretty lowtechs too, I'm convinced they're undersold. 

Could the Bryozoan live half in and half out of water? I'll do some more investigating on it, it's still growing there. I have a dream that one day some little toadstools will appear out of the moss too.


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## shangman (28 Jul 2021)

The Great Swapping​As you guys will know from reading this journal, I have the Mossy Spider, and also another tank which is 45L - which I shall now name "The Ferny Stump". Don't be fooled by the side-by-side, the left is half the size of the right!



 

​
Both of these tanks have problems with them, which I'm hoping to solve in one fell swoop by swapping over the stocking, and doing some light rescaping at the same time. On the upside, they both have fabulous emergent sections that I really love, so it's not all doom and gloom.

The problem with the mossy wood (tank on the left) is: planaria. That's it, but it's really annoying. Even after getting all the mulm out, the planaria are plentiful again, and my shrimp population isn't great. I can't treat the tank because of all the snails, and once I treat it if I want to keep snails in it again I have to change all the substrate, which is very annoying as I like the tank as it is.

The problems with the ferny stump are plentiful(tank on the right): loads of hard-to-eradicate algae, badly setup with a stiff plastic back that has trapped and killed fish, crystal shrimp don't breed, pygmy cories don't seem happy. Also, loads of greenfly on the emergents, might get some baby ladybirds for that.

My solution is to put all the animals from the mossy wood into a quarantine tank, and then dose it with no-planaria. A few days later I'll drain the tank, and refill it with rainwater that's perfectly suited to the crystals. I'll actually monitor the water this time, as I realised recently my dad wasn't bothering (no wonder they don't breed). I will also put in here the rescued black cherry shrimp from my <high-tech tank> who need a new home as Mr Daffodil the apisto has aquired a taste for them. Hopefully I can balance the water to keep both types of shrimp!

To catch the crystal shrimp - and the pygmy corydoras out of the ferny stump that I want to put in my hightech - I need to take out the wood and maybe some other plants. Once that's done, I'm going to dose this tank with no-planaria too (I saw one once in there, don't want them back again plz). After that - a medium-rescape - take out the back stiff plastic wall, and replace it with a black lava rock background I'm making myself. Vacuum out all the sand, and replace with new. Finally, fill it with tapwater, and add the snails, cherries and a few amanos in, who I'm hoping will also deal with the algae problem better than the crystals did (they did nothing). My dad is hoping at this point to get a betta.... we'll see.


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## shangman (28 Jul 2021)

Took out the shrimp and snails, dosed the tank with no-planaria and then had a SUDDEN THOUGHT ... 

This tank has rocks from a garden centre in it that are dark grey with white streaks through them.... Could they raise the kh of the water too high for crystals? Eep! 😬


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## Wookii (28 Jul 2021)

shangman said:


> Took out the shrimp and snails, dosed the tank with no-planaria and then had a SUDDEN THOUGHT ...
> 
> This tank has rocks from a garden centre in it that are dark grey with white streaks through them.... Could they raise the kh of the water too high for crystals? Eep! 😬



Yes, you’ll struggle to keep the pH below 7 if there’s calcium carbonate in the rocks!


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## ScareCrow (28 Jul 2021)

You can test them by putting some vinegar on them. If it bubbles it contains carbonate, which could raise your kh. If it doesn't it's fine. Sounds like the white might be quartz surrounded by a darker rock. I'm not a geologist so that's about the extent of my knowledge.


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## shangman (29 Jul 2021)

ScareCrow said:


> You can test them by putting some vinegar on them. If it bubbles it contains carbonate, which could raise your kh. If it doesn't it's fine. Sounds like the white might be quartz surrounded by a darker rock. I'm not a geologist so that's about the extent of my knowledge.





Wookii said:


> Yes, you’ll struggle to keep the pH below 7 if there’s calcium carbonate in the rocks!



Found one of the rocks in the garden and tested it with some vinegar this morning, nothing happened so hopefully it is quartz! Will keep an eye out on the parameters and wait a week between changing the water and adding shrimp to see if it does seem to be making a difference. Thanks for the advice!


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## shangman (31 Jul 2021)

Stage one is complete! The shrimps and snails were quarantined earlier in the week. The no planaria has worked an absolute treat, after 3 days of dosing I added a test sinking loach pellet and only a few tiny shrimp I couldn't catch arrived to eat. Previously the planaria were all over them. Also very pleased as the treatment doesn't seem to have affected my black worms at all, I thought they'd be wiped out but happily not.

Today I'll be do a 100% water change from tap to rainwater, and use that to suck out all the mulm at the bottom, plus a bit of carbon on the filter. Then test the parameters and get them good for the crystal shrimps.

I'm not sure if I should wait a week before adding the shrimps or not, since the tank is mature. Had anyone else moved crystal shrimp about? Another option is to do a big water change on their tank and add that water to this one, then top up with new water so it's more similar for them, I've heard they can be picky about being moved.


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## shangman (1 Aug 2021)

Another update - the No Planaria doesn't seem to have killed off all the Planaria yet.

I dosed according to the instructions for 3 days, with a decreasing dose each day. I hadn't seen any planaria since. Yesterday I did a 100% water change + added carbon to the filter to get rid of the treatment as I couldn't see any left. None went to the food I added to the tank on Friday, so I assumed complete death as they were usually very greedy. However after the 100% waterchange I slowly drained the water until only mulm was left so I could catch some remaining shrimplets, and I noticed that there were alive planaria amoungst the mulm. And now this morning I saw a very small planaria swimming along the glass of the tank. I'm hoping that the treatment has still worked, I think I read somewhere that it stops them from being able to eat/digest so they are alive but not a problem any more, and they will eventually die, but now I can't find that info any more. Is this a reasonable hypothesis? 

I also read that I've got to dose the tank for a second time in 2 weeks, to kill any hatched planaria eggs. So hopefully this second dose kills any that survived the first time. I was hoping to add the shrimps to the tank sooner than that, and the baby cherry shrimps were all fine. Any experience with crystals? 


I'm adjusting my water parameters today to get them just right for the crystals. I tested both my nano tanks, and in the one they're in now (the ferny stump) the kH is basically 0, no wonder they haven't been breeding. Interesting as we do add salty shrimp with each water change. I'm considering working out how to get it to the right parameters with a bit of tap water. I have a TDS meter somewhere that I need to get out and try.

The mossy spider:
pH - 6.6
Kh - 0 
Gh - 5 

The ferny stump:
pH - 6.4/6.5
Kh - 0
Gh - 5/6 (I think 5, but it was a very pale colour and became much mroe obvious at 6)

Crystals & bees
pH -  6 - 7
Kh - 2 - 6 (bees 0 - 4)
Gh - 4-8

Cherries
pH - 6.5 - 7.5
Kh - 4+
Gh - 6+

I'm hoping to keep the pH around where it is, hopefully below 7. As I want to keep crystals and cherries,  I am going for a kH of 4/5 and a GH of 6. Has anyone else kept them together?


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## shangman (1 Aug 2021)

Lol well that's the gh/kh mystery solved... When dad started getting the shrimp he bought a giant tub of BEE shrimp powder that only raises the GH, not the KH at all! Whoops!

I'm going to try just adding some tap water, a cupful at a time and testing it until the values are right I think. It's full of KH and GH.


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## shangman (3 Aug 2021)

Ended up doing quite a lot on Sunday!

Managed to get the water to kh2/3, gh6 and decided to try it at that for a while. It's hard to get the kh to 4 without making the GH too high. I'm hoping these params will be ok. Maybe one day I will cave and buy some kH buffer, but that would be very annoying.

I had to disassemble the Ferny Stump to get all the fish and shrimps out. Almost all the plants are attached to the wood or the back wall however, so that was pretty easy. Behind the wall we found 3 tiny baby black and white crystal shrimps, they have been breeding! We think this confirms that the 2 shy sparkling gouramis we kept with them have been eating babies that appear. At least one, but I think 2 or even 3 of the crystal females are berried, hopefully they didn't mind the move too much (proper drip acclimation) and will thrive in the new tank!

I also caught the 2 sparkling gouramis, along with 7 pygmy cories - we used to have 11 but there was no sign of any more. I had noticed the cories were less perky than they used to be in the Ferny Stump and I'm glad we did this move as their numbers have been dropping. I'll add an update about these creatures in my other tank - <The Nymph's Spring> v soon.

Once all the animals had been moved, we chopped off the bottom off the back emergent wall, and just used some thick plastic-covered wire (from a coat hanger) to make 2 hooks for the back piece to sit on. We also put the wood back further back, so there's a little more space at the front. The tank looks a little odd now, but hopefully without that wall which had loads of trapped algae in it I can get the tank back to health. The plan is (after a no-planaria treatment) to add my cherry shrimps and snails, and then add 6 or so amanos to help deal with the algae, along with raising the light up higher. I'm sure we'll do more too, but not sure yet. This tank is nice, but it's always been a bit awkward and difficult, so hopefully without that wall things will be easier.

My goal atm with all 3 of my tanks is to make them as easy as possible to maintain, while keeping them at their healthiest and most balanced. I know people say that small tanks can be really dodgy but so far my lowtech mossy spider has been the most easy to deal with, with minimal algae and deaths. I don't keep fish or difficult plants in it though so maybe that's why!

Here are some photos of the Mossy Spider right now, I'm really happy with it, the wabi kusa plants have really started to take over and it looks much more natural and dynamic, especially with the combo of pink and green. The shrimps don't come out into the front much yet, fingers crossed they do eventually, I did check and they are alive still lol!


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## PARAGUAY (3 Aug 2021)

Love the lush plants underneath with  emmerse grow not always easy🙂


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## shangman (3 Aug 2021)

PARAGUAY said:


> Love the lush plants underneath with  emmerse grow not always easy🙂


Thanks! It definitely helped to grow the undergrowth first for a few months before adding the wabi kusas, and they're all plants that do well in low light too (moss, buce, crypts) I do still clear it a bit weekly, at this point they can completely strangle any light at all rather quickly.


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## shangman (7 Sep 2021)

45L update:
The algae in this tank when we started to redo it was A LOT, so first thing we did was add the amanos which were unhappy with the co2 in my big tank, as well as raise the light another 15cm. Then we had to do 2 planaria treatments 2 weeks apart. This seemed to really kill a lot of the algae, there's hardly any now, hooray! Once that was done, it was time to give it a great clean, so we took out the main wood (all one piece and comes out easy), and the back wabi kusa wood "pond-edge", put the amanos in a bucket and siphoned out all the sand and everything. Gave the glass a big clean so it was good as new and added a layer of playsand to the bottom. While doing all of this, the wabi kusa wood was being soaked in water with SB invigorator because it was COVERED in greenfly, they had really taken over. Then that got a few rinses and well back in. The SB Invigorator really hit the greenfly hard, and the amanos are fine, so that's great!! 






At this point I added some twigs and took some photos, the epiphyte-wood is in front usually so you don't get to fully see the wabi wood back in all it's glory and it is very nice. I'm kinda thinking that a new tank might be in order, where this back wall goes in one with a black-water style tank, and the big main bit of epiphyte-covered wood goes in the other, theres just a lot of hardscape for one tank in it atm. It's also annoying because the wood is set forward to fit, so there is a lot of dead space at the back and not much in the front. So if anyone has an Aquael 49L spare I'm looking! Annoyingly you can only buy it online with a light and filter that we don't want for £134, so looking at getting a custom one made maybe (or maybe a slightly bigger one that's the same height). I wanted to start my new big wabikusa blackwater tank this year but that's been pushed back as we try to buy a house so tbh... I demand another lowtech nano. I have the light and filter and heater and hardscape already 



 


The tank looks soooo much better now, the playsand somehow makes it look much better, and while the wood was out I gave all the dodgy plants a nice trim. I especially like the trident java fern so I'd like to add a bit more of that, it grows vvvv slowly in this tank but it's really healthy. Also, that white fungus-like stuff I found before, has spread throughout the wood and is growing all over. Still very interesting, I do like mystery life appearing. My dad is also OBSESSED with some water sprite we bought, which as a floating plant is really beautiful - it puts out new fronds out of the water and keeps a lot of the leaf out of the water, it's a very nice halfin/halfout plant. Is a bit cramped in this tank but oh well. I'm so pleased that this tank is finally seeming to be balanced and healthy, we started it in Sep/Oct last year so it's almost a year old,it's been v interesting to learn how to balance it, with a very different challenge as it's by a window with an unusual light (a grow light LED set in a chinese lantern suspended above the tank lol)




Anyway, we added all the wood back, and added the snails who were in quarantine (all still alive hooray!). I also found another baby white wizard who was born in the quarantine tank. We've now ordered a beautiful silver alien longfin betta to go in the tank later this week, and I want to add some more amanos too to make sure the algae doesn't come back (and cos they're v funny). My dad wants to add blue cherry shrimps but I'm a bit hmmm about it with the betta so will try with some cull shrimp from my pond first to see if he's interested or not. I'm also adding a solid layer of floating plants to the top and the water will be lowered so the betta doesn't jump out, and will have clingfilm for the first few weeks.


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## Wolf6 (7 Sep 2021)

shangman said:


> 45L update:
> The algae in this tank when we started to redo it was A LOT, so first thing we did was add the amanos which were unhappy with the co2 in my big tank, as well as raise the light another 15cm. Then we had to do 2 planaria treatments 2 weeks apart. This seemed to really kill a lot of the algae, there's hardly any now, hooray! Once that was done, it was time to give it a great clean, so we took out the main wood (all one piece and comes out easy), and the back wabi kusa wood "pond-edge", put the amanos in a bucket and siphoned out all the sand and everything. Gave the glass a big clean so it was good as new and added a layer of playsand to the bottom. While doing all of this, the wabi kusa wood was being soaked in water with SB invigorator because it was COVERED in greenfly, they had really taken over. Then that got a few rinses and well back in. The SB Invigorator really hit the greenfly hard, and the amanos are fine, so that's great!!


This SB invigorator, do you have any idea what is in it? It sounds like a great option for my vase project-fly issue that I'm having atm.
Looks great again  green jungles like this just have this vibrant alive look that I can never get enough of.


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## shangman (7 Sep 2021)

Wolf6 said:


> This SB invigorator, do you have any idea what is in it? It sounds like a great option for my vase project-fly issue that I'm having atm.
> Looks great again  green jungles like this just have this vibrant alive look that I can never get enough of.


Thanks! I love a jungly tank too, I like a big dollop of wildness in my tanks, it makes them feel more magical I think, and also the creatures act like they feel more safe in them.

The ingredients I found online for the SB are "Foliar Lattice, Linear Sulphanate, 0.074% w/w Iron Chelate (Fe), 1.914% w/w Nitrogen (N), natural products." So idk if that tells us much.

My dad uses it all the time on houseplants, he is a professional gardener who likes to be eco and finds it really effective. It's an insecticide which is physical rather than chemical, instead of chemically poisoning the insects it has a tiny structure that blocks their breathing pores, so if a creature comes along and eats them they aren't harmed at all, and they don't become immune to it either. I have amanos in the tank and they didn't react at all, and I used to try spraying it on the plants when I had crystal shrimp in with no problems. I knew it was an experimental treatment but my dad was confident it would be fine so gave it a go!

I think it's easier to use on houseplants with big leaves than delicate emergent aquarium plants though, you have to make sure all the plant gets sprayed/covered or some won't die and they breed so quickly, they are great at hiding amongst the hydrocotyle leaves. This time dipping worked v well though cos it was infested throughout, and the following rinse in tap in sure helped get rid of extras too.


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## Wolf6 (7 Sep 2021)

shangman said:


> Thanks! I love a jungly tank too, I like a big dollop of wildness in my tanks, it makes them feel more magical I think, and also the creatures act like they feel more safe in them.
> 
> The ingredients I found online for the SB are "Foliar Lattice, Linear Sulphanate, 0.074% w/w Iron Chelate (Fe), 1.914% w/w Nitrogen (N), natural products." So idk if that tells us much.
> 
> ...


I've ordered some and will try it, I'm getting really fed up with these little flies.


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## shangman (7 Sep 2021)

Wolf6 said:


> I've ordered some and will try it, I'm getting really fed up with these little flies.


That's great, good luck I hope it works for your project!! The flies are the worst tbh, I just pulled out a load of fly-infested hydrocotyle from my nano tank too (I could've SB'd it but they were looking straggly anyway so needed a change). The flies seem to appear in every emergent planted tank I try, I find it so weird that they're not talked about more!


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## shangman (12 Sep 2021)

Another lil update on the Mossy Spider...




The hydrocotyle in the wabi kusa got completely overrun with green fly, and the ludiwigia, while growing great, was taking over under water and getting very long, so I've pruned them back to the balls. I'm going to replant them soon, and I'd like to try some new plants with it too to keep experimenting. Let me know if anyone has any random stems they're happy to give me to try! Above is a photo before I cut it back where the floating plants and wabi plants just looked sooo vibrant and lovely. The red root floaters have gone red now and IDK why but it looks fabulous!!



 


The rest of the tank is doing great, I've had 2-3 lots of baby crystal shrimps born, and now my big red female (seen above) is berried, so that's a big success on the water parameters and no heater!! I'm thinking of adding a few (not many they're expensive af) high quality red and black crystals in there to up the quality of the babies. Really glad this tank is very stable now, I only do small waterchanges every 2 weeks and everything si good with no deaths since I added the shrimp. The plants are growing well too  I did "trim" the moss a week ago, it grows very well and super thick. It's really good for making Japanese garden-style blobs, and actualyl I think is better in the lowtech than in my hightech where it's fluffier and less dense.








My next plans for the tank are to upgrade the light at some point to something higher-up so I can fit more wabi kusa plants in, and to decorate/upgrade the little stand. The stand is very practical for getting the tank to the right height for viewing, but it's really basic and I want something more decorative


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## ScareCrow (12 Sep 2021)

I really like the mix of floating plants and emergent growth, great mix of colour.


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## aec34 (12 Sep 2021)

Ahhh more moss envy! Might have to try and beg some off you for my next tank 😜


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## shangman (13 Sep 2021)

ScareCrow said:


> I really like the mix of floating plants and emergent growth, great mix of colour.


Thanks! I'm really enjoying cultivating plants that mix at the waterline like this, it is very easy and so effective at giving a natural feel. Wish my bigger tank had less flow sometimes so that could be filled with more lovely floating plants. 

And I'm so pleased about the colour too, I didn't really think I could get such great colour in a tiny lowtech with a not particularly powerful light! I suspect the redness is stronger because the tank is 80% rainwater and not much ferts (a bit of TNC complete weekly) so it's quite nitrate limited. I added a little ludwigia red and hydrocotyle to the hightech on bit of the wood and they're growing well, but the ludiwigia is a deep green rather than red/pink/purple. 






aec34 said:


> Ahhh more moss envy! Might have to try and beg some off you for my next tank 😜


I'm sure I can rip some clumps off for you, but be warned there is some sort of long hair algae amongst it. It's not spyro, if I see any and pull at it long strong strands of it come out so it is quite satisfying and easy to remove if it grows more, a bit like that pond algae. tbh I've decided to have an easy life by not caring about it, but you might care and that's fair enough!!

I do have another nice little plant you might be interested in, a lovely little nymphoides floater (not sure of the actual name) from my LFS which gives real waterlily vibes but with small leaves (5cm across max for me). The main leaf in the photo is dying but it's very old now and got very battered in my hightech flow - I wanted it for my hightech but the flow is too strong, it needs something more gentle and it's just in my quarantine tank atm. Each leaf is it's own plant, and it forms runner leaves to spread, the roots are nicely bright green and pretty with a cool structure. Happy to send you some for free and well as the moss, I owe you for those floaters for my tank a few months ago! 

I only have the space to keep a bit of the plant so happy to give away some mature runners.


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## CSouthgate (13 Sep 2021)

looking good still, i still cant keep fissidens xD


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## aec34 (13 Sep 2021)

Thanks @shangman, that’s super kind! I’ll drop you a message 🙂


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## shangman (24 Sep 2021)

<In my other tank the Nymph's Spring>, things keep going wrong and massively pissing me off, but I got a big reminder that tanks take time, they take some fiddling to get the balance right, and quite a bit of experimenting and reshuffling. Sometimes I need to remember I've only been in the hobby for a bit more of a year and I can't just magically be a fancy aquascaper immediately! 😂 The Ferny Stump (which is now this journals B-tank, cos I was too nervous to make a journal when I first set it up) is a year old, and it is _just right_ at the moment. Everything's grown in, I raised the light a little and the algae all went away, replaced the sand... and it's now fully stocked - with rabbit and wizard snails, amano shrimp, some chilli rasboras and a fabulous longfin silver alien betta named Lord Darcy. It's very watachable at the moment and every time I go in the room I get trapped by it for at least 5 minutes, which for me is a sign that things are going right. I don't even need to make a mental list of all the things I need to do to it any more, hooray!








The betta we got 2 weeks ago, he's absolutely stunning and not a mean one at all. It's my first betta and he's so funny and was immediately nto afraid of us which was great. When we got him we lowered the water - supposedly temporarily - so he wouldn't jump out, but once we lowered it we realised that it looks much better like that, cos it shows off the emergent area so well (and no sad jumping to worry about either). He's now named Lord Darcy because he swims around being dramatic, looking brooding and giving off Lord-of-the-Manor vibes, though he's actually very gentle and sweet - not a mean betta at all.

The snails have come from my other nano, and very much enjoy eating the big pile of dead leaves at the back. They are comically huge compared to the chili rasboras. I'm (semi) planning to have another nano tnak that actually is fully hard water for them so the chillis can have even softer water.
The amanos are protesting jumpers from my big hightech tank, as well as a group of juveniles who will grow up here. Some will get moved over when they are big enough to not be eaten by Mr Daffodil in my big tank.
The chilis we got last weekend and are just perfect, they really complete the tank. Their movement is so interesting and cute, I'm feeding them on bbs and livefood to get them to colour up perfectly.

The plants are doing well too, the underwater is just full of anubias and mini & trident java fern, plus a bit of interesting moss and a weird freshwater broyozoan coral-like thing that's taken over the wood. Also got a load of common ceratopteris floating, which throws up these great half-in half-out fronds that I'm a big fan of. Darcy is also a big fan of them too, this tank is quite dark from all the emergents and the light being high up to avoid algae, but the fish love it! Photographing the underwater bit is really hard because it's very dark compared to the bright top but I got out my boyfriend's camera and attempted some photos. It doesn't zoom which makes it a real pain up the proverbial!! Next need to attempt to photograph the chillis.... send good luck to me LOL












This tank has been quite neglected at times and often a pain in the backside, but now it's a really nice reminder that we will get there.... eventually. Also it has a lovely new tiny Nepenthes orchid perched at the top of the wood to keep experimenting


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## Dogtemple (24 Sep 2021)

this looks great, really inspiring stuff here.  the growth is so good it's kinda putting me off high tech ideas!


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## shangman (24 Sep 2021)

Dogtemple said:


> this looks great, really inspiring stuff here.  the growth is so good it's kinda putting me off high tech ideas!


Yesssss, come on over to the dark(er) side. Hightech is great, but definitely not the only way to a lovely luscious tank!

Another reason to be put off is the incoming CO2 shortage that's apparently happening


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## Karmicnull (24 Sep 2021)

I'm on completely the same page wrt Bettas.  They have huge character.  Ours (Elton) is the benign but somewhat grumpy ruler of his 60L cube.  I can never quite work out whether his inability to take thawed bloodworms etc. unless they are (literally) spoon fed to him is disdain or just plain dumb.


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## shangman (25 Sep 2021)

Karmicnull said:


> I'm on completely the same page wrt Bettas.  They have huge character.  Ours (Elton) is the benign but somewhat grumpy ruler of his 60L cube.  I can never quite work out whether his inability to take thawed bloodworms etc. unless they are (literally) spoon fed to him is disdain or just plain dumb.


They are so funny! I am used to intelligent fish because of my apistos, but even though they are fiercely and curiously intelligent, they aren't quite so pandering as my betta is. He is so interactive and a strangely expressive face given it's so tiny. He's quite like yours - a benign and brooding ruler, who also doesn't seem to see food as much as my greedy quick apistos. Lovely fish, a very happy addition to the family! Also very pleased he isn't a shrimp monster like Mr Daffodil, I'd heard they can be violent shrimp-destroyers but he completely ignores the shrimp. He was fascinated by the chilis when I added them, but happily they don't care abotu eachother either and all swim at the front a lot of the time.


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## shangman (7 Nov 2021)

I've accidentally gone from a total shut in to an international jetsetter, went to the Caribbean last week, and now tomorrow off to Venice! Luckily it's not on my dime (I literally couldn't afford it lol), haven't been on holiday in 12 years so it's such a big treat.

Sadly have been too snowed inbetween with work and recovering to start that botanicals thread yet! Next week, I promise... there will be leaves!

Here's a pair of arty pics from both of the tanks in this journal to tide you over in the meantime 








S


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## shangman (1 Dec 2021)

​This is my 23L nano a month or so ago looking great, but it has been getting completely overgrown recently, and I thought to help with that I should cut off a bit of the wood at the back so the moss has more space in the front. Of course I cut it off, and in doing so broke the wood (it was always 2 pieces stuck together) and then couldn't work out how to get it to look right again. So then I did a sorta-rescape where I just repositioned the wood were it was ok and gave the fissidens a much-needed haircut. I now have a lot of spare fissidens lol.  One of the reasons the tank has been getting so overgrown is that I bought a Chihiros £70 light for it, it's very nice and really brings out the reds and pinks and just generally makes the plants grow like crazy, hooray!

However I'm not reallllllllyyyyyyy into it any more? IDK I think I might do a bigger rescape of the tanks, taking the best bits and redoing the rest. All 3 of my tanks heavily feature mossy wood, maybe I don't need EVERY tank to be mossy wood time. My favourite part is this tank is the top, but I can't see it that well as it's high up on the desk.



 



The tank doesn't have a heater any more because the crystal shrimp seemed to die in their previous tank at temps of 23+. I also added some tancho ricefish temporarily which will go in a pond outside in late spring (the pond is new and doesn't have much plant cover so thought it best to keep them inside this winter), if they have babies maybe the fry will live in here idk they are very cute fish but I don't want the bioload to be too large. Also don't worry about the white dots on the ricefish I was very worried at first it was ich but they have all gone away on their own.

I'm thinking I have 4 options. Option 1 is to take the nymphaea micrantha and nympaea gerfleckt which are currently in the back kinda hidden in my big tank into this one where I can see them and base the tank around that. I'm not sure if they will be happy in an unheated tank though. A B option for this is to pinch a bit of the helvola lily living in a pot pond outside and use that as it would be happy in cold water and apparently grows nice flowers.

Option 2 is to lower the waterline so I have a bit more space under the light and make it a really emergent pond-style tank like Shrimpery on Instagram. I had already had the thought that I could use some nice outdoor pond plants as emergents in this tank because of the colder water, and then I realised he does this and it looks great. I would merge them with the plants that look best in the tank atm like the very pink ludwigia, maybe with just some nice stones holding in soil.

Option 3 is to do both, having the emergent style with lilies at the front/coming out from under, tho it is a tiny tank so lol at that maybe.

Option 4 is that I fiddle with it again and just change what I have, because it used to look nice and could look nice again with a better haircut, repositioning and take for things to grow, but idk I'm getting itchy feet.

What do you guys think?


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## Courtneybst (1 Dec 2021)

shangman said:


> Option 1 is to take the nymphaea micrantha and nympaea gerfleckt which are currently in the back kinda hidden in my big tank into this one where I can see them and base the tank around that


This was the first thing that came to mind! Maybe like a mini island style scape with the lillies as a centerpiece since they don't get too large.


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## bazz (1 Dec 2021)

Are those lilies really that small that you could plant two in a 30cm cube?
Cheers!


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## mort (2 Dec 2021)

I think if you are getting itchy feet then it's time to revamp a little. I like the idea of the emergent growth but love a lily.


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## shangman (2 Dec 2021)

bazz said:


> Are those lilies really that small that you could plant two in a 30cm cube?
> Cheers!


It is lowtech so the leaves won't get toooooo huge, and in my big tank the leaves are maybe 5cm MAX, often 3-4cm, so if I was strict with trimming them I think it would be ok. I'm sorta intrigued by how nice or annoying it would be now. I'll probably buy an extra red tiger lotus too, one thing I really loved in my original tank was mixing the red tiger lotus with the ludwigia red making it look like a fancy more complex single plant. Only 3 types of lily together in a 23L lols.



Courtneybst said:


> This was the first thing that came to mind! Maybe like a mini island style scape with the lillies as a centerpiece since they don't get too large.


Yeah I'm thinking like a tall island to get some emergents in the back, with lilies as the main/only plants grown underwater in soil. Maybe a pile of rocks to support the emergents with some holes to get the lilies in the soil the rocks hold. I'm also really feeling some nice gravel and mixed sized little rocks for the base instead of sand. I really like the grey pebbles @Ady34 uses in one of his scapes, and actually now looking at his Instagram also the mixed colour pebbled in another scape too! The grey ones I think might really contrast colourwise nicely with the lilies and mixed colours, but then the other pebbles would look quite naturalist hmmm

 

The big question is which rocks? I have some quite nice rocks in this tank already that have never really been seen (they're rounded grey with white veins), maybe I can reuse them and make them more of a feature, I have extras that are more grey less white veining in the garden still. I'm just trying to rescape while keeping it cheap af lol!! Also the water is soft so can't use any nice rocks which affect the hardness. Might message Riverwood and see what they have and if they have anything that would work just in case.

I already have some soil leftover from my big tank, have p much all the plants I'd need, just a question of how it all works together! How exciting 



mort said:


> I think if you are getting itchy feet then it's time to revamp a little. I like the idea of the emergent growth but love a lily.


I think I'm gonna have to try both in this ridic small space... It's a challenge, but I'll enjoy trying it! if it goes wrong can always simplify.


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## shangman (24 Apr 2022)

Haven't done an update on this tank in a while! Mostly cos it's so easy, nothing much goes wrong (occasional greenfly mean I have to trim back a few emergents) and it looks consistantly lovely. I was thinking of rescaping, but now I'm redoing my main tank it's nice to have a consistent nice little tank. For a lowtech it does just fabulously, things grow well and colourful with very little algae.

I have 10 ricefish in the tank now, which are sort-of waiting to go outside, but also I've grown very attached to them and don't really want to put them out there. The fish have been breeding and laying eggs (I tidied the tank up a  bit 2 days ago and had to inspect all the greenery for eggs, there was lots of the mosses). So this may just become a ricefish fry raising tank instead once the adults go outside. Just waiting for the waterlily's leaves outside to reach the surface for some cover. Ricefish are awesome, they're quite simple and a bit stupid, but also they are greedy and not shy AT ALL which makes them v charming, and they seem super hardy.. I haven't lost a single one yet, despite them being ni the same room as the tank of death.

I'm thinking ricefish might become one of those things I like to collect, since they're so easy to look after and hardy, and can live outside. There are lots of beautiful colours that are v hard to get hold of here, so they'd be a nice fish to keep and breed over a long period of time. I really feel like they should be more popular and cheaper, perfect for cute pond bowls on patios and balconies, and survive all our UK weather.

This first pic is just of the tank in-situ, where you can see my skylight is above and to the left of it. I'm thinking of growing some climbing plants like philodendron from the tank up and around the skylight, and installing some small hooks for the plants to be supported by, I feel like that would be cute. I def want _Philodendron micans_, which was lovely in my big tank, but maybe want a second one too? What plant would you guys use? Ideally something resistant to greenfly.




 






















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## mort (24 Apr 2022)

Philodendron micans lemon lime might work if you don't get strong sunlight through the skylight as could philodendron cebu blue. Scindapsus pictus has nice leaf texture and you might get some massive leaves as it climbs.


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## shangman (9 Jun 2022)

mort said:


> Philodendron micans lemon lime might work if you don't get strong sunlight through the skylight as could philodendron cebu blue. Scindapsus pictus has nice leaf texture and you might get some massive leaves as it climbs.


great suggestions thank you!! This tank really needs something extra to make it fabulous again... otherwise I'm getting bored


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## shangman (9 Jun 2022)

I've changed the name of this journal so I can post my most recent lowtech nano tank on here too. Love nano tanks 

This is a bowl from Riverwood Aquatics that I got for Christmas along with the light & stand. I didn't do much with it for about two months, until I realised I had a great bit of wood in the garden for it, a piece leftover unused from the Nymph's Spring tank. And then I realised I also had a 9L bag of mini tropica soil leftover from that tank too, and that it would be very easy and cheap to set up the bowl already having this stuff, + it's small enough to only need a few plant pots to get started. Then my dad realised that he could attach a selection of mini orchids to the emersed wood, and that was that. The inspiration was a James Wong waterlily bowl, so we added a helvola to this tank too. It's another one of my collaborations with my dad.

All this happened, I planned to post, and then the whole fishTB saga started and I kept this tank as my private little bowl of calm. Not really out of any intention, I just didn't have the energy, but at that time this lil tank warmed my heart a bit. There is a lot of hair algae in the tank, but I'm forbidden to worry about it, especially as it gets light from the window, so it's to be expected. The growth has been fantastic, I even have blyxa thriving in there, along with mini hairgrass, lilaeopsis, marsilea, hyogrphila lancea, and a selection of cuttings from friends. It's been really enjoyable to set up a pretty little tank that fits in with the room so nicely. So nicely that I've bought a second, more spherical bowl to go in the same room 

The orchids are.... er... I don't know, I'll have to check with my dad later. So far all are growing, so we hope for some flowers at some point. My dad used to collect orchids about 10 years ago, but the collection was hard to view so he got bored and sold them. Doing a collection like this above a tank works much better - it gives a bit of extra humidity (we do also spray daily), and goes nicely with the pond below, giving great interest. One day I might rescape under the water, but above the water will be there for a good few years so they can really thrive. There is bun moss around the orchids, which is doing very well with the daily spray.

In the bowl I keep a selection of rice fish, and about 25 crystal shrimps which very annoyingly all live around the back. It's especially rude as without them I could dose some algae fix and get rid of the spyro, but heyho. Remember... bowl of calm!


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## Wookii (9 Jun 2022)

Very nice - what is that mini lily?


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## shangman (9 Jun 2022)

Wookii said:


> Very nice - what is that mini lily?


_Nymphaea 'Pygmaea Helvola'._ We also have one outside in a pot where it's doing much better with 30+ tiny purple leaves, but in this tank just a few leaves is fine with me, more with overwhelm. Fingers crossed for a flower one day, I added 2 root tabs last week to encourage.


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## shangman (18 Sep 2022)

A while ago I rescaped the 45L, taking out the original piece of wood and move all the plants onto a new, twiggier bit of wood my dad picked out at Riverwood Aquatics. I did it partly because the duckweed was in the emergent moss and wouldn't go away, and all my chilli rasboras disappeared which was very mysterious. Current thought is my betta ate them? Though I never saw any suggestions that he might, pure guesswork, he never ate any shrimps though they were fine. Anyway, this change of wood caused the tank to crash completely, most of the shrimps died and I had a massive smelly bacterial bloom. I didn't take any photos because it just didn't look like much, just very grey which was annoyingly reflective. It looked like the upsidedown, luckily my betta renamed Vecna and the one remaining chili rasbora survived luckily and eventually it cleared with some Seachem Clarity & filter floss. A few weeks after, decided to try some ember tetras as I thought the betta can't fit them in his big mouth, but in the 45 I literally never saw them, they were so shy and hid in the wood (which has a lot of good hiding places), even during feeding time. They did survive though!

After all that palava, I was looking for something to improve it, and so I jumped at the chance to buy one of the 60cm tanks @LondonAquascaper was selling on here, dimensions 60x30x36. I moved the epiphyte-covered wood from the 45L, added some Wio Wetland Artist Pale as an experiment (I can't quite tell if it is nutrious for plants from the description tbh, but it looks nice), then added the hydrocotyle-marsilea-eleocharis carpet that was in my 90cm stickleback tank to this one too. Huzzah, with a bit of scape recycling I have an immediately fully planted look! Added in a few beautiful extra buces from a lovely friend (including the fabulous big one on the right side), and a few extra plants from trusty Wildwoods (Cyperus helferi, Ludwigia helminthorrhiza and Ceratopteris thalictroides), and we're going places! Lowtech, and looking p lush.

Immediately this tank has been a pleasure... it's in a much better spot with some sunlight on one side, the spotlight light I pinched from my dad's terrarium is fabulously shimmery, and the tetras are loving it. Now when I feed they are VORACIOUS. I can lie on the sofa and watch it for maximum enjoyable relaxing viewing too. Last week I went to the LFS to get some marine stuff and I was randomly offered some free mixed red schooling fish and shrimps that had just been given in from a customer who was moving country. It looked like mostly embers, so I took them. It turned out to have embers, some ruby tetras and two beautiful coral red pencilfish! All very healthy and thriving together now. I would love more of the pencils, not sure if these ones will be moved to the big South American tank when that's set up in a bigger group, or if I could add 4 females to this tank and keep it a smaller group. They're just so ££££ that a bigger group is a bit of a stretch.

Of course a week in my beautiful blue betta completely disappeared, nothing can ever go completely well apparently. I think sadly it might have jumped out, and become a delicious snack for one of the kittens  The water line isn't very high, but I guess in a new place it needs to be covered for longer!


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## Conort2 (18 Sep 2022)

shangman said:


> turned out to have embers, some ruby tetras and two beautiful coral red pencilfish!


What a result! Lovely fish and even better considering how much coral reds go for.


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## shangman (18 Sep 2022)

Conort2 said:


> What a result! Lovely fish and even better considering how much coral reds go for.


Seriously!! I think all-in-all I got about £50 worth of fish, most of that being the pencils. I guess quarantining them all and dividing them up in the shop would've been a hassle with not enough profit, and I'm a regular customer enough that they were like w/e. They all seem very healthy too, haven't lost any, they all look great and no illness behaviour. Luckily got at least 6 ruby tetras in there too so don't massively need to add numbers, and they school with the embers constantly.

Of course now I want more of those pencils  Their behaviour and movement and stripey colour is so hypnotic, they really stand out. I think I have two males, they both look very similar, but don't fight much luckily. Would really love some females. They give a love of extra vibrancy to this tank, but they might go in the 90cm if they seem to be getting roudy. IDK I might try to see if I can get a deal somewhere, I've noticed them in a few shops and I guess cos of the price they never seem to shift.

Pencils have such a hold on me omg, I'm weak before their stripy glory.


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## dw1305 (18 Sep 2022)

Hi all,


shangman said:


> ast week I went to the LFS to get some marine stuff and I was randomly offered some free mixed red schooling fish and shrimps that had just been given in from a customer who was moving country. It looked like mostly embers, so I took them.





Conort2 said:


> What a result!


Certainly is a  result, <"_Axelrodia riesei_"> is a sort after fish as well.

cheers Darrel


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## The Miniaturist (18 Sep 2022)

It looks really beautiful, I love a group of tiny fish darting around the plants, they always seem busy doing something!
Your pencilfish are real stunners, a large shoal would be fabulous!


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