# 40cm Cube - Re Scape



## geaves (5 Mar 2012)

I bought the cube and light from ebay, was sold as marine/tropical but it was originally purchased by the seller as a marine but never used.

So on Saturday along with the wife (she's really keen on this) we set off and purchased the following:

Eheim 2012
Heater
Tetra Plant Complete 
Gravel

Plants:
1 x Echinodorus Bleheri
1 x Echinodorus Ozelot Green
2 x Limnophila Sessiliflora
1 x Hygrophila Corymbosa
1 x Bacopa

These were purchased on the advice from the LFS we went to.


SAM_0963 by geaves, on Flickr


SAM_0959 by geaves, on Flickr


SAM_0956 by geaves, on Flickr

Having looked at this tonight, and viewed some more journals and images on here and on the Dutch forum we have decided this requires a rethink. i.e. types of plants we should be using and grouping etc.....but initially first attempt isn't too bad.


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## Antipofish (5 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Its not too bad at all for a first try.  One thing you will find is that you do need to try different things out.  If I may, I would consider rethinking that gravel if you ever consider planting tiny or carpetting plants ... something a bit finer will be easier to use.  Also if you slope your gravel up from front to back it gives the impression of depth.  Needs to be 3 times the height at the back than at the front usually, though this is personal choice.  Try to thing about having the taller plants at the back, medium in the middle and smaller at the front, with a bit of variation at the side if you want it.  Does not have to be totally uniform.  None of what I have said is meant as a criticism of what you have done already though  Im just passing on stuff I have learned from the few months I have been doing it too.  Im a beginner myself hehe.  Have fun.


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## geaves (6 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Thx, your being too kind....  the tank came with some reef sand which I was going to use, but with some further investigation on Saturday evening this is a no no. So Sunday it was a quick dash to the nearest lfs, so what we need is something finer from the centre to the front, and moving some of the gravel from the front to back, although I hoped to achieve the gradient with planting. So far even after a couple of days there is some noticeable growth which I'm amazed at.

Also I think I need to divide the tank mentally for planting, perhaps even a drawing or making physical layout like I have seen on the forum would have been better rather dive in, well at least the tank is cycling. So more thought at next attempt....must admit though I'm chuffed the wife wants to get involved....that's half the battle over...


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## Antipofish (6 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Hi mate.  You need a gradient with your plant height as you say, but you cannot achieve the effect of substrate gradient by planting accordingly.  Its linked to perspective and refraction.  Water makes the tank look smaller front to back.  By banking up the substrate this counters the effect (a bit like the parallax effect when you look down a long road) and makes the tank look deeper front to back again, thus countering the affect of the water   With a flat substrate, tanks almost look like the substrate dips away at the back sometimes.  Its all a matter of choice though. 

If you dont have a planted substrate you could consider root tabs for those amazon swords too, they are hungry blighters.

Glad the missus is interested.  As you say... half the battle


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## geaves (20 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Having replanted and replaced the gravel.....after 10 days we now have this....


Cube 2 by geaves, on Flickr

however, I'm seeing some melt on the limnophila....don't know if you can make it out looks like a black blob behind the Alternanthera.


Cube 3 by geaves, on Flickr

this was always going to be a temporary and I'm now thinking of replacing it but I don't know what with, I've started an order with AE for some tools and would like to add replacement plant/s to this, I have another water change due on Thursday so would be a good time to do some replanting etc.....


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## Iain Sutherland (20 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Looking a lot more structured now, which i like. Are you feeding the plants anything??
Melt is usually caused but low co2/flow, obviously in a low tech this is harder to resolve, especially in a nano.  
With my shrimp nano i tried plenty of plants to see what would work then built from that, low light plants will obviously produce the best results... crypts, anubias, microsorums etc plenty to choose from.
What sort of light is it running and for how long?


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## geaves (20 Mar 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*



			
				easerthegeezer said:
			
		

> Looking a lot more structured now, which i like. Are you feeding the plants anything??
> Melt is usually caused but low co2/flow, obviously in a low tech this is harder to resolve, especially in a nano.
> With my shrimp nano i tried plenty of plants to see what would work then built from that, low light plants will obviously produce the best results... crypts, anubias, microsorums etc plenty to choose from.
> What sort of light is it running and for how long?



Adding 2ml Easy Carbo and 5ml of Aqua Nourish from AE daily, and the water changes are still 50% every 2 days.

Was thinking of adding Eustralis stellata, again from AE, removing the Limnophila seeing what can be rescued and re planting in a gap right at the back next to the sword, but this time plant in a tight group.

The lighting is here but I'm only using the 'white' for 7-8 hours daily.....this is where I think I'm struggling to understand lighting requirements. I would like to replace this with a TMC tile of some description.

What I normally do is the water change, then add ferts, then turn on the lighting about an hour later.


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## geaves (1 Apr 2012)

*Re: 40cm Cube*

Re scaped yesterday and added some hardscape.....once completed water was cloudy, not too worried see what it was like this morning.

This morning water clear, like crystal, well pleased.....2.00pm added 2ml of EasyCarbo 1hr before lights on, have been doing this since initial start up. 

At lights on I noticed the water was cloudy, 'milky' in appearance and a film had appeared on the surface, I had noticed this before but just assumed it was new tank syndrome. Now I'm not so sure and I'm wondering if it's the dose of EasyCarbo that I have been adding on a daily basis. Should I continue with this or stop it completely?

Mean't to add some pic's, but I'm really struggling with this due to the position of the tank, keep getting reflections from everywhere...


Rescape_1 by geaves, on Flickr

Front


ReScape by geaves, on Flickr

Side


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## geaves (16 Jun 2012)

Decided last week to totally start from scratch, but kept all the plants, water, filter etc, temporarily re housed the fish.

Used 2cm of John Innes No3 as the base covered with greenhouse mesh and topped with the original gravel (washed) 2cm's. Appears to have been a total mistake, the outbreak of diatoms is explosive, nothing on the glass just the plants and on some leaves it will not rub off. Also experiencing I assume is 'melt' some leaves appear to be losing their 'top coat' leaving a whitish leaf, this is happening on old as well as new leaves. 
Been doing 10ltr water changes daily and have reduced the lighting down from 2x5hr periods to 1x5hr period, lighting being an Eco Aqua LED.
TBH I don't what to do to try and reverse or at least rescue what I have left.


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## Antipofish (16 Jun 2012)

From my understanding, adding John Innes No3 will have caused an ammonia spike as it is laden with it to start.  Im not sure your filter will have managed to deal with that and I imagine its what has caused the diatom outbreak.  I could be miles away from being correct as well though.  

What I do know is that I had the same type of what I called "dirty algae" and I had to wait a good few weeks of twice weekly water changes and trying to clean the plant leaves for it to go.  It did go eventually but I am not sure whether it was just because of time and what I said above or a combination of managing to get my CO2 right at the same time.

Good luck sorting it. If you dont get any suggestions you could always PM Clive as he is a complete Guru


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## geaves (16 Jun 2012)

Antipofish said:
			
		

> What I do know is that I had the same type of what I called "dirty algae"



Never thought of ammonia, although the fish are showing no signs of stress, the "dirty algae" hits the nail on the head, as the second tank which has just 4 plants in it in pots gets diatoms and that's just a dust both on the glass and the plants and that's easy to remove. I'm hoping that one of our 'natural soil experts' can throw some light on what I might do before I lose all the plants......but at least I now know what might happen with the second tank as I want to use JI No3 on that as well.

Thanks a lot, some food for thought.


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## geaves (18 Jun 2012)

Hm! It's not ammonia took a sample of water to a local lfs for testing, ammonia was 0.05ppm, there were 2 high reading's phosphate was off the chart, that's probably due to JI, and the ph was showing 8.4 higher than I expected would have expected lower due to the hardness of the water here.


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## geaves (25 Jun 2012)

Well......Sunday morning and it looked like Chernobyl....but the fish are Ok have rehoused these in the other tank....and started again.....bought some plants locally and JBL Aquasoil Plus, managed to rescue a couple of swords with a few new leaves and most of the crptys, albeit most had just a couple of new growth leaves.

Never mind....if at first you don't succeed.....as they say


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## geaves (4 Jul 2012)

This is becoming frustrating.....the 'dirty algae' is back....and it's appeared in a matter of a couple of days, with no C02 I have increased the Easycarbo dose....but I'm beginning to wonder if it's a lighting issue...an Eco Aqua Led on for 2x4hrs with a break of 2hrs.


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## geaves (4 Jul 2012)

Has no one got any suggestions....


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## Antipofish (4 Jul 2012)

why do you have a break in your lighting ?  Apparently from what I have read before, algae is more likely to be caused by on off cycling of lighting than a continuous photo period.


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## geaves (4 Jul 2012)

Antipofish said:
			
		

> why do you have a break in your lighting ?  Apparently from what I have read before, algae is more likely to be caused by on off cycling of lighting than a continuous photo period.


It was something I picked up on from a journal.....2 lots of lighting periods. Ok I could try and leave it on for a single period of time and monitor it. Thx.


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## Antipofish (4 Jul 2012)

geaves said:
			
		

> Antipofish said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think if a poll was taken 99% would go for a continuous photo period.  But it would be useful if someone could shed some more technical light on this... Clive ? lol.


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## ghostsword (4 Jul 2012)

I have a tank that has just three hours of light a day and some easy carbo, few ferts, and it is spotless.

Got high tech tanks with no more than 5 hours of light a day, no issues.. 

Light is more often than not the issue, so decrease it. 


___________________________
Luis 
@ghostsword


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## ghostsword (4 Jul 2012)

And lack of carbon.

More co2, less light and lots of ferts, all your problems go away.. 


___________________________
Luis 
@ghostsword


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## geaves (5 Jul 2012)

Thx I'll give it a go.....


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## geaves (17 Jul 2012)

Well this is improving.....growth has increased so have been able to trim some of it as well, as most the algae was toward the top of the plants.

However, I have been getting what I can only describe as a foam on top of the water...this is a new on me and googling suggest's protein? but the search relates more to marine rather then tropical.


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## Iain Sutherland (17 Jul 2012)

its the same as bio film mate, it either appears as foam or film.  It can be a pain to resolve also,try  more surface movement, manual removal daily with paper towel as the tank is small and more frequent WC all help.  The health of the plants is the driving factor so once that is right it will dissipate.  Also be careful not to overfeed.


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## geaves (18 Jul 2012)

Ok.....have dealt with the 'film' issue before so should be able to get this sorted.


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## sr20det (18 Jul 2012)

Suffer the same film issue in my tank, and the easiest resolution i have read is have a air pump run for an hour or 2 at lights out.  Solves the issue for a few people


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## faizal (19 Jul 2012)

Hi geaves,..   just in case if you hadn't come across this thread, here are 2 links you might be interested in. Clive (ceg4048) provides an excellent presentation about surface scums here. Hope it's of use to you.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=13603&hilit=surface+scum&start=20

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2389&start=10

If you don't mind me asking, i know that it's a 40 cm cube but what is the volume of the tank in litres or US gallons please?   
And are you still performing 50% water change along with the daily 2ml easycarbo dosing?

P/s : Sorry for the multiple edits.


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## geaves (20 Jul 2012)

faizal said:
			
		

> Hi geaves,..   just in case if you hadn't come across this thread, here are 2 links you might be interested in. Clive (ceg4048) provides an excellent presentation about surface scums here. Hope it's of use to you.
> 
> viewtopic.php?f=21&t=13603&hilit=surface+scum&start=20
> 
> ...



According to EI calc @ FluidsOnline the tank is 64 Ltrs, I have stayed with 50% water change, 2ml EasyCarbo, 30Ml EI Macro and 1ml of Profito for 5 days then rest for 2, have also reduced lighting to 3 hours. (30w Eco Aqua)

What is noticeable is that the Crypts and the Helferi (the helferi is remarkable, growing well, 'cabbagey' and a lovely colour) have recovered and growing very well (left overs from the previous attempt) the other stem plants bought locally (bad mistake) are growing but also struggling, in so much as this algae has reappeared albeit slightly and the growth rate is leggy.

What I need to do I think, is to find a group of plants that will prosper together, as this will help with the second tank layout that is currently housing the fish. I must say ghostword's suggestion of reducing the length of lights on has had a contributing factor.


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## faizal (21 Jul 2012)

I think you are under dosing the liquid carbon. For a 64 litre tank I think you need to dose 8ml after every major (> 40 % water change) and 1.6 ml on non water change days. My excel only  supplemented 64 Liter tank gets 3ml daily on non water change days and 13 ml after > 40% water change. 

Reducing the length of light is definetely the right way to go but I also think that in order to see better growth you should try increasing the liquid carbon dosing.


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## geaves (21 Jul 2012)

faizal said:
			
		

> I think you are under dosing the liquid carbon. For a 64 litre tank I think you need to dose 8ml after every major (> 40 % water change) and 1.6 ml on non water change days. My excel only  supplemented 64 Liter tank gets 3ml daily on non water change days and 13 ml after > 40% water change.
> 
> Reducing the length of light is definetely the right way to go but I also think that in order to see better growth you should try increasing the liquid carbon dosing.



Ok thanks for that, I'll give that a go......want to try and sort this out before a house move.


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