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22l Nature Aquarium

Ullalaaqua

Member
Joined
22 Jun 2020
Messages
46
Location
Finland
Tank: 22 liter Beta Line Nano 35 (25x25x35cm)
Light: ONF Flat Nano
Filter: Dennerle Scapers Flow
CO2: Co2Art Pro-se regulator with sodastream adapter
Soil: Tropica Aquarium soil and soil powder
Hardscape: Loa Rocks and redmoor wood

I’ve been a member in Ukaps for awhile but not very active. However this little voice in my head was pushing me to post a journal here about this little miracletank and it’s development from hightech to lowtech. The transformation was really surprising to me and I feel like it’s worth sharing :)

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So this is where I started with this nanotank in Auqust 2020. As always, I didn’t really have a plan other than that I wanted to make a meadow. My daughter loves fairies so my goal was to make something fantacy-like. It was really fun glueing the redmoor wood pieces together and plan what plants I would use.

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46 days old
Plants:
Glossostigma elatinoides
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Marsilea hirsuta
Hydrocotyle tripartita "Mini"
Bucephalandra Mini needle leaf
Bucephalandra ’Kedagang’
Riccardla sp. ’Chamedryfolla’
Bolbitis heteroclita ’difformis’
Juncus repens
Rotala H’ra
Rotala wallichii
Rotala green
Rotala nanjenshan
Rotala vietnam
Ludwigia palustris

So it was nice for awhile, but it didn’t work out as I wanted. I struggled with bad growth of glossostigma in the front and the background plants didn’t grow the way I had wished. On top of that Staghorn algae started to appear and my motivation dropped. In January I made the desision to change it a little...

The little change was a complite rescape where I dried up the old soil in the owen and mixed it up with ADA Amazonia powder. This was probably the best whimp I’ve ever had!

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I removed everything

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But I reused almost all of the old hardscape. I flipped the wood stump around and glued the roots on it.
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The hardscape of the new layout. I loved it! In the front I used ADA Colorado sand. Behind there was the soil area.
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Day 1
I went crazy with the plants and honestly have never enjoyed planting as much as I did with this one.
Plants:
Rotala sp wallichii
Rotala sp. Nanjenshan
Rotala sp. Vietnam
Rotala ’orange juice’
Rotala H’ra
Rotala ’green’
Ludwigia palustris
Hottonia palustris
Micranthemum sp. ’montecarlo’
Marsilea crenata
Marsilea hirsuta
Hydrocotyle verticillata
Bucephalandra brownie ghost
Bucephalandra ’needle leaf’
Bucephalandra ’kedagang’
Bucephalandra ’arctica’
Riccardia chamedryfolia
Fissidens fontanus

At first CO2 run slowly 24/7 for maybe 2 weeks
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Then my CO2 run out and I was too busy to get refill so I let it be without.

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3 months without CO2

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Accotional pearling. Not related to waterchanges. Apparently they use bicarbonate from the watercolumn for photosythesis too.

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Latest photo of it. Shure, the colors would be stronger with CO2. But this tank runs with autopilot now. I do 50% waterchange every week and the lights are on more or less 1Not much algae except the Staghorn that desided to visit again. It’s well balanced otherwise and the crystalshrimp colony just breeded in it. I really love it as it is :)
 

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wow, that's awesome, so many plants in such a little box! hats off to you!
At which percentage do you run the light at? i have it and haven't used it yet, how many hours also :) cheers
 
wow, that's awesome, so many plants in such a little box! hats off to you!
At which percentage do you run the light at? i have it and haven't used it yet, how many hours also :) cheers
It seems there is a typo in my text right were I was supposed to answer this, I’ll go and edit the part too. The lights go with 100% intensity for about 10hours a day. Not something I’d recommend to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
 
Your Rotala look good. What makes you like Rotala so much, 6 varieties in one spot. How are you going to tell them apart. They seem to be growing straight up, no bending or entangling.
 
Your Rotala look good. What makes you like Rotala so much, 6 varieties in one spot. How are you going to tell them apart. They seem to be growing straight up, no bending or entangling.
Thank you. That is an interesting question... what makes me like Rotalas so much? Maybe it’s the great variety available. Only Rotundifolia has so many different colors and also a bit different leaf shape. Then when you add all the Rotala sp. varieties it makes such a nice mix 🥰

To me details are everything. So mixing up colors and textures come naturally. I’ve wanted to mix up as many stemplants as I can and trying out with Rotala was easy. They are quite easy plants too and one can manipulate the colors with dosing (not only getting really red) so it’s really interesting to work with them.

About the growth habit. Rotala rotundifolias (H’ra, Green, orange juice) grow differently according to the space they have around. So the plants that are near to the ”bush edges” bend more and the ones behind grow straight. Then wallichii, Vietnam and Nanjenshan don’t creep the same way.

How am I going to tell them apart? The same way I tell apart from a leaf it is from birch or oak, or if the flower is a rose or a lily. I see it from the plant: color, leaf shape, size... 😊
 
Nice to see you here posting.
Lovely tank and amazing growth without co2.
Cheerio,
 
How am I going to tell them apart? The same way I tell apart from a leaf it is from birch or oak, or if the flower is a rose or a lily. I see it from the plant: color, leaf shape, size... 😊
Will you kindly label them for comparison. I have never seen so many Rotala displayed side by side, and they look good in a mix of subtle variation.
 
Nice to see you here posting.
Lovely tank and amazing growth without co2.
Cheerio,
Thank you :) Posting here have been on my to-do list for awhile. And now I had something interesting to share 😄

Honestly I have no idea what I’ve done right this time. Seems like the less I ”take care” of it the better it grows.
 
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