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30L Cube - settlin'

Nico Felici

Member
Joined
16 Oct 2020
Messages
37
Location
London
Hi people,

First thread for me here and first tank in 10 years. What a joy!

I've let this one running for nearly a month with only soil and hardscape in (red moor wood and a variety of seiryu's). No light, no water changes, nothing. Just the bio filter maturing a bit, and me re-filling what was evaporating. Then changed 50% of the water a week ago, and again a couple of days ago. And only today, when I really couldn't wait any longer, I planted.

Details:
Tank is a 13 year-old 30cm cube
Light is a 10W LED bulb at 6,500k
Tropica Aquarium Soil
Eheim mini-up (how tiny is this !?)
Aquael Ultra heater 25w

Plants:
Hygrophila Pinnatifida
Microsorum Pteropus narrow leaf
Vesicularia Montagnei
Hydrocotyle Tripartita (Japan)
Rotala Rotundifolia

You can't really see the rotala yet, it's planted behind the root. Let's give it a couple of weeks and see what happens. Hopefully the trial stage I've endured will help the plants kick starting quick and reduce the risk of severe algae explosions. I should also point out that I use (London's) tap water, treated with Seachem Prime, and that embarrassingly enough I haven't really tested the water yet. Started with 5h of light today and aiming to get to 8 in around 6 weeks. I've also bought Tropica's Specialised Fertiliser but won't dare using it for at least 10 days from now.

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Sorry for the quality of the picture.

Glad to have joined :)
 
A quick update after two weeks on the Pinnatifida, which is growing slowly but has now fully adapted on submerged living.

And a question: my Rotundifolia is growing horizontally, and that's fine for now. However it is also growing extremely slowly, possibly the slowest of the scape which I think is unusual, and leaves are still popping out green and well rounded. What could it be?

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Tank is going well and although the growth is medium-slow I am quite satisfied with the general evolution of plants.

I've let 5 RCS in this week and also added some smaller branches and rocks for extra detail.

R. Rotundifolia however is showing little or no growth apart from extra rooting and I was thinking to substitute it with some polisperma rosanervig or sunset. I am a bit concerned with its size though and wouldn't want the stems/leaves to look out of proportion in such a small tank - has anyone tried this before?

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Brief update with pictures:

Pinnatifida and Rotundifolia are growing quick and it is hard to keep up with the trimming. I have let 6 chili rasboras in last week and muffled the filter outlet with a sponge as they were struggling with the strong water flow - doing much better now!

Both the females of RCS were berried for a couple of weeks and then went mysteriously lean again. They haven't had eggs for a fair few days now and there's no sign of children around the tank at all, so I can only assume they have dropped them earlier.

Not having a camera I am forced to take pics with my phone, this is as good as they can be:

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