general advice sought for a new 40x40x40 cube

[AlecF]

These photos show a 40x40x40 cube, c 60 litres, 17 gallons, that has been cycling for 6 weeks. I will do a journal when it feels more resolved. It is reasonably well planted, mostly with SA plants. It's quite a messy look. As a newbie I found painting smaller grasses difficult to combine with leaves, and should have added the leaves later. The tank has beech wood and beech and oak leaves, along with Indian almond. There are more flog plants and will be again, but I wanted to ensure there was enough light for now. Lights are on c 7 hours a day. They are Chihiros A Seria Aquarium Led Light Full Spectrum, I forget the parameters, but they were correct for the size of the tank, but there may be an issue of light reaching this depth? The plants aren't that happy, but slowly improving. There was more mondevideo (?) grass but much of that melted. The swords have some brown leaves. The original Vallisneria had brown tips and some melting. I just added some small variety of Vallisneria. There's quite a lot of fluffy brown algae on the wood and sword leaves. The rams horn snails are slowly helping that. I used aquadip liquid carbon which I think caused some algae. I dose daily with APF micro/macro, alternative says, c 14 ml. There's no CO2 as I am not yet a believer, ie not confident in it, and I am not growing complex plants. I have 3 pathos with their roots coming through holes in the perspex lid. Today the TDS is c 170-220. The temperature is c 73 degrees. I added 5 amano a week ago, saw 1 yesterday, not sure if the rest still exist. That is a worry and does make me wonder about stocking, but all tests indicate I couldAll the standard tests are OK. 5-10ppm nitrate, 0 nitrite, 0 ammonia, GH and KH are low, tending towards one blue above zero. I tend to change 10% of the water every day, with occasional larger changes. It has an Eheim pickup (the smallest type) and a sponge filter. The water colour is markedly better this week. Advice sought on:
1. shall I use a toothbrush on that algae, or should I spot clean with the liquid carbon, or will it resolve gradually?
2. Is this tank suitable for Cory habrosus. For now just them, no other fish; I would get 6 in all. Is the 40cm height any issue for them in terms of getting oxygen? Or should I wait for it to matter more. Alternatives are pygmy Cory, or Otos, but the habrosus seem stronger candidates. I considered clown killis, but I always thought of this tank as vaguely Scottish SA, so I'd prefer SA fish. I have had a lot of sparkling gourami fry and Cory eggs lately so, if these survive, I may use the cube for them to develop before selling them on.
3. Any other helpful advice for a newbie in terms of the plants? I deliberately went for simple, and wanted a preponderance of grassy type species. I can give more details of the plants.

 

[kayjo]

HI AlecF,

I keep C Habrosus in a tank with the same water depth as you. They have no problem going to the surface for air.

 

[Wookii]

The tank looks great, very biotope orientated which I like.

C. Habrosus will love living in that tank, just make sure you leave a couple of small patches of sand clear for them, as mine love to rummage through it, often digging past their eyes after some unseen tasty morsel! My tank is 40cm height too, and they have no problems going to the surface to gulp air, just make sure there are a few small gaps in the floating plants.

On the plants, don't add any more glute based products (such as the so-called liquid carbon), as it's known to cause some melting issues with some Vallisneria species, and you really shouldn't need it in your tank (nor-injected CO2), just make sure you have some decent surface movement to drive atmospheric CO2 and O2 laden water from the surface to the bottom of the tank, which is probably a little more tricky in a cube. Also you don't mention what substrate you have - if it is just plain sand, then consider adding some root tabs, particularly for your Echinodorus.

Your lighting levels looks fine to me, particularly as your surface plants thicken out - though it's largely impossible to judge by eye, even more so from a photo. As your floating plants start to cover the surface more, you can gradually increase the lighting period up to 12 hours.

Edit: I should probably also say, I find the Habrosus cories to be incredibly sociable with one another, often lying right next to one another touching flanks, and sometimes even stacked comically on top of one another. Given their very deimunuitive size, and general lack of activity, I think you'd happily get away with a bigger shoal of 10-12 in there if that is to be your only stock.

 

[AlecF]

Very helpful. Kind of you to say biotype-like. I tried, but need much more experience. Yes, the substrate, a kind of special menu blended from mostly John Innes, a little peat, some clay, a little zeolite, taking tips from various threads here and trying to create a rich enough blend – someone referred to it as like a recipe for a posh French meal. This is covered with an inch of aqua sand, after a bad experience with roman sand, which was like sugar nd which the plants couldn't get a grip on. I have used this sand in my main tank and like it, and know corys do. All the plants of any size have root tabs. Thanks for the tip about floating plants and lights. I'm tempted to order the habrosus, but wish I could see the amano just to be sure. I also added 6 juvenile amano to my main tank and they disappeared. It has peacock goby, but I'm a bit surprised if they took out 1cm amano.

 

[Wookii]

Great stuff. If you are concerned about adding livestock at this point, simply give it another month of growing in and then review - easier said than done when you're keen to see some fish in the tank though, I appreciate that.

 

[AlecF]

@Wookii as you can guess I went ahead and got them as the tank parameters have been safe for a while. I got 9, 1 arrived DOA, 1 was very weak and died the next day, both to be expected. Since then I have lost 2 more so I only have 5 left. They are delightful and the 7 that survived arrival seemed healthy. The parameters remain Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, Ammonia 0, TDS c 180ppm, temperature 73. I buffered the Eheim as they found any current hard. I have been feeding a mix of fry powder from Northfin, Bug bites, freeze dried cyclops, some live BBS, some kelp wafers, and some crushed Cory pellets soaked with garlic. First 2 days they ate hungrily. Slightly less feeding since then, but I couldn't observe them today. I lowered the water height as I was worried some weren't making it to the surface. Some do seem small and weak, but they are young. I have changed 20-25% water most days. I know these are sensitive fish and they may just be weak. I don't see any infestations or fungus. They are so small and I did read somewhere that they may need very fine sand, to sift/filter? I have standard aqua sand. Could that be the issue? Any advice welcome.

 

[Matt1994]

Lovely looking tank @AlecF

Very natural looking!

I added 5 amanos to my tank a few months back! Rarely saw them all out they seemed a bit nervous at first but now there out a fair bit more and all 5 are there still. I got really worried a day or so after adding them as only saw 1 but there all still there 6 months later

Hope this helps and again tank looks lovely very natural


Regards
Matt 😃

 

[AlecF]

Thanks Matt. I have seen 2, after seeing none, so one never knows! In the cube I think there may be more. I haven't seen any in my larger tank and do worry that the peacock goby had a very large meal.