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Laputa - Tbro's Nano

TBRO

TBRO

Member
Joined
8 Feb 2009
Messages
941
Hi everyone,
Just started a new tank so I thought I'd give it a pretentious name - after my favourite anime film about a overgrown, flying castle. Silly names aside I wanted to do a nano for shrimp breeding and to try my hand at various mosses.

I also wanted a really tall podium stand for my cube nano but couldn't find anything right, so taking a leaf out of samc's design I had a go at making a cabinet for the tank. It's not Louis xvi furniture but I like it.

I used thick up rights just like sam and 12 mm MDF panels to tie it together.

fishtank081.jpg

This is it without paint, getting the door right was annoying to say the least!

fishtank070.jpg

I decided that the usual black or gray wasn't right in this room so I went for a pillar box red. The cabinet is 30 cm wide and just over a meter tall.

fishtank072.jpg

With the cabinet sorted, I got the hardscape in, decided to have a sand front rather than carpeting plants to the glass, used ADA xingu sand, looks very natural. I had some nice redmoore wood from TGM that I cut up to fit, some had been in my other tank with moss already maturing. I was inspired by one of Oli Knott's nanos with a big mossy stone so I found some nice welsh blue stone for the job. I have lots of small rocks and wood that can be easily removed to tie on new kinds of moss.

fishtank074.jpg


Unlike Oli Knott's tank I wanted some non-moss plant that I hadn't tried before - Glosso and Staurogynae sp. with blyxa behind the big rock. I only have Christmas, Flame and Stringy/Java moss but hope to try fissidens and star moss. This is just where my sanity was slipping from planting glosso plantlets :shock:

fishtank075.jpg


Here is the flooded scene with a fore ground close up.

fishtank078.jpg


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Tank stats ;
30 cm AE float glass cube
Wave solaris 18 W light
Fluval 105 external (just about fits in the cabinet)
Sera CO2 kit

Important things I learned - when building somthing write down your plan and remeber to count the thickness of the material when calculating, doh!

Comments and Critisism welcome, enjoy Tom
 
wow awesome red!

i cant wait to see how your glosso does. im currently trying to decide between a glosso or HC carpet for my nano. Excellent work though mate. 😀
 
Thanks for the kind comments guys. I set it up just today and got really excited, can't wait to get some shrimp in there possibly some tiny R.brigatte aswell. I used media from a established filter to prime the new one to try and help with the ADA - ammonia spike, trying to hurry things along.

If you've got time I can really reccomend having a go at making a cabinet, it was really satisfying and you get a custom unit. The colour was not purposefully patriotic but like James I do hail from west of TGM.

Thanks, Tom
 
Thanks for all the positive feedback guys 😀 .

I've been on ebay and ordered some fissidens and star moss which is coming from Hong Kong but I guess moss will survive as long as it's wet. Quite pleased with the glosso, seemed like it was kind of going out of fashion but it's one that I've never tried before. I almost went nuts planting it, don't know how people do those big scapes with it.

The substrate is ADA Malaya powder, I reasoned it would be easier to plant in - Wrong! The glosso actually seems easier to plant in coarser substrate in my big tank. The fluval inlet/outlet is a bit of an ugly blight on the tank, I think for better or worse some glass-ware needs to be saved up for.

Will post more pics when some growth has occured, Thanks Tom
 
That cabinet is quality stand, when i fist flicked through i thought it was the one from TGM but evidently you made it yourself, fair play!

The 'scape is awesome too, nice work 😀
 
Lovely nano the scape is well nice,when it fills in this will look really nice,

John
 
Tank looks awsome, will look even better once that plants start to fill in 🙂
Lets hope there ain't many spanish or portuguese users in the forum otherwise that tittle can be pretty offensive LOL
 
LOL :lol: just realised my linguistic fo-par, thanks for pointing that out Paulo! I didn't set out to insult any Spanish speaking folk was more inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's Film rather than the other thing. It also interestigly is the name of the floating island in Gulliver's Travels (as well as a curse word)

laputa.jpg

Tom
 
Just got the star moss and fissidens.splachnobryoides from aqua magic today. Wish I'd done more reading before parting with my cash, seems both these species don't grow well underwater 🙁 I will try the star moss on the wood that breaks the surface. Will post some pictures next week, the glosso is growing but mostly up which is a bit annoying.

T
 
TBRO said:
Just got the star moss and fissidens.splachnobryoides from aqua magic today. Wish I'd done more reading before parting with my cash, seems both these species don't grow well underwater 🙁 I will try the star moss on the wood that breaks the surface. Will post some pictures next week, the glosso is growing but mostly up which is a bit annoying.
Click to expand...
I made the same mistake with the Fissidens, and that didn't survive in the tank, just fell apart in a few days. The star moss is another non aquatic plant, might do well at the surface though just depends how good it looks in the tank.
Just prune back the glosso and it will grow new runners which should then grow across the substrate.
 
I bought some fissidens splachnobryoides before I realised it's non-aquatic. I've had it on my windowsill in a pot for months. Its grown a bit, but I've finally used it in a little emerged scape I made tonight 🙂
 
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