Shoeb's 15 gallon low tech

[faizal]

Hi everyone. This is my son's low tech tank. He's 8 yrs old. And he's taken a real liking towards the planted tank hobby. Shoeb (pronounced as "SHOW- EBB" ) actually played a major role in helping me during the setup phase. The tank's just about 1.5 months old. It has 2 guppies, a sailfin pleco, 1 adult platy & 3 platy frys .

Here are some pictures :

Can you spot the platy fry here?

Shoeb feeds his fishes everyday,...does topping up of daily evaporated water & is generally learning to keep a freshwater planted tank. I promised him that if he manages to keep this tank running well under his care for 1 year,..I will get him a 3 footer which made Shoy (nickname) a very happy young man.

I love this tank,...I had never been able to grow cabomba before,...maybe it's Shoy's lucky hand. The cabombas have put out roots almost 5 cm into the substrate. ( I measured the bright white root when I moved the plant the day before yesterday).

Substrate: JBL's substrate ( I have forgotten it's name) & some old used aquasoil amazonia. I had placed a plastic screen netting material (like the one Troi uses) over this and then capped it with some black coloured aquarium soil ( some Korean product,...I can't make out the brand as everything is written in their language.) It's just half the price of the ADA's aquasoil.

Light: single 18 watt T8
Filter : hang on back with some coarse green sponge & some purigen stuffed into a nylon sock.

Plants: java fern, anubias lanceolata, cabomba, hygrophila polysperma rosanervig, crypt tropica, nymphae rubra, anubias petite nana, hygrophila corymbosa compacta, aglaeonima minima ( a marsh plant) , mini Windelov fern,

 

[OllieNZ]

Tank looks good ,
Well done getting your son into the hobby, I hope I can get my 2 lads interested when they get to his age

 

[Dexie]

That's a great looking tank - well done to your son

 

[Ady34]

Great job Shoy ...(and Faizal).
Cool getting your son into the hobby at an early age Faizal. Its great enjoyment and learning for Kids from the discipline of looking after and caring for animals through to the excitement of having baby fish. Cant wait for my two boys to be old enough to look after their own tanks, they already take a keen interest and the oldest (3) knows a lot of names for the fish already!
Great tank, lush looking plants and much better than a games console in my book!
Well done mate and a pat on the back for Shoy
...oh, little red way platy fry just above the cabomba leaf above the knot on the right hand wood top pic
Cheerio,
Ady.

 

[faizal]

Tank looks good ,
Well done getting your son into the hobby, I hope I can get my 2 lads interested when they get to his age

Thanks Ollie!!! Yeah if this non co2 tank sets in well & shoy's able to take care of it (even partially,.. ) we both hope to set up a nice big non co2 like yours. I even had your tank's image saved for inspiration purposes.

That's a great looking tank - well done to your son

Thanks Dexie. I'm at work now but I promise to show Shoy your post when I get back this evening. He'll be really proud. Thanks again

Great job Shoy ...(and Faizal).
Great tank, lush looking plants and much better than a games console in my book!
Well done mate and a pat on the back for Shoy
...oh, little red way platy fry just above the cabomba leaf above the knot on the right hand wood top pic
Cheerio,
Ady.

Thanks Ady,...I will be sure to show him your post. It's gonna mean a lot to him. So many people congratulating him on his work.

And Yes!!! Good spotting work!! That's the little red fellow. I've got to admit though,...they grow very quickly.

 

[faizal]

Hey,... so it's been almost a month since i last updated. So here's how it looks. Not much has changed but the plants are all healthy & doing well.

Some of the hyrgrophila polysperma rosanervigs have broken through the water surface

Platy frys have grown a little

No water changes yet. Just top off evaporated water.

 

[tim]

another lovely tank mate shoy keeping up with the maintenance or is it left to you im trying hard to involve my four but all they want to do is choose fish and leave the rest to dad very nice tank good job shoy

 

[ceg4048]

Nice one Faizal. To be honest I actually like this one better than your other effort. Maybe it's the dark suede-like texture of the substrate contrasted with the deep waxy greens. Sorry mate...

Cheers,

 

[faizal]

another lovely tank mate shoy keeping up with the maintenance or is it left to you im trying hard to involve my four but all they want to do is choose fish and leave the rest to dad very nice tank good job shoy

Cheers tim. My youngest does the same thing whenever i take him to the LFS. Actually shoy does most of the work on this tank. To be honest the tank is very easy to maintain. He basically feeds his fishes, tops off evaporated water every 3 days or so, removes any dead leaves floating in the tank,..he's not good with scissors yet so once in a while i help him to snip off any dying leaves that are deep in the tank,he removes any freshwater snails with tweezers(but there are not that many anyway . Yeah,...he does most of the work by himself. My youngest son Raean (pronounced Ray-Yan) helps him track down the snails with his "Laser Eyes" . I must add that he's quite good at it too.

Nice one Faizal. To be honest I actually like this one better than your other effort. Maybe it's the dark suede-like texture of the substrate contrasted with the deep waxy greens. Sorry mate...

No need to be sorry Clive . I ABSOLUTELY agree . If it wasn't for your extensive & yet so simple to understand lessons I wouldn't have been able to "read" a tank mate,.. let alone to teach my son to run this tank. You taught us the basics, my dear friend
It goes without saying too that I owe so many people here at UKAPS for their true sincerity in helping an abosolute newbie at every step of the way. I just thought that you all should know that.

These days when I hear a local LFS guy / gal shell out his/her advice on how one needs to have plant specific lights to grow healthy plants or have lots of light over the tank to retain the lower leaves of the stems or that the stem rot is actually due to fungus,...i want to laugh. especially when I see their display tanks having stems that have practically rotted below but with healthy growth at the top and the abundant presence of BBAs in them when you look closely. And I bet the million amano shrimps that they have in there are doing an excellent job of removing the tons of co2 associated hair algae that keeps popping up on a daily basis in their tanks.

This current state of my mind ,...i owe it to you guys.

 

[Dexie]

Hey Faizal

I've just been having another look at Shoyeb's very impressive non CO2 tank and I'm thinking about whether I really need to bother with easycarbo in my pending tank 180l tank given the low light levels that it is going to start with.

What (if any) ferts do you use in his tank?

Fiona

 

[faizal]

Hi Fiona ,...i think if you are using soil based substrate & going with the hard to kill plant types (java fern, anubias, hygrophilas, etc) & you keep the light intensity low ( Shoy's tank here has 18 watts of T8 tube over the US 15 gallon tank = 1.2 WPG of T8 lighting) you can actually get away without easycarbo.

If during the course of the tank,...for a non co2 set up i'd give it about 1-2 months into set up,...you come across any co2 related problems like lots of thread algae popping up everywhere in the tank or you start seeing lots of plant stem melting then you can either reduce the lights or add easycarbo. But Fiona,..i think if you stick to 1.2 - 1.4 WPG T8,...you should do fine. Keep to the lower ranges (i.e 1.2-1.3 WPG).

Hope to see your journal soon.

Shoeb's weekly dosing regime is as follows:
1/8th teasp KNO3 once weekly
1/32 teasp KH2PO4 once weekly
1/4 th seachem equilibrium once weekly
He doses for 3 weeks straight then skips dosing on the fourth week,..and then resumes his back to back weekly dosing for another 3 weeks & so on & so forth. The tank is just into it's 2nd month anyway

 

[Dexie]

Thanks Faizal

I'm hoping to get going very soon too, in the mean time I'll keep an eye on your sons tank to see it progress.

Fiona

 

[faizal]

Cheers.

 

[faizal]

A small update,...just added some staurogynes from my excel tank. I hope they can transition in well into this tank. There's only one way to find out. Also added some of the submersed leaves of echinodorus tenellus from the excel tank (also from the excel tank).

So here are some pics:

 

[OllieNZ]

My Stauro is growing slowly but well so it should adapt

 

[faizal]

Thanks for reassurance Ollie,..
I only got the idea for the staurogynes as a foreground carpet in a non co2 tank after reading your journal mate.
Do you find that some of the lower leaves tend to die off after a while?

 

[OllieNZ]

Thanks, (I've answered your question in it, if you havent seen already)
They dont seem too have yet, but the growth is not as compact as it would be in a co2 environment with 10-20mm between nodes.

 

[faizal]

Yeah Ollie, my staurogynes are growing realllly slowwwwwly too.
I think the holes in the stauros were probably due to some snails.

Nothing much has changed. I haven't had any luck with my hygrophila stricta (corymbosa) in this tank though. The only stem that I had placed in as a test had completely rotted yesterday. Otherwise it's pretty much a hands free tank. We haven't changed the water yet. Shoy's still feeding the fishes but I must admit that we haven't been dosing as consistently as we should.

But i guess since the substrate is brand new, it shouldn't be much of an issue. We will be shifting houses again in 2 months time. Since it's just a 2 footer,...i don't think we will have much of a problem shifting it to it's new home. I haven't taken any pics lately. So i am sorry for the pictureless update.