The Swamp

[Andy Tran]

The Tank

A year ago I decided to get a 23L Fluval Edge, and about a month into owning it I took the top pane of glass off. The Fluval Edge’s design was neat, but the glass and small opening really limits what I wanted to do with it. The tank went through many phases from Walstad to high tech, but now it’s somewhere in between. The lighting is still high and I no longer inject CO2 but growth is still very fast with EI dosing and EasyCarbo. Algae isn’t a problem (touch wood) and theres enough biofilm to keep the Oto cats nice and fat 🙂

Equipment

• Tank: 23L Fluval Edge with top glass taken off
• Lighting: 2X TMC Aquaray 400 (100% for 3 hours + 8 hours spent ramping up/down)
• Circulation: Eheim StreamOn+ 2000 (2,000lph)
• Filtration: Eheim Classic 250 External Canister Filter
• Heater: fairly generic 25W heater set to ~22°C
• CO2Art Sodastream + Dual Stage Regulator + SMC Needle Valve + 45mm Bazooka Atomiser
• Tropica Plant Growth Substrate/Soil underlayer, 2-3mm standard gravel on top
• Some sort of spider wood for hardscape

Dosing

• APF dry ferts, EI dosing with Trace and Macro on alternate days
• EasyCarbo 1ml/day
• ~30% water change/week

Fauna

• Neon/Cardinal Tetras
• Otocinclus
• Red Cherry Shrimp
• MTS/Snails

Flora

• Water Sprite
• Hygrophila Polysperma
• Hygrophila Polysperma 'Red'
• Micranthemum Monte Carlo
• Anubias nana 'bonsai'
• Limnophila Sessiliflora
• Christmas Moss
• Duckweed
• Water Lettuce
• Vallisneria

Here are a few pictures, sorry about the quality 😛











Still finding a way of making the top a bit less DIY-y



Two TMC Aquaray 400's mounted inside a spare "base" of the Fluval Edge, cooled with a 2.5" HDD fan.

 

[Julian]

How long have you had your lights at those settings?

 

[Sk3lly]

Why drop checker if you dont inject co2??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[zozo]

That full tank shot (first picture) looks realy nice, jungle layout.. 🙂 A real swampy feel, i like wild and chaotic.. Personaly i would go for a smaller Tetra species, to get more sence of scale. Neons are small but still look uge to me in this tank.. 🙂 But that's just me..

And thats not a diy look, thats a plumber builds a house with plier and hammer look.. I bet you can do better than that..

 

[Andy Tran]

@Julian Lights have been set to that for about 6 months now, and its been running without CO2 for almost two months 🙂

@Sk3lly Drop checker is a remnant from when I injected CO2, but then I just got used to it and forgot to remove it haha

 

[Andy Tran]

@zozo Aw thank you! 🙂 You're right, I literally used all the wrong tools to make the fixture haha

 

[luckyjim]

I think this is fantastic, you've done a lot with a very small tank.

I like the neons, but I agree with zozo, I think chilli rasboras would look great in there.

 

[Julian]

I've got 2 of those lights. Yet I've always had problems running them above 20%... I guess its to do with your ramp schedule? How long do they stay at 100% for in a day?

 

[Andy Tran]

@luckyjim Thanks! I see what you mean, they do make the tank look a lot smaller in pictures. I might find a small shoaling fish, or just go shrimp-only if I can find somewhere else to house the tetras 🙂 Chilli Rasbora's do look nice though!!

@Julian Hmm the lights stay at 100% for 3 hours a day, and take 4 hours to ramp up and 4 hours to ramp down to 0% 🙂 There is a layer of water lettuce covering the surface which reduces intensity a bit. What problems were you having with going over 20%?

 

[Andy Tran]

Decided to make a few changes in the tank since my last post 🙂

• Using TMC’s MMS/Rim mounts for the lights for better spread (not sure if it looks nicer or not aha)
• Started CO2 Injection again (CO2Art SodaStream Advanced Adapter > Dual Stage Regulator > SMC Needle Valve > 45mm Bazooka Atomiser). I strongly recommend the advanced adapter over the standard one, as it allows you to mate the adaptor to the bottle and open the flow of gas after. The standard adapter made changing cylinders a bit tedious.
• Re-homed tetras and introduced more Otocinclus. One arrived looking a bit battered but he’s made a good recovery and is now almost indistinguishable from the others. The tank was able to support two Otos, but now I supplement with algae wafers (JBL Pleco chips) and blanched vegetables (Caugette and Sweet Potato are favourites) 🙂
• Trying to remove all traces of duckweed.
• Added Hygrophila polysperma ‘red’ to break up the sea of green.
• Added Anubias nana ‘Bonsai’ in shaded areas under the wood.
• Added Micranthemum Monte Carlo (Tropica tissue culture pots) on the front right.

So far everything is growing nice and quickly and requires a twice weekly trim. I found that Hygrophila grows much denser and closer to the substrate with CO2, now I thin it out instead of replanting stems which is easier haha. Anubias is putting out a new leaf every 1-2 weeks.

My aim with the layout is to have a subtle slope in plant height, tallest at the back/left and shortest front/right once the Monte Carlo settles in. Here are a few pics of what it looks like now though 🙂

 

[Wendal_spanswick]

Love the scape Andy. Prefer the new look lights, a big improvement on the submarine hatch! How long does your Soda stream canisters last?

 

[Tim Harrison]

Looks good, the new lighting mount is a vast improvement as well.

 

[8062282]

That looks really good. I have a 23L fluval edge doing nothing. You've given me an idea now 🙂

 

[Andy Tran]

@Troi @Wendal_spanswick Thanks! The new light mounts are growing on me now P

I'm running about 0.5-1 BPS at the moment but haven't used an entire canister yet. I used to run it at 1 bubble every 5 seconds 24/7 and a canister lasted about 4 months (it leaked quite a lot during installation too).

@8062282 I was surprised by how easy it was to take the top off, just needed floss and a thin blade 🙂

 

[Andy Tran]

Even more changes! 😛

• Replaced Eheim StreamOn pump with Eheim Classic 250 external canister filter
• Removed Water Sprite from background and planted the area with Hygrophila Polysperma instead

The main reason I wanted to use an external canister filter was to try and increase my CO2 diffusion efficiency. The canister will act as a giant CO2 reactor hopefully dissolving all the CO2 into the water before it leaves the output.

I injected CO2 into the filter inlet via an atomiser, and the filter is filled with ceramic media (I think they're referred to as "Noodles") and a single coarse sponge to stop debris from clogging the impeller. Hopefully the ceramic media will cause turbulent flow inside the canister and keep the CO2 mist in contact with the water for longer, while also providing some mechanical/biological filtration.

So far it's working really well; I get no micro-bubbles in the tank at 0.6bps. The plants seem to be pearling more aggressively too 🙂

I replaced the water sprite with Hygrophila Polysperma because the water sprite just covers the background in a wall of green and requires frequent pruning to stop it from taking over the tank. Hopefully the hygro will grow in and can be pruned to create a slope effect.

The Monte Carlo carpet is also filling in nicely and almost covering the substrate. Some of the older leaves are going brown, not sure if this is normal?




Sweet potato and Monte Carlo


Need to find a proper aquarium stand to put these in 😛