High-Tech Sodastrem aquarium

[Shadow_Arbor]

Recently I decided to put together a high tech aquarium. The aforementioned aquarium is a a 61 liter (H-40, L-45, W-34 cm), a good sized tank for light penetration.

The equipment I use is as follows:

• Ehiem liberty 75 hang on back filter
• Chihiros A451 Plus LED light
• Future heater will be the 50 watt Dennerle heater (summer is hot here so my room is cooled to 24C with AC)
• DIY Sodastream CO2 system

I decided to use Dennerle's Scaper's soil as a substrate, ended up using about 7 liters of the stuff, and dragon stone as the hardscape.

This is the only image I have right after adding the soil and hardscape, please excuse the terrible quality.

 

This image is 24 hours after setting up the tank. In this image I am using the Dennerle bio co2 system temporarily until I put together the Sodastream CO2.

The plant selection at the time of taking this image is as follows:

• Anubias nana
• Cryptocoryne nurii "rosen maiden"
• Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown"
• Cryptocoryne scurrilis
• Cryptocoryne balansae
• Eriocaulon vietnam
• Hygrophila pinnatifida
• Bucephalandra sp.

 

After all the parts for my CO2 system arrived I was finally able to put it together. This system consists of a 400g CO2 Sodastream cylinder, a TR21-4 to W21.8-14 adapter, and a CO2 regulator with a solenoid. Long term a large CO2 cylinder is better cost wise, but I decided to go with this system because I'm limited for space. 

The picture on the left is of the system in general, and on the right a picture of the adapter.

 

 

This is the aquarium now, I've moved around some of the plants and swapped some out for others.

The current plant list is as follows (would love if someone can identify the plants I'm unsure of):

• Cryptocoryne nurii "rosen maiden"
• Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown"
• Cryptocoryne scurrilis
• Cryptocoryne balansae
• Hygrophila pinnatifida
• Bucephalandra sp. (Dark green and reddish new leaves, it's the big one in the back) -unsure
• Bucephalandra sp.green (located on a rock just to the right of the filter intake) -unsure
• Bacopa colorata
• Alternanthera reineckii "mini"
• Blyxa japonica
• Nymphaea zenkeri (red tiger lotus)
• Ludwigia repens "rubin"
• Micranthemum Micranthemoides (pear weed)

I hope to soon add Cryptocoryne wendtii flamingo and Pogostemon helferi. These are pretty rare in my country so they're a bit pricey and hard to track down.

 

I'll update on the progression and stocking of this aquarium in the future.

Constructive criticism and advise is welcome.

Hope everyone has a fantastic day and thanks for reading!

 

 

[Daniel]

Very impressive. Post more photos as the tank matures.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Daniel
spelling

[Lizzie Block]

@Shadow_Arbor Wonderful aquascape! I always love to see people set up a high tech tank, there's nothing like it and you should be able to get excellent coloration in your red and pink plants with the equipment you're using! Great plant choice as well, I would think your buce with dark green leaves and new reddish growth would be Bucephalandra sp. 'Red'. The other one may be 'Green wavy' but hard to tell until it matures a little more. 🙂 Also love your selection of crypts, I'm growing crypt pink flamingo too and it's seriously so cool. It'll throw normal crypt leaves but with bright pink ones mixed in. Here it is swarmed by cherry shrimp lol

I really like your choice of dragon stone, great texture. A suggestion though, if I may, for your stone in the very front - the strata lines in that stone don't align with the larger stones behind it. If that was intentional to create tension, by all means, leave it as is. It certainly catches the eye straight away. But, I'd love to see the stone rotated 90 degrees or so counter-clockwise so that the strata in each stone is pointing in the same direction.

Either way, excellent scape and best of luck!!! Keep us updated on plant growth and livestock 🙂

[Shadow_Arbor]

@Lizzie Block Thank you so much for the feedback and nice words! Your Cryptocoryne pink flamingo looks fantastic! Hope to have one soon and that it looks as good as yours! Once the green Bucephalandra grows out I'll take close ups of both of them and upload them for identification.

Now about the hardscape, the placement of the stones was intentional (well duh 🤣) but the tension wasn't part of the thought process behind it. The goal was to make a sort of mountain range leading down to a cove of sorts. The bottom left has two stones buried in the soil pointing in another direction to simulate fallen stones that created a sort of cove. The cove will eventually be planted with a carpeting plant of sorts, most likely Pogostemon helferi. I was looking to make this mountain range/cove look nice, didn't actively notice the tension made by the rocks, just thought it looked nice. Specifically in this scape I enjoy the current hardscape placement, but I'll definitely keep a closer eye to the directionality of the hardscape in future aquascapes.

 

Again thanks so much for the feedback and kind words😊

[NanoFishTanks]

On 7/20/2020 at 11:23 PM, Shadow_Arbor said:

 

The equipment I use is as follows:

• Ehiem liberty 75 hang on back filter
• Chihiros A451 Plus LED light

 

 

What your experience with the chihiros light? Does it grow red plants ok. 

Very nice write up and good looking tank btw 👍👍

[Shadow_Arbor]

On 9/8/2021 at 6:36 PM, NanoFishTanks said:

What your experience with the chihiros light? Does it grow red plants ok. 

Very nice write up and good looking tank btw 👍👍

I really like Chihiros lights. I've upgraded to some of their higher end lights like the WRGB2. All their lights are very powerful and will grow red plants. Their A series also falls into his category, but it's pretty thin so you may need two. 

 

There is a but... Growing red plants is not the same as fantastically colored red plants. Their white LEDs will grow most red plants really well, but the colors only pop with lights that are RGB. If you have the budget, I would recommend the WRGB2, it's a fantastic high end light. If not, the A Plus RGB uses the same tech as the WRGB2 but with less LEDs and less power. I think they're not being manufactured anymore so you might have trouble getting the RGB.

[anewbie]

I wanted to post this more as a warning to others; while I too like Chihiros lights and have several WRGB2 people should be aware they have a high failure rate and virtually no 'effective' warranty since in most case you have to ship to china for service. The biggest problem people seem to be having is with the blue tooth controller but since these lights have no controls outside of the app that renders them useless when it fails. Two of mine have been flaky. You can buy replacement blue-tooth controllers and they are not excessively expensive but that only helps if that is the cause of failure. The one on the wrgb2 is an external unit that is easy to replace the one on the vivid2 requires that you open the unit but otherwise it is a plug in card.