j_rider's Tank Journal - 45cm Shallow

[j_rider]

Long time reefer, but first ever attempt at a planted freshwater tank. Going to try to record some of the ups and downs of my journey here. 

Have been dreaming about a tank for my study for a few months. Original plan was to have a small marine tank (already had 95% of the required gear and knowledge), but then came across some shrimp vids on eBay and started thinking about a freshwater tank instead. 

A few months of research, a few weeks of buying/selling gear, a few dozen changes of mind re: what I planned/wanted, and I was finally in a position to start cycling this tank. Luckiest trade was with a local hobbyist who was heading in the opposite direction – ie. he had been planning a new freshwater tank and decided to go marine. I got 80% of the gear for this tank from him and he got some of my surplus reefing equipment. 😊 So, here we go. 

 

Tank: 45 x 22 x 24cm (WxDxH), rimless, low-iron 

Filter: Seachem Tidal 35 

Light: Chihiros WRGB II Slim 

Hardscape: dark Seiryu stone 

Substrate: Fluval Stratum aquasoil with a little bit of white sand 

Start: 8th May, 2024, fishless, dark start method for cycle, plants added in 4th week 

Plants, 31st May, 2024: 

- Foreground - monte carlo, hopefully, eventually, a lush carpet 

- Midground - staurogyne repens for green accent plants 

- Background - alternanthera reineckii mini for some red accents 

- Floating – red root floaters, water lettuce 

Inhabitants: current thoughts (very open to change) are a colony of neocardina shrimp, a few otos and maybe a small school of fish appropriate for a tank this size..

Pic attached is as of 6th June, 2024. Only inhabitants at this time are 3 small snails and 2 copepods (both hitchhikers on the floating plants), plus 2 pieces of sweet potato lol (added to start growing biofilm for future inhabitants)

[JE47]

This is a very cool tank can't wait to see your tanks new inhabitants

[Whitecloud09]

Awesome tank! I will following along your journey!

[j_rider]

A few changes.

1) I thinned out my RRF and water lettuce so that they weren't so crowded and they are now floating much better above the waterline

2) I also decided that my great looking, but annoying, sand was taking up too much room at the front > not much planting room on the front right side > vacuumed some of it out and replaced with new aquasoil, then moved some of the monte carlo from the back (where I realised it was going to be a pain to trim due to the rock layout) to the front right. Happy with the result.

3) Bigger news though...my tank now has the first of its chosen inhabitants!

5** ember tetras, as per the recommendation of @xXInkedPhoenixX  in my intro post, thanks.

They all seem to be doing well. Exploring the tank, hanging out together and quite active.

One potential issue is that I am struggling to get them to eat. I bought Tropical SuperVit Mini Granaulat slow sinking pellets. They float for ages on the surface and then eventually start sinking. Some of the tetras will eat one, or attempt to eat one, but other pellet sink straight past the nose of other tetras without much interest. I have been forced to siphon out the extra pellets that I can see every day or two.

Would welcome any suggestions. Today is day 5 of them being in their new home.

**I originally purchased 6 tetras, but one didn't make it through the first 12 hours. 😞He was active like the others in the bag at the store, but by the time I got home 40min later he was having a rest on his side on the bottom of the bag. Then, after acclimation, he swam straight to the bottom and lay amongst the monte carlo. By the morning he had regrettably passed. On closer inspection he was incredibly skinny, much skinnier than the other 5.

[j_rider]

Who needs shrimp, when you have a copepod! 🙂

Copepod came as a hitchhiker on some dwarf water lettuce I bought a few weeks ago. Don't see him often (today was only the second time since he disappeared into the tank), but he is quite the character when he decides to go on an exploratory journey. Had taken a short vid of him, but just realised I can't load vids on the forum...oh well. Just close your eyes and imagine a copepod doing loop-the-loops to the right of the main stone.

In other news, my tetras are doing well. Helps to turn on the heater, lol. Much more active now that the temp has risen to 22.5, instead of 17! The temp rising helped their activity levels, but didn't seem to make much of a difference in their interest in food. Not sure if the following is a good idea long term (would welcome any advice), but have temporarily given up on the slow sinking tablets and have managed to find something that they will eat = Vitalis Mini Marine Grazer discs. Use them in my marine tank.

They are large discs of food (25mm wide) that you attach to a special magnet and mount on the glass. Have been placing one on the front glass with the filter off, which releases a cloud of food particles that the tetras have been enjoying, then removing after a few minutes.

Not the greatest pic, but here are my four more adventurous ember tetras.

[j_rider]

Some changes to the tank since my last update. 

•  lost another one of my ember tetras 🙁 thinking that he may have starved as he was the shyest of the remaining tetras, mostly hanging out the back right of the tank, underneath the HOB. The remaining four are doing great, eating well and really active all over the tank. 

• Decided to remove my floating plants. As previously mentioned, I had quite a bit of leaf die off and I believe that (despite them being in a ring of airtubing) they did not appreciate the amount of flow in the small tank from the HOB. They were also a pain to deal with each time I did a water change or any minor maintenance. I have kept the ring of airline tubing to serve for now as a feeding ring (prevents the ground up, slow sinking pellets from being pushed around the tank by the HOB) and seems to make it easier for my fish to find their lunch. 

• Added a pair of male endlers (plus a female, accidentally) from a local hobbyist. He had not intended to breed endlers, but had 'accidentally' ended up with 40+ of them. 😊 I had visited him to check out his shrimp (wrong colour), but ended up buying the endlers without knowing much about them other than seeing various other people's posts as possible nano tank fish recommendations. He scooped up 2 males and then a few minutes later I noticed a small silver fish in the bag (female endler). Rather than stress them further, when he said I could have the female as a freebie, I decided to keep her. Further reading while they were acclimating to my tank water suggested that maybe having a female in my tank is not a great idea, as numerous hobbyists report them to be really easy breeders > has got me thinking about starting up a second freshwater tank, at least in part to separate the male/female endlers. 

• Monte Carlo update. Being a complete newb I am not really sure what I am supposed to be looking for. As you can see in the pic, I still have a fair proportion of brown/yellow leaves, but I believe that after a few weeks of leaving them alone most of the pieces have put down roots and are starting to show new growth. 

• Staurogyne repens update – very pleased to see significant new growth with this SR. The original leaves, for whatever reason, developed some small black spots after being in my tank for about a week. Those leaves are still spotted, but I can now see each plant has new stems/leaves, which are vibrant green. One of the new growths is stretching sideways to hover over my sand path! 

• Aalternanthera reineckii mini update – Wasn't sure that they were doing well as, for about a week after the tetras were added I was finding red leaves floating around in the tank everyday. Have never witnessed any of the fish treating the ARM as lunch, but someone/something is snacking on them as some leaves have holes. Then I noticed a few days ago that the tallest ARM stem had leaves that were touching the airlne hose ring on the surface = growth! 

• Getting a few spots of brown dust algae on the glass and my rocks have some green algae growing. My tank is slowly seasoning – hooray! 

 

Question: 

• Is there any general rules for when it is 'safe' to trim my plants? I would love to be able to eventually cut the tallest stem of the ARM and the SR that is hanging over the sand path > and then plant the cuttings elsewhere in the tank 

 

 

Edited July 6 by j_rider

[Whitecloud09]

I would trim when it gets full length, but if to huge cut whenever you want, just not to much. Thanks for the update @j_rider!

[j_rider]

Feels like the tank is starting to mature/season nicely (about 10 weeks in). A fair bit happening over the last fortnight or so in the tank.

- continued good growth in my stem plants > first (minor) trim of the monte carlo on the left side & first trim of the staurogyne repens (snipped the new growth that was overhanging the path and planted the cutting temporarily on the far left)

- lost a second ember tetra (the shyest and skinniest of the remaining crew), who often didn't come out at feeding time and somehow towards the end managed to get stuck inside my hob filter for a couple of hours (happened to find him when checking the filter floss in there).

- started up a second freshwater tank (45cm, 63L/15g cube) so that I could: 1) try a different type of scape; 2) try some different types of plants eventually; and 3) separate out my endler female > ended up being too late and the female lay some eggs that I didn't see and I now have few tiny endler fry hanging out amongst the Reineckii up the back of the tank!

- explosion of pond snails - my 3 initial hitchiker snails have been having fun and the family now numbers > 12

- increased my lighting by another 10% intensity or so

- the new (second hand) tank is an AIO-type, so pump, heater, filter media all hidden behind a rear panel. Enjoying the cleaner look of the tank, though need to find a way to put a screen on the intake so that small fish/snails/critters don't end up going into the back chambers.