Aquarium Hobbyists

Very nice! Don't know if your on FB but they have a great saltwater/reef group. They just get a little upset when you tell them there is no saltwater Pleco that will eat your algae and get it under control now before it destroys your corals...

 

After 16 years, I'm finally getting an aquarium again.

Used to have a nice large freshwater tank with clown loaches, bala sharks, and more.

This time around I'm going nano at only 15 gallons.

Just need a recommendation on a light; I want to go with a live plant or two and need a quality light for one.

If you've got a recommendation for a specific plant as well, would love to hear it.

Going maybe with a few snails (3 or so) for a few bottom feeders, and a handful of neon tetras so really a basic setup.

It's more for my kiddo to have something to watch as he loves aquariums.

 

Amazon. The new LED lights are app driven and adjustable for fresh or salt.

 

Did some searching last night; seems Twinstar, Finnex, and a few others are highly recommended.

 

I have a pair of very basic chinesium programmable lights. They ramp up and down in intensity during the day and then switch to a blue moonlight for a few hours at night. They are not wifi/app enabled, but I also didn't want yet another app to keep track of.

The real trick to planted is establishing a decent carbon injection method. I have to heavily prune my tank with every water change now.

There are a few plants that are happy without supplemental CO2, but even they won't grow without it.




Looks like I'm getting the shears out tomorrow.

 

Thanks!

I'm actually going low tech/low light and steering away from co2.

Did a ton of searching/reading last night and have quite a few on the list already!

And digging into it more, I'll definitely be going snails as well.

 

Sea Snails?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYqyWOT8ZI0

 

I really enjoy planted more than any other style I've kept. Personally I had the best luck with the Anubias family of plants when I started out. They were tolerant of both low tech conditions and asshole fish that like to uproot things for fun. Ferns are great as well, and the swords are okay-ish under no carbon.

 

Yep was looking at those!

I'll be buying several types, and seeing what plants do best in the newly acquired tank and lighting before I go adding fish.

Thinking I'll go the whole nitrogen cycle with said plants for quite a bit as I'm pretty patient.

Just need to grab a tank and light, but the light will come after the tank to ensure I've got full width lighting coverage.

 

I like Cryptocoryne wendtii. They are generally low light tolerant.
I have a bunch of the 'bronze' variety in my tank (mid height plants, in the shady middle), which make a good contrast to swords, anubius, and other typical low light tolerant plants.
piks for atenshun.

 

That's beautiful

 

Thanks!!
I just swapped out a pair of super power-hungry 150MH pendants for those Kessil lights all the cool kids are running.
It is a different quality of light, but I like I like em. Plant growth is not quite as explosive, but still vigorous. And my electricity bill dropped by $60/month!
Otherwise the tank is simple setup- 'lots' of swimming room, a 40gal sump with a 'refuge' and some crude bio-filtration, and plants.
I also use reef-like, alternating circulation pumps. Plants seem to dig it. (*Yes, I laughed at that- I so easily amuse myself)
I do supplement it with Flourish, mostly for the iron.

 

My how quickly things move.

So, an update as to the extra goods I purchased as well as the plans for this tank.

I ended up purchasing a 20 gallon tank. Just happened to walk in on Petco's half off sale so I got an Aqueon 20H as it fits the 24" width I needed to stick to. Day prior to that I picked up a 100 watt heater (fixed, 78 degrees), some black gravel, wafers, fish food, Fritz 7 (bacteria), as well as an Aqueon filter.

On order to arrive tomorrow I've got a full-spectrum LED light (Finnex CRV) that's fully programmable, Seachem Prime, API Master test kit, aquascape (plant maintenance) set, water exchange pump, and whatever else I may be forgetting.

Tank cleaned and glass, hinged lid added



Where it'll live



The plan is for a planted tank, and although I have an idea for plants I am limited to what's available at my LFS for the time-being until I decide to order some online.

For fish, I want to go with black skirt tetra's which means 8-10 in a tank this size.

Looking at a few cherry shrimp, in hopes that the temperature doesn't get warm enough to cause breeding.

And nerite snails, to just help with clean up (algae especially).

 

Aw man, you coulda fit a 30 inch tank in there!
But seriously, looks like a solid set up.

I’ve had great success with plants from
http://aquariumplants.com

Good luck and be sure to keep update pics rolling!

edit: I don’t know how adventurous you are but I use a ~3/4 to 1” layer of unamended (no added fertilizer!) garden soil under the aquarium gravel, for the plants. Turns out soil is actually not toxic to fish; go figure. It may temporarily tint the water, which can be removed with activated carbon, or left for the aesthetic.
It’s probably best to let the system ‘settle’ as the soil changes from an aerobic to an aquatic anaerobic environment over a few days, before adding animals.

 

They sure have a lot!

Being as methodical as I am, I'm going to steer away from garden soil on account that I want to control as many variables as I can

Have you found the plants you received from aquariumplants to be pretty clean and free of snails?

I know I'll have snails myself, but I would be running nerite for the most part and would like to avoid getting ramshorn or some other sort of pest as a hitchhiker.

Got plenty of tips on how to "spot" them on plants purchased but as green as I am (pun intended), I feel like some might get away from me.

 

Soil is a scary thing to add to a fish tank!
There are commercial alternatives (e.g. Flourite) that cater specifically to planted tanks, but I can't see (nor experienced) any reason they work any better than regular gravel and time. And they are pricey.
Of course it is pretty hard to change up and add amendments later, lol.

I have not noticed excessive snail-hitchhikers on plants from aquariumplants, but didn't inspect particularly closely.
I don't really have a snail problem- they are in there, but they do no harm and will take up plant/food debris. They only overpopulate if I overfeed. Some have been around a while and are getting pretty big!
Ramshorn snails can be helpful by preventing substrate compaction with their burrowing activity.
If snails do overpopulate, you can trap them by putting some sinking food in a cup, in the tank, overnight.
They will slide in there and you can just take them out in the cup in the morning.

 

After 16 long years!

Expecting everything to arrive yesterday evening, I got started with rinsing off all of the gravel, rocks, and ornament that was going into the tank.

Goes without saying I cleaned the tank as well prior.



Well, everything else I was waiting on arrived earlier than expected so I decided to get her filled up right away.

Seachem Prime to detoxify as needed, and Fritz 7 to release the spores that'll be the new beneficial bacteria to my tank.



Let that settle for a few hours and since we were ahead of schedule, I decided to pick up some plants as I intended to cycle my tank with live plants.



Since I had intended to do this without fish, it didn't mean I was going to bomb the tank with ammonia. I added what would equate to 1ppm in my tank which is safe enough for the snails.

Not to mention, the water was at the temperature it needs to be with the heater having been run for a few hours.

This was last night's test before turning in.



This morning's ammonia levels were at 0ppm and my water was a bit cloudy.



Means the bacteria population really boomed and took care of yesterday's ammonia so I went ahead and added a bit more to achieve 2ppm.



I shouldn't expect any nitrites, and especially any nitrates, but I went ahead and tested for them anyway.





In about 45mins, I'll be testing once again to see how my ammonia and nitrite levels are doing and once again at 9pm as that'll be 24hrs after my first testing.

Looking forward to seeing the numbers change as needed in the coming weeks!

 

Yay! Reminds me that I need to clean the one tank I have left.

I had a 2nd hexagon tank in my office with a breeding pair of angelfish. They were shitty parents and ate the first 2 groups of fry that hatched, and then always ate the eggs before they hatched after that. Unfortunately I must have (subconsciously on purpose?) bumped the heater during a cleaning and boiled them overnight. They were 6 years old and huge, so probably weren't going to last much longer anyway. A 3D printer arrived that needed that spot in my office and I hadn't repopulated it yet, so I dumped the tank, but I did move the plants over to my big tank.

I can't say I have done a water test in ages. Our water here is very balanced, I do regular water changes, and the fish are happy and healthy so I just let it roll unless I see something funny.

 

Yeah I wouldn't expect to have to test any tank that's older than a year old, mainly because it's been cycled and established already.

I just set this tank up yesterday, so I'll be monitoring it constantly until nitrates are moving up and it requires a water change. I might even skip adding fish until a second water change happens.

The snails don't provide much in terms of bio load so I shouldn't see any spikes anywhere (at least, theoretically I shouldn't).

 

Excellent chemistry.