# Journal - 48 litre Wastad tank



## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

Hi everyone. I'd like to introduce myself, I'm from Scotland and have been keeping aquariums for around 15 years. I'm in the process of swapping a 38 litre planted tank with sand substrate to a new 48 litre tank employing the "El Natural" principles. I've found this forum a great source of information so thought I'd keep a journal here.

As for the aquascape, I've taken my inspiration from a journal I found on another site of an Iwagumi style tank : here.

As for plants...I'm going to use Staurogyne repens in the same way it's been used at the beginning of the tank linked tank - ie.mixed in with the rock. Bordering the front of those plants, I'll have some Pogostemon Helferi. Directly behind the rocks on the middle of the back wall of the tank I'll use Hygrophila difformis....with Vallisneria spiralis going out along the right and left of the back wall. I'm using black gravel as the top layer of substrate and will have this exposed at the front along with a black back backing, hoping that this will enhance the colours of the flora and fauna.

So far I have a base layer of John Innes #3 soil and have formed the dragon rock the way I like. Being in Scotland, our tap water is naturally soft, so I've ordered some crushed oyster shell that I'll mix in with the soil to act as a buffer.





I'm not quite sure about the small rock at the very front left of the tank...it takes away from the "symmetry" so I may take it out.

As you can see, there is rather a lot of rock. Despite my searching, I've never come across a Walstad style tank aquascaped in this way, as such, I'm a bit concerned about the soil being compacted. Like in the tank I've used as my inspiration, I plan to fill the gaps between the rocks with Staurogyne repens. Would the root systems from these plants be OK to not worry about removing the soil from underneath the rocks or should I put some styrofoam under the rocks instead and simply have soil around them?

As for fauna, I'll have some red cherry shrimp that are currently being housed in a breeding net in my main hi-tech tank to keep them away from my very aggressive kribs. Also will be the inhabitants of the 38 litre tank : a male betta, 2 african dwarf frogs and 3 white cloud mountain minnows (I'll increase the group of minnows to 6 when the tank is set up). I was considering also adding a group of perhaps 6 cardinal tetras. Would this be too much?

I'll try to keep you all updated with regular pics of the setup.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Cool! Finally someone is doing a Walstad iwagumi!

I think with realtively small rocks and plants with strong root systems you will not have a problem with compaction or anaerobic conditions underneath the rocks.

Please keep us updated, and welcome to APC!


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

The oyster shell arrived today, so I've removed the rockwork and added between 1/3 and 1/2 of the 250g bag. I'd rather not over do it at this stage as it would be harder to manage if I put too much in.

The rest of the plants will be here tomorrow. Although now I'm second guessing. The rock looks great, but i think that it should go on top of the gravel rather than directly on the soil. This worries me about dead zones and also the logistics of actually planting as the plants should go into the soil with the gravel added on top. It will be tricky to get the plants between the rocks if I have to add the rocks after the plants.

I also decided to try something different with the lighting. The stock lighting seems like it will be sufficient for the style of tank, but I'm not sure about the aesthetics of having the blue bulb..granted there's no water in the tank, but it seems kinda harsh. The fictures are the big screw ones (E27) with the bulbs being 15W. I picked up a 20W low energy bulb from Asda for £2. This one is quite yellow, so still not 100% sure. All going well, I'll be able to try both out tomorrow.

Kinda excited


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Don't worry about getting the roots of the plants directly in the soil. Just plant them in the gravel cap as you normally would. Some of the nutrients from the soil will diffuse upward into the gravel cap, and the roots will quickly grow downward to find the soil.


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

I thought that might've been the case, but haven't found any similar setups to compare with. Thanks 

In that case, I'll put the gravel and rocks in tonight


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

So I put down the gravel and rocks.

So, here's some pics! I apologise for the quality - you should know by now that a steady hand isn't one of my qualities. Also the glass isn't the cleanest.

The cool lighting effect on the wall is completely by accident. I turned out the main light of the room to reduce the glare of the glass. I also didn't have the "cover" for the in hood lighting properly on as I was going to take some pictures with the various different lighting options...as you'll see below.


This is with the Walmart bulb and the stock blue.


This is the stock blue alone.


This is with the walmart bulb alone.


This is with the stock white alone.


Stock white and the Asda.


Stock white and stock blue.


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

So the plants from Seapets arrived today and have to say I'm disappointed. First off, there was the delivery thing....the email from them had a link to the royal mail track and trace page and a consignment number. The consignment number didn't work....but thought that might be the 24 hours wait time thing. So Yesterday tried again and didn't work so gave them a call. The helpful girl told me that the number given actually had some extra characters on there and gave me the proper one to try. So I go away happily to check....still nothing. Called back to find out that it was in fact not royal mail/parcel force but some other courier. The trace worked this time to find out that it had been delayed with an estimated delivery date of Monday. I didn't fancy the plants chances so gave them a call. Explained that they were live plants and as this was a next day delivery, then they have already failed...very helpful lady promised me a delivery today between 8 and 12. They arrived at 8:20ish.

Now for the contents....I'd ordered 2 corscrew vallis and 2 staurogyne repens. The vallis looked OK...but one of the pots of the staurogyne didn't look to healthy at all when compared to the other.



When opened it was worse....


When I washed off the planting gel, I didn't even bother to take a screeny...that was the only thing holding it together. I've emailed seapets with screenshots asking for a refund on the mushy pot.

On closer inspecting, the vallis wasn't that great either. It had a ceramic weight ring with some foam round the roots. It had obviously been in the foam for some time as it was almost impossible to get any roots out of the foam without breakage. There were 6 shoots total, one of them had only 1 single "leaf". I'll take my chances with it though.

Now onto some tank shots. I started by planting the Staurogyne between the rocks, followed by the Hygrophila Difformis at the centre back, then the vallis at the right and left back and lastly the Pogostemon Helferi around the front of the rocks.

I then put down some sheets of kitchen roll over the substrate, plants and rocks followed by a little cup. I siphoned the water into the cup and the towel was to help with splashing disturbing the gravel too much to prevent soil entering the water column. As you'll see I'm just over half way full at the moment.











I added the contents of the breeding net that I had the rescued cherry shrimp in - I'd also put in 2 Krib fry that I managed to get into a net AGES ago....I'd assumed they'd died without the care of their parents - however noticed a centimeter long one swimming about hte new tank  Note that this will not be the finished product, much of the plants will be removed in around a week, this is just here for the purposes of helping with the chemical balance.


Just took this pic now that it's dark and would have less glare. I'm really pleased how the black gravel, black background and curved corners make the tank look.


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

I removed the big ball of monosolenium tenerum and Christmas tree moss making sure that none of the baby shrimp were hiding in there. The pic was taken with my iphone.


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

Look at the tank this morning to notice it's a bit cloudy. I didn't think it too much of an issue until it dawned on me what I didn't notice....activity. On closer inspection I couldn't see any shrimp...oh wait...yes I can...corpses. Well, 2 corpses, one at the top of the water being eaten by MTS and one lying on the substrate. I keep looking and still don't see any movement....only last night they were scurrying about. I fear that they've been wiped out. So I do a 12 litre water change (funny number I know but I've got a couple of these 2.5 gallon Nalgene containers that a friend in a chemical lab gave me years ago - great for water changes and storing RO water which was their initial use). I saved some of the "original" water to perform some tests, ammonia comes back as zero...but nitrite...well, as you can see....it would appear that I've had a spike.



Fortunately, I have the filter that's running in the tank that's being de-comissioned, so I've moved relocated that. The tank now has 2 mature internal filters running. I'm going to do a few more water changes today to hopefully dilute the nitrites down.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Bummer! I killed some yellow shrimp in a nano in the same manner, so I "feel your pain."


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## ragawaga (May 25, 2011)

Well, for what I thought was going to be a good day, turned out sh*t. A brief update : Seapets refunded me for the dead plant with no quibble. Unfortunately the twisted vallis I got for them had all browned and melted, so I ordered some from Ebay. That arrived today and althoguh there was some dead matter for the whole it was good and I got slightly more than was advertised. Unfortunately, however the nitrites had shot back up and the water was all cloudy. My plan was to plant the vallis and do a water change. Aye, great. The cloudieness got worse as I started planting, to the point where to properly put stuff in I had to remove the rockwork at the back of the tank. In the process, the rock to the left with the milliput broke and a lot of the staurogyne uprooted and floated off. I now kinda wish I'd just left it in the jelly it came in and planted it like that and hope for it to spread out. After much swearing, the vallis is planted, the staurogyne is still floating...I'm waiting till the water has cleared up before I re-attempt. I've done a water change and enabled the venturi valve on one of the filters to help aerate the water better to combat any nitrite poisoning. If it wasn't for the shrimp being in there, I'd completely drain it and restart.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Sorry for the all the problems! It reminds me how lucky I am to easily trade plants with other local hobbyists.


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