# First tank: Dennerle Nano Cube 30l



## Thorald

Hi everyone,

I'm from Belgium (so please excuse my English) and I'm new to aquariums. I've bought this Dennerle Nano Cube because I wanted to keep some small fish and some shrimp in my bedroom and I liked the way this tank looks and the way it fits on my bedside table 

I tried to make something with the plants and stones I had, but it was more difficult than I first thought. I really had trouble with the grass. But after a while I came up with something. It's not perfect, but I like the way it looks.

I want to put a small school of 5 or 6 pygmy corys in there and some shrimps, but I'm not sure about my water parameters.

KH = 10°d
GH >16°
pH = 8
NO3 = 10 - 25 ppm

I want to put Red Cherry shrimp of Crystal Red shrimp in there, but I prefer the CRS. I've read that CRS like soft water and a pH around 7. This worries me because I have hard water and a pH of 8. I was wondering if it is okay to keep them in my water, because I don't want to kill them all just by putting them in the wrong type of water.


----------



## Thorald

Hi again,

I have snails! So yesterday evening I was looking at the aquarium and I could so some tiny things moving on the plants. Now 24 hours later I can see tiny snails with transparent shells moving over the leaves of the plants and over the glass.

What do I have to do? It looks like they are eating the detritus that's on top the of leaves and are leaving the plants alone (for now???). I don't want to remove them if they leave the plants alone and don't form a danger for the tank.

What is your experience with this? Do they tend to get out of control or are they harmless?


----------



## Veloth

I dislike snails so my vote would be to get rid of them. Some snails do eat plants some don't. if you could get a picture someone could identify them. They were probably on your plants when you received them. From what I've read their population is controlled by the amount of available food.


----------



## Thorald

Hi Veloth thanks for the reply. I tried taking a couple of pictures, but they are so tiny that they don't even show up with my cheap old camera. Will try again later with my parents camera.

I'll leave them in there for now to see what they are going to do. As long as they eat the detritus and leave the green leaves alone they can stay. But when they start to miss behave I will declare war on them.


----------



## Thorald

So I tried to take some pictures, but you can't really see any detail on them. The ruler is in cm.

I can't really make up any specific features on them. I found a picture of a baby ramshorn snail on the internet and it doesn't look like that. Now I'm afraid they are pond snails.


----------



## Wire Fox Terror

Based on the shape of the snails in your pics, I would guess Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS). See if that fits what you have. They're great for your substrate but in my experience, you will have tons of them in your tank before long. I prefer ramshorn although, I can't keep them alive anymore thanks to really soft water.


----------



## Thorald

Hi Wire Fox Terror,

Thanks for the reply. I've read in this thread that they should look like miniature versions of the adults, but they don't look like that. They are not coned shaped, but rather round.

Also I've read MTS are live bearers and I didn't start to notice them until Saturday evening and the last time I put plants in the tank was on Thursday. If they are born life, shouldn't I be able to see them from day 1?

edit:
I've found some websites with good information about snails (pond snails and other common species).


Pond Snail: this guy recommends keeping pond snails in a shrimp tank.
Pest Snails?: looks a the pros and cons of several species of snails.
Snails: Friend or Foe in the Aquarium?
Pond Snails, Bane or Boon?

So from what I've read I conclude that most snail species are harmless and won't get out of control if you don't overfeed.


----------



## Wire Fox Terror

Yeah, I was making a guess based on the shape of the little blurs.  You're right, they would look exactly the same whether juvenile or adult so, I guess they must be something else. Either way, like you said, no matter what they are, they're all beneficial as long as they don't overrun your tank. I honestly wish that I could keep them alive, unlike most people, as they make a great cleanup crew!


----------



## Thorald

Now when I look at those pictures again the blurs look coned shaped  I have hard basic water, which is ideal for the little slime balls.

At least it gives me something to look at until I get some of my fish and shrimp on Thursday. I'm so excited


----------



## Wire Fox Terror

Which shrimp did you decide to go with? Please share pics when you get them!


----------



## Thorald

I was thinking of getting CRS, but I hope they will adapt to my water :S A couple of pygmy corys would also be nice 

I did some rescaping today. I removed the big rock because it was in the middle of attention and was way to big and move the plants around and trimmed the egeria densa.

Pictures will definitely follow when I have them tomorrow.


----------



## fabillo

i like that aquarium


----------



## Nowherman6

Just a comment on the snails. Not sure if you're getting fish for this tank or not, but I have had little round-ish snails in my 4G nano for years now. They stay pretty small and have thin shells. I also have a little school of P. simulans in there. Every now and then I'll take the snails and crush them with my plant tweezers then drop them back in the tank. The tetras go wild over them, definitely a good snack. Good way to control the population too.


----------



## Thorald

@fabillo: Thank you, I think it looks even better now 

@Nowherman6: Thank you for the tip. I was thinking of putting a small group of pygmy corys in there (6-ish) and some CRSs. I hope they like them to  My snails are also small (at the moment, but they are growing like crazy) and have transparent shells.

So I went to my LFS today to get my shrimp and fish, because the guy told me they were getting a new shipment today. But he didn't have any shrimp or pygmy corys. I was really disappointed, but before I knew it I was driving home with a bag of plants 

I really wanted more plants in it, but I had to move some plants around to get it all in there. The Lilaeopsis brasiliensis isn't doing to well, some of the leaves are dying and I don't see any new growth, but it is to high anyway. So I was thinking of replacing it with some new plants that would cover the gravel and are lower. Any suggestions?

Here are some pictures of the aquarium now, please tell me what you think.


----------



## Nowherman6

Transparent shells are a give away, you should be able to crush them up easily. 

As for the leaves on the Lilaeopsis, while I don't have experience with that plant in particular, I think it's not unusual for some old growth to die off while new growth comes in on certain plants. It's possible it was grown emmersed in the plant nursery or in different water conditions and now is adjusting. I had that happen some time ago with E. tennellus - it was grown emmersed and was tall and gangly with narrow leaves. Once planted it started to die off while new growth came in. After a while it looked as I expected it to. Maybe just be patient with it.


----------



## Thorald

I'm starting to see some new leaves now  But I'm still afraid that they are going to become to tall :S I'll just have to see, maybe I can rearrange thing so that it's no problem.

How big do those snails get? I've seen one who's shell was 3~4mm (0.1~0.15 inch) at it's largest.


----------



## Thorald

Good new today! I found a hobby shrimp breeder of CRS how lives not to far from my place. He's selling every grade, but I was thinking of getting 11 grade-a CRS for 50 euro. That's about 6.44$ per piece does that sound about right?

The guy has a small website were you can see some of his CRS.


----------



## Thorald

Today I got 11 CRS shrimp from a hobby breeder. He was a really nice and gave a lot of information. Maybe he had a 1000 CRS  Going from grade C to grade SSS. He said he never had any trouble breeding them and that they are low maintenance.

As food he recommended dry catfood , he'd always gave it to them and they loved it. As proof he threw this pellet of catfood in one of his tanks and immediately a couple of dozen of shrimp started gartering on it, they went crazy. He also gave me some of this floating plant he had in his tanks that I liked. I have two cats, so maybe I will try this some day.

I was a little bit worried about how they would do in my tank because the breeder has soft acidic water and I have hard basic water. So I gave them an hour to get used to the new water by changing a third every 15 minutes. When I released them they immediately started to eat/clean all the debris that was building up in my tank in the time it was waiting for shrimp. It's really fun to watch them 

So here are some pictures. I don't think they all are grade A, some seem higher some seem lower.










I really like this one


----------



## Wire Fox Terror

Nice looking shrimp! I know nothing about the grading of CRS so, to me they look perfect. It sounds like they were a really good price too!


----------



## Thorald

Thanks.

I made my first set of mistakes:

I threw the plant I got from the shrimp breeder in my tank without having a closer look at it. I thought it was alright because all of his tanks looked really healthy.
The day before yesterday I fed my shrimp, but a little to much. But I only realized that after I fed them the same amount (3 small pellets of 2mm diameter) yesterday and they couldn't finish it all in 1hour.
Yesterday I wanted to have a good look at my shrimp for the whole day, so I turnnned on my light from the 9am to 12pm.
Most of you probably know what these are the ingredients for: ALGAE! It was not much but I first saw a couple of small hairs of algae appear on the glass, then some more on the leaves of my crypts and on the floater I got. There also was a small spot of green algae on the glass. Most of the algae were growing on the floater, so I guess it must have come in with it.

So today I did 1/3 water change and cleaned the glass, reduced lighting from 10 to 8 hours and I'm not going to feed the shrimp for two days. I don't think not feeding the shrimp for two days will harm them, because I didn't feed them the first two days I had them and they all are still alive today. They like to eat the decomposing leaves and debris that's on the bottom of my tank and on the leaves of my plants.

I'll hope I don't see more algae tomorrow and that my shrimp and snails will eat some.

I also ordered some flame moss from the Internet to put in my tank, just in case my shrimp would breed. I also heard moss helps reduce algae.

So, a small set back, but over all I'm really happy with my tank and shrimp.


----------



## Thorald

The tank is growing in really nice. It looks like reducing the light worked, because all the hair algae are nowhere to be found and I didn't find any new green spots on the glass. 

I also found a couple of new hitchhikers: ramshorn snails, sand shrimp and tiny white worms that like to hang out on the glass. I've researched them all and I don't think they are harmful to my shrimp or plants, so I will let them be for the time being. But once I get some bigger ramshorns I will be trying to remove the pond snails.

Two pictures:
 

All plants look healthy and there is a lot of growth, but I'm not to happy with the way the plants are arranged. I want to get rid of the egeria. The green cabomba is going to go where the egeria used to be. Then I want to put the green stem that's now in the front (I think it is rotala) in the back left corner. I want to leave the big crypt in the middle, but I think it will look better it I move it little to the front. I also want to get rid of the lilaeopsis, because I don't like the way it looks. Then I want to put the small crypt in the front right corner. Then I'm going to remove some of the rocks and try to cover the gravel with flame moss.

It will be some work, but I think it will really improve the look of the tank. I'm planning on doing this once my flame moss arrives.

I don't know what to do with the plants I'm going to throw out. What do you guys do with plants you don't want any more? I don't want to throw them away because they still are perfectly healthy, so I'm thinking about setting up a small 10L acrylic tank I have with some potting soil and gravel I have laying around, put it in front of a window and see how things turn out. Maybe I can move some of the bigger pond snails in there and crush the small once as shrimp food 

So, what do you guys think about it? All suggestions and comments are appreciated.


----------

