# Sera Nano LED Cube 16l (4.2g)



## mysiak

My first "proof of concept" nano bowl has been successful, but unfortunately its shape is quite impractical, so I decided to replace the bowl with standard nano tank. I had few criteria, which were quite hard to fulfil - small size, tank cover which allows emersed growth and hidden filtration/water pump. In Europe there are probably only two companies which produce such tanks (Fluval and Sera), and only one is available in my country.. You can guess which one  Next time I might go with a custom built tank..

It's work in progress - I still need to plant some plants which are just floating in the tank. I can spend only few minutes here and there to play with the tank, but I already like it (even though bowl looked nicer/more elegant). Filtration is not really needed, but I like to have a "backup". Same applies to the heater. So far I found only two drawbacks of this tank - stronger flow from the spray bar. I've put a sponge over the spray bar and it slowed down the flow, but it's a bit ugly. I still need to find a good way how to make only very gentle flow (maybe it will solve itself over time when sponge clogs..). Second one is bundled LED light - it's nice, but output of 280lm is not enough to my liking, so I immediately replaced it with Chihiros. I am waiting for the delivery of sunset/sunrise controller and then I'll be completely happy 

I moved most of the inhabitants and plants from the bowl, except dwarf sag which was extremely invasive. I would like to avoid "one plant species tank". Hopefully my selection is right this time 

Details for anyone interested:
--------------PLANTS--------------
Fast growers:
- Bacopa caroliniana - emersed
- Hygrophila polysperma, difformis
- Weeping, stringy moss
- Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Brazilian pennywort) - emersed
- Hydrocotyle tripartita ("Japan")
- Echinodorus tenellus (Pygmy chain sword)
- Echinodorus Quadricostatus

Floaters
- Lemnoideae (Duckweed)
- Pistia stratiotes (Dwarf lettuce)
- Limnobium laevigatum (Amazon frogbit)

Slow growers:
- Anubias nana
- Anubias nana gold
- Cryptocoryne willisii
- Bucephalandra green wavy
- Microsorum windelov (Lace java fern)

--------------ANIMALS--------------
- Neocaridina davidi (red cherry shrimp)
- Malaysian trumpet snail
- Pink ramshorn snail
- small "natural" ramshorn snail
- Tiger Teddy (Neoheterandria elegans)

--------------TECHNICAL DETAILS--------------
Light is Chihiros C301 8000K, ~1500lm. Lightning schedule: 4 hours ON / 4 hours OFF ("siesta" to regain natural CO2) / 5 hours ON

25W heater ("just in case")

Inbuilt filtration with 3 chambers and total volume of 4 litres, sponge media (first chamber), Sera siporax + Eheim substrate pro + Juwel ceramics (second chamber), 150l/h pump turned to minimum flow rate (third chamber). Second chamber is used also for emersed growing plants.

Substrate is potting soil + volcano rock cap.

3D slim background, rock imitation

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Couple of pictures and thanks to everyone who got through this lengthy post.. 

Day 1


Day 2 morning


Day 2 evening


Top view


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## kafkabeetle

Looks good! Smart to avoid dwarf sag this time. 

I have also found it way too invasive for small tanks. I feel kinda bad for it growing denser and denser and denser with no place else to go. I've even had it try to spread under the gravel-line, smashed up against the glass...

I'm curious about your sunrise/sunset controller. What brand is it? I've been looking for one unsuccessfully for a while.


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## jfhrtn

Wow great looking tank so far. I have some dwarf sag that is starting to spread like a weed in a high tech 29. Looking forward to seeing how everything grows with the chihiros. Been looking at for a couple weeks but haven't pulled the trigger. Is there any room in once if the Chambers to maybe add some poly-fil or something similar to help cut down on flow? I have stuck some in the intakes of a fluval flex to help cut down on the current in the tank for endlers. That rock background really adds a nice touch to the tank also. 

-James

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## mysiak

@kafkabeetle - dwarf sag did the same in the bowl, it would be awesome if it stayed small, but at ~20-30cm height it's just too much. I will try to put it in my shaded empty spaces in 180l tank as I'm curious what will happen.. 

I ordered "S2 pro" LED controller, it was designed specifically for Chihiros lights, but should be compatible with all dimmable 12-36V LEDs with 5.5mm DC connector. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sma...iros-A-series-RGB-plus-C-LED/32859450598.html It can be found a bit cheaper on eBay, I got mine for about 10€. 
Bluetooth controller from the same seller seems to be even better as it has unlimited number of time schedules and it remembers them after power outage, but I wanted something cheap and simple (and with a display ).

@jfhrtn - I probably solved the strong flow with an extremely simple solution - I positioned the spray bar towards glass (just turned it around by 180 degrees). Water surface is agitated nicely and there are spots in the tank with strong and weak flow, so everything should be ok now. I try to avoid using polyfilters in my tanks, they clear up water nicely, however must be monitored closely as they clog up very quickly and can stop the flow almost completely in just few days.


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## mysiak

I planted everything as I wanted, now I only need to wait for plants to take off..


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## tin-dandelion

Hi, 

did you have good experience with Chihiros in such small tanks? I'm asking because I've recently launched 19L Aquael nano-cube with the stock LED light (540 Lm), but I'm undecided if that's enough light. 1500 Lm from Chihiros should give you approx. 90 Lm/liter, isn't that too much for non-co2 tank? 

I'm interested in your opinion and experience.


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## mysiak

tin-dandelion said:


> Hi,
> 
> did you have good experience with Chihiros in such small tanks? I'm asking because I've recently launched 19L Aquael nano-cube with the stock LED light (540 Lm), but I'm undecided if that's enough light. 1500 Lm from Chihiros should give you approx. 90 Lm/liter, isn't that too much for non-co2 tank?
> 
> I'm interested in your opinion and experience.


It's too early to tell, I have this tank and light only for a couple of days. However I had ~1100lm LED bulb over a 10 liters nano bowl tank (~20cm high) and it was absolutely fine.

This tank is 30cm high and Chihiros contains manual dimmer in the box, so if it will be too much, there is no problem to lower the intensity. Also I am going to use automatic dimmer controller, running light at about 10%-20% for most of the day and blast 100% only for a couple of hours. I am using similar schedule in my big non-CO2 tank with great success (e.g. 8:00->15:00 @10%; 15:00->20:00 @100%; 20:00->21:00 @10% ). This way I can see what happens in the tank during whole day, plants are growing nicely and there is hardly any algae. Fish react more naturally as well, you can clearly see how they "get up" and "go to sleep". With "on/off" light you can't observe this behavior. Until the controller arrives, I'm using the siesta schedule.

Other important points to consider are floating plants and tannins. They reduce available light at the substrate level and in Walstad tank you're going to have both. This can be a big problem for light demanding plants. Slow growers like Anubias prefer it though.. 

So even if I don't have enough experience with this particular combo (Sera + Chihiros), I do not expect major issues. I will mainly fine tune the light schedule to maximize growth of plants and minimize algae.

If you're not sure, try to run the tank with bundled light and upgrade if you're not happy with the output or features. But if you're like me, you will buy new light with controller very soon, temptation for "new and better" is often irresistible


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## tin-dandelion

mysiak said:


> If you're not sure, try to run the tank with bundled light and upgrade if you're not happy with the output or features. But if you're like me, you will buy new light with controller very soon, temptation for "new and better" is often irresistible


Exactly. That's how I ended up with a full-blown high-tech tank last time: it all started when I decided to upgrade the lights  Don't want to go this path again, too much work. But, I don't want to deprive my plants of energy, either.


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## Tsin21

Beautiful tank. Makes me wanna restart my walstad bowl again.


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## mysiak

tin-dandelion said:


> Exactly. That's how I ended up with a full-blown high-tech tank last time: it all started when I decided to upgrade the lights  Don't want to go this path again, too much work. But, I don't want to deprive my plants of energy, either.


(Un)fortunately I am limited by space, so I can't upgrade to high tech..  But I believe that with automatic dimmer and good schedule, one can have strong light without adding CO2 and still keep healthy plants with almost no algae. IMHO, automatic controller is essential in such situations, I would not upgrade to stronger light without it.


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## mysiak

So it seems that I ran into a serious issue of "nitrate breathing". I stupidly added all animals and scrapped their previous tank before measuring water parameters of this new one. My nitrates were about 150ppm and nitrites between 5 and 10 for the past few days. Interestingly fish/shrimps showed only small discomfort - they were just less active. Otherwise no ill effect observed (at least short term). I believe that it's because of generous water oxygenation (Sochting Oxydator) and hard water. 

As a quick remedy I did a couple of small water changes and filled the tank with fast growers, but it did almost nothing to the parameters. My next attempt was with adding nitrite and nitrate "eating" bacteria - it lowered both values temporarily maybe by 10%-20% and animals were more lively after these actions, but it lasted max 24 hours. So I took a chemical warfare into the battle - anion exchange resin. I received it only today and it's been in the tank for only 3 hours, but my nitrates are at ~50ppm and nitrites at ~2ppm. Still not ideal, but resin will probably remove everything in the next few hours (if not, I'll just regenerate it with salt and repeat the process). Once I'm sure that water is fine, I'll remove "food grade resin" and keep one designed for planted tanks (just out of curiosity). 

I don't remember if my nano bowl with the very same soil and cap was behaving differently or not, but I'm quite sure that it happened because soil contained a bit of artificial fertilizer. Diana wrote about this in her book, but I probably did not pay enough attention or just forgot this part. 

Long story short, be careful guys and keep some ion-exchange resin at hand, it can really do a small miracle


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## tin-dandelion

Oh, that nitrate respiration is a nasty stuff! I induced it myself in my new tank when I decided to add a bit of a fertilizer to bump up nitrates in the water: for the next few days, I observed elevated nitrites as well. For me, the help was to make a few quite big (30-50%) water changes over a few following days. Only when nitrates lowered to < 10 ppm, nitrites went to 0. 

Now my nitrates are not detected by the tests, and I don't want to repeat this experiment again.


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## mysiak

I wanted to avoid big water changes for a couple of reasons - possible shock to living stock (sudden temperature/parameters change), laziness and the fact that my tap water has ~25ppm of nitrates already. Anion exchange resin fortunately finally did the trick, I'm going to exhaust nitrates in the substrate with it and after that I'll remove it and rely on nitrates from the fish waste and my tap water. I had a very good plants growth and 0/0/0 parameters in my previous dirted tank, so it should be fine here as well.

Btw. the "side effect" of the resin is that I have so crystal clear water, that the tank looks "empty"  I'll try to show it in pictures/video tomorrow. 
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Second topic - I love Malaysian trumpet snails, but I should have waited with their addition until my "carpet" plants have roots. They are constantly digging them up. Is there any easy trick how to keep plants in/near the substrate, so they can attach by their own roots? I will try to use fine steel mesh as a "transparent weight" to keep them down, but maybe someone has a better idea..


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## tin-dandelion

Tell us more about this anion exchange resin. Do you put it into the filter? Which brand do you use?


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## mysiak

Selective anion exchange resin for nitrate removal is basically uptaking NO3- and NO2- from water and replacing them with Cl- anions. Once the resin is saturated, it is regenerated in NaCl solution (100g of salt per 1 liter of water). After about an hour it can be used again. As resin is doing its job really good, it should be the last part of the filtration system, so you don't starve the beneficial bacteria and cause a nitrite spike when resin saturates or you want to remove it.

I have two types of resin, the first one is designed for nitrate/nitrite removal from drinking water. It seems to be removing other "things" from water as well, as it's really clear. It is not advised to use this type of resin in planted tanks long term, but is often used in bare breeder tanks to keep pristine conditions easily. This one is a very good "emergency" resin in planted tanks if you have sky rocket nitrates and/or nitrites. I do not know the exact name of the product, but most probably it's Purolite A520E.

Second one is a special product for planted tanks, called "Szat Clear Water Plants", produced by company in Hungary. They put quite a lot of research into this product and I believe that it contains a mix of different resins, as it's supposed to keep safe nitrate levels between 10-20ppm. It does not remove tannins (at least not all of them) and it is being said that it can be used long term in planted tanks, with no visible side effects. I guess that time will tell.. 

The only thing which concerns me a little is amount of Cl- anions which we release into the water this way. I could not find any study confirming type of impact on closed ecosystem on animals or plants. The only anecdotal information I found is that some sensitive wild caught fishes do not react positively to these resins, but it hasn't been backed up by any scientific explanation.

Edit:
This is how waste water after regeneration looks like. Full of nitrates/nitrites, tannins and who knows what else


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## mysiak

Nitrates at 40, nitrites 0.25, tannins 0, I hope that tomorrow it'll be finally right.

Stainless steel mesh is hard to get around here, so I've used "fly window screen". It doesn't float and seems to do the trick. Plants should not be uprooted by snails now.

Few photos:





"plant protector"


"buce"


Reddish friend


Blueish friend


And two short videos


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## mysiak

Small Echinodorus plants didn't really stay at the substrate level even with the mesh over them, so I brought a heavy gun into the game - super glue. I took 2 or more bigger pieces of substrate and glued single plants in between them. Plants are "semi buried" now - they don't float anymore, just sit at the bottom of the tank and snails might eventually really bury them over time. Cryptocoryne plants will follow the same procedure.. 

Otherwise everything seems to be on good track - nitrates ~20, nitrites almost 0. Resin and floating plants are doing their job  Now I only need good roots for substrate oxygenation..


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## mysiak

Tank has stabilized, parameters are good and plants are growing. Food grade resin was removed couple of days ago. I started also gradual removal of big floating plants and going to keep only a couple of pieces of salvinia. Dwarf lettuce and amazon frogbit are not really suitable for nano tanks in the long run, though they help a lot during startup. As far as I can tell, there have been no casualties, even baby shrimp and fish survived the nitrite peak. Hardy little fellas 

Btw. I really like the hidden filter - it serves not only as a backup to plants for ammonia/nitrite removal, but also offers a lot of free space for additional equipment. I have moved Sochting Oxydator from the display area into the filter. Emersed plants have their roots in one of the chambers as well, so they do not shade submersed plants. Should I buy another tank in the future, it will have this kind of "technical room" for sure, it's simply wonderfully practical and doesn't need any special modifications.



Front view:


Detail on plants with superglued substrate on them:


Side view:


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## RIP

I really like your aquarium. It looks very natural.


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## mysiak

Thank you @RIP 

My sunrise/sunset "S2 PRO" controller has arrived and it's awesome. For just about 12usd I have full control over my LED light. Similar controllers from "reputable" companies cost several times more and sometimes offer less features (Aquatlantis for example).

My current schedule:
8:00 - 9:00 sunrise from 0% to 35%
9:00 - 14:00 keep at 35% (enough for my viewing pleasure, but not enough for algae to grow)
14:00 - 15:00 increase to 100%
15:00 - 20:00 full blast 100%
20:00 - 21:00 sunset 100% to 0%

Those who want even more control should consider bluetooth controller as it offers unlimited number of schedules, S2 PRO is limited to 8 timers (even though it's more than enough for most users).

So far I highly recommend S2 PRO (it even keeps current time and all settings after a power outage).
--
Otherwise plants are growing, Salvinia and Red root floaters are covering surface nicely and are much more suitable for nano tanks than Dwarf lettuce or Amazon frogbit.

We started renovating our home, so I won't have an opportunity to spend much time with the tank, so it will be about a month without a water change or prunning and with occasional feeding and top offs only. Really curious how it's going to look like once I can do a proper maintenance..


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## zolteeC

mysiak said:


> Thank you @RIP
> 
> My sunrise/sunset "S2 PRO" controller has arrived and it's awesome. For just about 12usd I have full control over my LED light. Similar controllers from "reputable" companies cost several times more and sometimes offer less features (Aquatlantis for example).
> 
> My current schedule:
> 8:00 - 9:00 sunrise from 0% to 35%
> 9:00 - 14:00 keep at 35% (enough for my viewing pleasure, but not enough for algae to grow)
> 14:00 - 15:00 increase to 100%
> 15:00 - 20:00 full blast 100%
> 20:00 - 21:00 sunset 100% to 0%
> 
> Those who want even more control should consider bluetooth controller as it offers unlimited number of schedules, S2 PRO is limited to 8 timers (even though it's more than enough for most users).
> 
> So far I highly recommend S2 PRO (it even keeps current time and all settings after a power outage).
> --
> Otherwise plants are growing, Salvinia and Red root floaters are covering surface nicely and are much more suitable for nano tanks than Dwarf lettuce or Amazon frogbit.
> 
> We started renovating our home, so I won't have an opportunity to spend much time with the tank, so it will be about a month without a water change or prunning and with occasional feeding and top offs only. Really curious how it's going to look like once I can do a proper maintenance..


Great looking little tank and it looks like you managed to get the nitrite issue solved...


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## mysiak

Still no sign of nitrites and tank is slowly maturing. I see few strands of hair/thread algae, mainly in the moss close to the lamp. Also some green+brown splotches on the glass, but snails are taking care of that. Otherwise..Hygrophila polysperma stopped growing, while difformis really took off, I had to trim it twice already (in my big tank it's exactly the opposite, difformis stagnating and polysperma is like weed), go figure.. "Carpeting" plants and Cryptocorynes are still adapting, but I see a little of new growth. Moss growing nicely (it needs a trim quite badly). Fish and shrimp are happy, I saw couple of newborn babies from each. So far so good.. 

One quick mobile shot


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## mysiak

Feeding time! 










New feeding thingy for shrimp/snails, food is kept in the dish and doesn't get lost in the substrate. The tube has one end above the water line, so it's extremely easy to dose sinking pellets into the dish directly. Very handy. Also the dish isn't sitting on the substrate, occupying the valuable space. It "floats" above. Just wish that it came in smaller size.. Maybe I'll create one myself


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## dwalstad

Fish, shrimp and plants look healthy. Nice tank!

I like your feeding tray. It looks like the fish and shrimp have a better chance to get the food before the snails. (I may have to rig something like that up for my guppies!)


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## mysiak

Thanks!

This feeding tray is really great, I highly recommend it. It is nicely made and pretty cheap on eBay..  There are other variants available, for example I like this "shrimp feeder", but unfortunately it's too big for my nano tank.


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## mysiak

One photo after moss trimming.


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## mysiak

Hygrophila difformis is the best grower in this tank, had to trim it couple of times already. "Carpeting" plants are finally spreading, there are a lot of runners now. I have lowered the max intensity of light to 80%, as I was getting a bit too much of hair algae in the moss and green/brown spots on the glass. Though I need to keep algae for Clithon snails, so might to ramp it up again. Otherwise no big change.. 

And it seems that I won my war against duckweed in this tank (and I'm close to victory in the big tank as well).


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## RIP

Looking great!


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## mysiak

Thanks! 

Short video of tank receiving sunlight (reflected from a window)


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## mysiak

I removed most of the moss as it was blocking too much of the light and water flow, trapping debris. Also I replaced ceramics media by a filter foam and wool to serve primarily as mechanical filtration, plants are so good biological filter, that it doesn't make sense to have pure biological media in the system doing nothing.

Couple of pictures.. 



Top view with Salvinia and Red root floater. 


"Snail infestation" as some call it, but I like term "cleaning crew" better. Some snails show clearly visible change in shell growth and quality during low food period. When I see deterioration of shell, I add more food. 


Tiger teddies next to small ramshorn snails, yep, they're tiny


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## mysiak

The tank is becoming my favorite aquascape, "the jungle"  Nothing special to write about, just that I removed the feeding tube and kept only the feeding dish. Fish were clever enough to get into the tube, but too stupid to get out, so I had to help them very often. The aquarium looks less cluttered and I can still utilize the dish, so no big deal.


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## lsantagostini

Hello Mysiak, wonderfull tank! Congratulations

Enviado desde mi Moto G (5) Plus mediante Tapatalk


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## mysiak

Thank you lsantagostini, I'm glad you like it


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## sbalabani84

This is beautiful! I love a good low energy tank!


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## dwalstad

Enjoyed looking at pictures of your tank. The plants have grown a lot since Sept and the fish look healthy. You've created a nice little world!


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## Sasanid

This is really nice micro-ecosystem. Are you controlling snails population? Or you let them do whatever they want?


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## mysiak

Thank you!

Yeah, plants are growing nicely and thick. I don't know why I bother putting drift wood in my tanks, such decoration is usually completely hidden by vegetation in just few weeks/months  But I still believe that it's somehow beneficial to inhabitants (surface area for bacteria etc.).


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## mysiak

Hydrocotyle tripartita "japan" and moss took over the tank once again, so off they went. I left a few pieceses here and there, so they'll be back with revenge, as usual.  "Pigmy" chain sword needs some trimming, especially in the front part, but I'm waiting for it to spread all over the tank so I won't do much damage as I'm afraid that trimmed leaves will die.

Also I noticed that I have only very few shrimp left, I guess that Neoheterandria elegans colony is hunting them very efficiently (I've read about this behavior, but couldn't believe that such small fish can be so aggressive killer). Well, it's mainly fish and snails now.. 

Before:









After:


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## JoanToBa

mysiak said:


> Also I noticed that I have only very few shrimp left, I guess that Neoheterandria elegans colony is hunting them very efficiently (I've read about this behavior, but couldn't believe that such small fish can be so aggressive killer). Well, it's mainly fish and snails now..


Woah, that fish is really incredible! I had never heard of it, it sounds almost perfect! What a shame that it'll eat the shrimp...

I don't know how hadn't I heard of such a cool little fish, where did you hear about it? I'm looking for very small hard water fish like this ones, but preferably a bit less predatory.


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## zolteeC

Nice, and you managed to maintain a good looking 'scape since the setup...

My nano tanks usually quickly become just a bunch of plants growing out of the glass... 

Congratulations!


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## mysiak

JoanToBa said:


> Woah, that fish is really incredible! I had never heard of it, it sounds almost perfect! What a shame that it'll eat the shrimp...
> 
> I don't know how hadn't I heard of such a cool little fish, where did you hear about it? I'm looking for very small hard water fish like this ones, but preferably a bit less predatory.


When I was searching for a suitable fish for nano tanks with hard water, Least killifish (Heterandria formosa) was usually recommended. I couldn't source them and then I stumbled upon Neoheterandria elegans. They are very similar in size and probably also behavior. When there are only a couple of them, they leave shrimp alone (or at least shrimp breed faster than they can eat them). However once the colony has established, they decimate shrimp with quite a success.. Heterandria formosa are being said to hunt in packs, they take down even adult shrimp which is bigger than an adult fish. I never saw Neoheterandria to attack anything except snail tentacles, but who knows what they're doing when I'm not looking  Even if they're not really "shrimp friendly" I highly recommend them, they are fun to watch and extremely suitable for heated nano tanks (they need at least 24C, I keep them at 26C in winter and 28-30C in summer, depending on the room temperature). For unheated tank I'd get Heterandria formosa. I'd like to keep both, but Least killifish doesn't like higher temperatures long term, so..Tiger teddy it is 



zolteeC said:


> Nice, and you managed to maintain a good looking 'scape since the setup...
> 
> My nano tanks usually quickly become just a bunch of plants growing out of the glass...
> 
> Congratulations!


Thanks, even though I'm not 100% satisfied. I expected pigmy chain sword to be..well, smaller  But it's much better than Dwarf sagittaria, that one got huge (in nano tanks dimensions). And I just realized that what I considered to be a Pigmy chain sword is in fact Helanthium 'Quadricostatus'. Echinodorus tennelus is still there as well, but propagates much slower. I will do a bit of pruning to give it a better chance for growth.


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## JoanToBa

mysiak said:


> JoanToBa said:
> 
> 
> 
> Woah, that fish is really incredible! I had never heard of it, it sounds almost perfect! What a shame that it'll eat the shrimp...
> 
> I don't know how hadn't I heard of such a cool little fish, where did you hear about it? I'm looking for very small hard water fish like this ones, but preferably a bit less predatory.
> 
> 
> 
> When I was searching for a suitable fish for nano tanks with hard water, Least killifish (Heterandria formosa) was usually recommended. I couldn't source them and then I stumbled upon Neoheterandria elegans. They are very similar in size and probably also behavior. When there are only a couple of them, they leave shrimp alone (or at least shrimp breed faster than they can eat them). However once the colony has established, they decimate shrimp with quite a success.. Heterandria formosa are being said to hunt in packs, they take down even adult shrimp which is bigger than an adult fish. I never saw Neoheterandria to attack anything except snail tentacles, but who knows what they're doing when I'm not looking
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Even if they're not really "shrimp friendly" I highly recommend them, they are fun to watch and extremely suitable for heated nano tanks (they need at least 24C, I keep them at 26C in winter and 28-30C in summer, depending on the room temperature). For unheated tank I'd get Heterandria formosa. I'd like to keep both, but Least killifish doesn't like higher temperatures long term, so..Tiger teddy it is
Click to expand...

That's so cool! I just found out that they sell H. Formosa online here where I live. By the way, what do you feed your small fish? I thought that maybe Tropifish Premium 0.7mm (generic tropical fish pellet food) could be a good small food?
And also, how many fish do you have in the aquarium?


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## mysiak

JoanToBa said:


> That's so cool! I just found out that they sell H. Formosa online here where I live. By the way, what do you feed your small fish? I thought that maybe Tropifish Premium 0.7mm (generic tropical fish pellet food) could be a good small food?
> And also, how many fish do you have in the aquarium?


I feed them with crushed flakes, frozen cyclops (though it's a bit big for fry and youngsters), freshly hatched brine shrimp, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (as far as I can believe seller on Aliexpress..), barley grass powder (it's for human consumption, but seems to be fine for fish as well ) and some generic pellets for shrimp/snails (they nibble on them thorough the day). They are top/middle feeders and they tend to ignore food close to the substrate. Feeder dish attached to the side of the tank and positioned above substrate is appreciated by them and they are easier to observe too.

These fish, especially fry is tiny. They can eat really only the smallest types of food. Fry eats mainly algae and biofilm from plants and decorations in the tank and sometimes they sift through detritus in the substrate. You could try the pellets for adults, but I guess that you will end up with crushing those pellets (not a big deal though, use two spoons for example).

I started my colony with 5 fish (2M + 3F) in February 2018 if I remember correctly, it took them a few months to have their first fry. Now, 10 months later I have about 20-30 of them (about a half of that is fry). If you want to enjoy more natural behavior and faster breeding, I'd advise to get a small colony right away (at least 10 specimen).

From my experience they are quite easy to keep, as long as you feed them at least once a day (they don't like "starvation" periods, probably because how small they are), don't have too strong water flow (not the best swimmers) and they are not in a huge tank (they can get "lost"). Also be careful when you do anything with the substrate (cleaning, planting,..) as you can easily trap/kill fry hiding there.


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## JoanToBa

mysiak said:


> I started my colony with 5 fish (2M + 3F) in February 2018 if I remember correctly, it took them a few months to have their first fry. Now, 10 months later I have about 20-30 of them (about a half of that is fry). If you want to enjoy more natural behavior and faster breeding, I'd advise to get a small colony right away (at least 10 specimen).


Thanks, that's amazing! What do you think would be a good population for a 5 gallon tank?


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## mysiak

JoanToBa said:


> Thanks, that's amazing! What do you think would be a good population for a 5 gallon tank?


I think that about 10 of them should be a good start. They will eventually fill the tank up to its capacity and when they feel "crowded" they slow down/stop the breeding (at least this is what I've been told and found also in some literature). I am still waiting for my "max capacity".  I guess that you won't stop seeing new fry until they are at least 50 in 5g.


----------



## JoanToBa

mysiak said:


> JoanToBa said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks, that's amazing! What do you think would be a good population for a 5 gallon tank?
> 
> 
> 
> I think that about 10 of them should be a good start. They will eventually fill the tank up to its capacity and when they feel "crowded" they slow down/stop the breeding (at least this is what I've been told and found also in some literature). I am still waiting for my "max capacity".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess that you won't stop seeing new fry until they are at least 50 in 5g.
Click to expand...

WOW! That really is incredible, I think I'll definitely will have a try with these amazing little fish.
I guess it'll be worth it to change shrimp for snails.

Thanks for the information! I'll make a post once my aquarium has been setup, cycled and populated.&#128513;


----------



## mysiak

JoanToBa said:


> WOW! That really is incredible, I think I'll definitely will have a try with these amazing little fish.
> I guess it'll be worth it to change shrimp for snails.
> 
> Thanks for the information! I'll make a post once my aquarium has been setup, cycled and populated.&#128513;


Looking forward to reading about your setup and seeing the pictures!  Btw. don't give up your hopes on shrimp yet, I guess that at least some will survive, especially the "invisible" ones (natural colors, anything bright will probably get eaten). Transparent or naturally colored shrimp are still nice and useful addition to the tank and you might get them usually for very cheep..


----------



## JoanToBa

mysiak said:


> JoanToBa said:
> 
> 
> 
> WOW! That really is incredible, I think I'll definitely will have a try with these amazing little fish.
> I guess it'll be worth it to change shrimp for snails.
> 
> Thanks for the information! I'll make a post once my aquarium has been setup, cycled and populated.&#128513;
> 
> 
> 
> Looking forward to reading about your setup and seeing the pictures!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Btw. don't give up your hopes on shrimp yet, I guess that at least some will survive, especially the "invisible" ones (natural colors, anything bright will probably get eaten). Transparent or naturally colored shrimp are still nice and useful addition to the tank and you might get them usually for very cheep..
Click to expand...

When I get the plants I'll definitely make a blog thread about it, thanks!


----------



## mysiak

I couldn't find any information about what happens to trimmed leaves of Helanthium 'Quadricostatus', so I'm doing an experiment here. Hopefully they won't die like on Vallisneria, but rather stay alive and functional as with Sagittaria. I'll do further trimming in another week or two if everything goes well, didn't want to overdo it for the first time. 

Before/after


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## mysiak

Plants are still alive, so far it seems that I did not damage them. Otherwise nothing special to report.. 

One short video for anyone interested:


----------



## mysiak

I will need to trim once again, this time it's Hygrophila polysperma who is winning the race for light and nutrients.. 










Excuse the reflections..


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## zolteeC

mysiak said:


> I will need to trim once again, this time it's Hygrophila polysperma who is winning the race for light and nutrients..


Yeah, but the saggitaria is also not hopeless in this "fight".


----------



## mysiak

zolteeC said:


> Yeah, but the saggitaria is also not hopeless in this "fight".


Technically speaking it's Helanthium 'Quadricostatus' ("old" name Echinodorus quadricostatus), but otherwise it's exactly like Sagittaria. And I wanted something different than Sagittaria dominance this time ](*,)


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## mysiak

Yet another weekly trimming behind us..


----------



## mysiak

As mentioned in another topic, I started with gentle degassing of the soil. Theory says, that I should see more roots growth in the degassed/compacted areas. Time will tell.. 

Btw. does anybody know about wood which will retain its red color underwater? Driftwood is pretty much black already and "amazon rainforest liana" (sold as supplement for shrimp) turned from nice reddish brown to dark brown in just a few weeks. I like that touch of red color in the green jungle.


----------



## mysiak

Mental note, I do not like Hydrocotyle tripartita japan - it grows everywhere, new leaves are very nice, but old ones get unsightly algae very soon and are just hideous. I tried to get rid of it once again, but I'm sure it will be back as it always does.

During removal of Hydrocotyle I had to remove also bunch of Hygrophila polysperma stems as they were tangled together. Hygrophila will grow strong again as well, but I don't mind it as it's like a million times easier to keep under control.

Echinodorus/helanthium quadricostatus got a good trimming as well, I cut it like a grass. Next time I'll probably cut it even shorter


----------



## mysiak

Neoheterandria fish lost all of their shyness, they dart to greet me happily whenever I'm near the tank (fact, that I drop them something to eat almost every time I'm around might be helping a bit). Their true beauty unravels once they become a "big family"  I would love to see hundreds or thousands of them in a big tank.


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## dwalstad

Enjoyed video.


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## mysiak

Plants still growing, even though there seems to be no free space anymore..  This is the tank after trimming.



















Fish greeting me, hope you can see them  (you might need to zoom in)


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## jfhrtn

Wow the tank looks great. I last stopped in to take a read was back in July of 2018 and this tank has come a mighty long way. Really like those Tiger Teddy fish in there even though they seem to like to hunt. I have done mini ramshorn snails in my tank and I really enjoy the cleaning crew also. Keep up the great work in the tank 

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## mysiak

Thanks!  I have yet to see them hunt, but shrimp are still slowly disappearing and Tiger teddies are the main suspect. Even though I noticed a few tiny blue shrimp recently, so hopefully at least some are able to hide in the jungle. But the tank certainly isn't a shrimp heaven as I thought it would be. Fish are so small, that they have no problem to follow their prey anywhere in the tank. Well, law of nature I guess. 

What confuses me a little bit is that snails stopped their population explosion. I used to remove a dozen of adults every week or two, now I rarely see new snails. I know that I am removing a lot of snail eggs when trimming the plants, but there must be many left. Maybe I need to increase the amount of food..?

Btw. recently I moved my 3W UV bulb into this tank, I had no real reason to do so, but I like how it clears up the water and doesn't remove useful stuff from the water like carbon/resin does. Also this article convinced me to use it 24/7  http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Redox_Potential.html


----------



## FromReefs2Plants

Do you think those tiny fish would survive in my 55g?

I have a couple of angelfish, one is very hungry all the time 

Do you and Diane think they could sustain decent numbers in a tank where other fish will be looking to munch them? There is a lot of plant cover and recently I added a hollow piece of driftwood.

I also run UV on my 55g. It has been off for a couple of weeks now though. I think I will try running it at least a few days per month. Currently, I run it whenever I add new fish.


----------



## mysiak

Neoheterandria elegans isn't the best community fish and I'm quite sure that hungry Angelfish would just had a quick snack with all of them, adults including. Most people don't realize how tiny these fish are, until one sees them in person. They don't like strong flow and need higher temperatures to prosper. Fry lacks the usual behavior of panic retreat if anything gets near them. They swim with adults very soon after the birth. 

I know one person who planned to have smaller tank full of Tiger teddies and use them as a live food, but they don't breed that fast at all, even in a species only tank. 

If you want unusual livebearers which have a chance with Angelfish, I'd probably recommend Limia species. They are very active, fast and their fry has a really good reflexes. Even though they might bother Angelfish with their "hyperactivity" and occasional fin nipping "by mistake" (if another species comes in their way while males chasing each other). This interspecies behavior gets mitigated with higher numbers of adult Limias in the tank (~10-15). 

In each case, I would reconsider combining soft water cichlids with hard water livebearers, one of them will be in suboptimal conditions which might show on their health and behavior.


----------



## mysiak

This tank is so self sufficient, that it's almost boring  (just kidding, I like it). All I need to do is monthly cleaning of the filter motor and filter tube (there is that nasty brown slime growing), bi-weekly plants trimming and partial water change every week or two (not needed per se, but I prefer doing it).

It's interesting how different stem plants win the battle for the dominance over time. The former king Hygrophila difformis was replaced by Hygrophila polysperma which is being pushed away by Juncus repens (which looked dead for several months).

Fish are healthy and don't seem to show any visual signs of inbreeding as discussed in another topic. No idea what would happen to them in a case of a sudden environmental change, but for the time being I'll let them as they are.

Btw. I had no idea how big can trumpet snails get when nothing disturbs them and they have enough food. Really nice, shame that they die so young in my bigger tank.

We finally bought a drape, so no more ugly heating pipes in the background of photos


----------



## mysiak

I guess that I skipped one or two trimmings, but fish don't mind the extra thick jungle..  What seems to be a fish heaven, is probably a shrimp hell - I can't find a single one (there used to be about 50 during their best times). Now it's only a nice, big, healthy fish colony and a couple of barely surviving "pest" snails. Funny how some people can't get rid of such snails and I can't keep them alive, while in theory they should be multiplying like crazy..


----------



## mysiak

Non rooted plants slowed down their growth quite significantly, so I'm trying liquid fertilizer for the first time in this tank. It should help especially to floating plants, some of them almost totally disappeared.

One photo after feeding with spirulina tab, if works like magnet for snails


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## mysiak

Not even two weeks since I started with a small dose of liquid micro ferts and plants have exploded again. Stem plants and floaters benefit the most, but rooting plants (particularly those which couldn't reach the substrate with their roots) shot many new leaves too. Probably too soon for some firm conclusions, but it seems that my soil stopped leaching nutrients into the water after about a year. The tank is heavily planted and on the fence of "high light", so this probably contributed to early nutrient depletion. Even with fish overfeeding I couldn't keep up with the plants' needs. Or maybe I'm not really overfeeding as my snails stopped growing and breeding.. :-k 

What is a little bit puzzling - I see only a very few roots in the soil layer. It suggests that it went extremely anaerobic and plants avoid this area, however poking doesn't release much of smelly bubbles. Or maybe Helanthium tenellum just doesn't have so strong/long roots as I expected..? Trying another, well known plant (e.g. Amazon sword) would help to solve this mystery, but there just isn't any space left and I don't know any other suitable rooting plant for nano tanks anyway. 

In each case, I will continue with careful weekly liquid ferts dosing (~0.2ml of Seachem Flourish).


----------



## dwalstad

In a mature tank like yours, I found that adding micro-nutrient fertilizers is very helpful for floating plants--and even some rooted stem plants (_Hygrophila difformis_). After the soil settles down and stops releasing nutrients (e.g., iron) a little micro-nutrient fertilizer can be a life-saver for some plants. I am glad that we have come to same conclusion!


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## mysiak

My stem plants refuse to take roots into the substrate (in both tanks). They often have "aerial" roots, but that's it. Except for that I struggle to keep them in one place (they tend to float, especially during photosynthesis period, if it makes any sense), I don't find it a problem. Based on the growth, plants don't complain either.. 

Floaters really need all the nutrients (and a lot of them) to be healthy, but I find it as a big advantage in a NPT - they are extremely efficient and easy to use bio indicator of nutrient deficiency.

Tank after today's fresh cut. I even saw a few adult shrimp, so maybe not all is lost with them.


----------



## mysiak

And a short video for anyone interested.


----------



## Uproar

That’s a nice looking nano tank!


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## mysiak

Regular weekly fertilization caused a very nice growth boom. Not only floating plants, but others are growing "like crazy" again (as when the soil was fresh). Freshly added Rotala rotundifolia is turning red in just 2 days. I am switching to daily dosing now with the same total amount of ferts per week. I'm aiming for more constant water parameters and to minimize the chance of micro nutrients overdose with one big dose vs. several small ones. Iron test would be probably a good idea, but they are either cheap and inaccurate or very expensive (with questionable accuracy). I will probably keep relying on bio indicators. All in all, this tank is moving from "pure Walstad" to "semi Walstad" method. I guess that I could move it back to "pure Walstad" with lower light intensity, but I like bright tanks, so manual addition of ferts it is.


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## mysiak

Not much of an update, tank still going strong..  I trimmed the plants recently, but probably will need to repeat it soon, jungle looks a bit too much like a jungle.

One new thing - I am switching off my filter every night due to noise. So far it seems that there is zero impact on plants or fish (as probably everyone expects from a healthy NPT ). I'm keeping the filter running during the day, mainly to circulate the water.


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## zolteeC

mysiak said:


> Not much of an update, tank still going strong..  I trimmed the plants recently, but probably will need to repeat it soon, jungle looks a bit too much like a jungle.
> 
> One new thing - I am switching off my filter every night due to noise. So far it seems that there is zero impact on plants or fish (as probably everyone expects from a healthy NPT ). I'm keeping the filter running during the day, mainly to circulate the water.


I have a 4 gallon NPT with shrimps and some baby fish. There is no filter whatsoever, tank has been fine for years. However I guess pulling the filter out in a tank that heavily depends on it may cause a disaster. Probably you could be fine without it, but make sure there is enough O2 in the water all times. You have quite some fish in this tank.


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## mysiak

zolteeC said:


> I have a 4 gallon NPT with shrimps and some baby fish. There is no filter whatsoever, tank has been fine for years. However I guess pulling the filter out in a tank that heavily depends on it may cause a disaster. Probably you could be fine without it, but make sure there is enough O2 in the water all times. You have quite some fish in this tank.


This tank would be probably fine without a filter, nitrates are always next to 0 (tap water has ~20-30ppm) so I assume that plants consume all of the nitrogen waste efficiently and filter acts just as a mechanical filtration. However I literally can't remove the filter, it is a built in system with 3 chambers which I use for a sponge, an UV light and a heater. Removing it completely without disassembling the tank is not an option and I would gain nothing by not using it..

You are right about O2 levels - during hot summer season, even with the filter running fish were often gasping at the surface in the morning. Sochting Oxydator solves this issue very efficiently, it doesn't need anything else than (bi)weekly refilling with Hydrogen peroxide.

Btw. number of fish seem to be stable, the colony is "self regulatory" and maintains itself at about 30-40 animals. One must love how nature takes care of itself


----------



## mysiak

Everything still going fine, even though I had to increase the daily dose of micro fertilizer from 1 to 2 drops. Many plants caught a second breath. The big "grass" is growing on top of the "mother" plants. It's starting to resemble an overgrown jungle once again.. 

Btw. I removed a bunch of MTS snails in the hope that lack of competition will help bladder and ramshorn snails population to grow. I lost almost all of them.

One short video. 





No idea if embedded video works for anyone, but here it is just in case:


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## mysiak

I'll need to work on the "aquascape" in the near future, recently I had no time except for an "emergency" thinning of plants. It's still too "jungly", even for my taste.  Fish don't mind it though, tiny newborn fry feels safe in between the plants and males can use the hideouts for their sneaky mating tactics. In open water they show off, fight with each other and the strongest male wins the mating opportunity, like with many other fish species. But give them a jungle and instead of this "default" behavior they slowly approach a female from behind/under her, dart forward, do what's necessary for genome to spread and move into the shadows again. Whole act is done in just few seconds and all males get a chance to become a father. If females notices them, they retreat and try again later. Amazing little fish


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## mysiak

The tank after much needed pruning. Still wouldn't win a beauty contest, but it provides a healthy environment, so I'm ok with that 

3D background is almost disappearing under a thick layer of moss - which grew from a very few left over strings, as I basically got rid of all mosses a couple of months ago. Funny how nature find its ways.

Juncus repens lost the battle, despite that it was dominating the tank for a while. Not a single plant left :\

I still can't start healthy emersed growth of any of the plants. Stem plants often grow out of the water and they are perfectly fine under the lid. But as soon as they reach the outside of the tank, where is standard "room" temperature and humidity, they just dry out. In my previous fish bowl, the same plants were growing like crazy even wrapped around heating tubes, in the same room, at the very same place. Not sure why it's failing this time.

Oh and fish started to dance/flash/fight in the open space again, the behavioral change was immediate. Also I noticed that their colors are much more rich (golden and black stripes), resembling tigers more than ever, it must be the grindal worms I'm feeding almost daily. Many new fry might be probably explained by the diet change as well.

Anyway, a couple of pictures..


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## dwalstad

mysiak said:


> Oh and fish started to dance/flash/fight in the open space again, the behavioral change was immediate. Also I noticed that their colors are much more rich (golden and black stripes), resembling tigers more than ever, it must be the grindal worms I'm feeding almost daily. Many new fry might be probably explained by the diet change as well.


Live food always perks fish up. I feed my guppies live brine shrimp every day; babies, 2-4 times per day.

BTW, last month I completely revised my article on hatching and raising brine shrimp with new material. Article is on aquarium page of my website.

Article (14 pages) has all kinds of brand new and exciting information on easy, _very easy_ hatching dishes, decapsulated eggs, best foods for rapid growth, etc. (Dry decapsulated eggs came out ahead of all other foods tested.) For the intellectuals among us, there's pertinent information on osmoregulation in brine shrimp and how salinity affects their survival.


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## mysiak

dwalstad said:


> Live food always perks fish up. I feed my guppies live brine shrimp every day; babies, 2-4 times per day.
> 
> BTW, last month I completely revised my article on hatching and raising brine shrimp with new material. Article is on aquarium page of my website.
> 
> Article (14 pages) has all kinds of brand new and exciting information on easy, _very easy_ hatching dishes, decapsulated eggs, best foods for rapid growth, etc. (Dry decapsulated eggs came out ahead of all other foods tested.) For the intellectuals among us, there's pertinent information on osmoregulation in brine shrimp and how salinity affects their survival.


Thank you for the link for the updated article, I read it a few months ago before the revision, will go through it again 

I have the very same hatching dish, the yield was "ok" for this small tank with Neoheterandria elegans, but no where near the need for my other bigger tank. I was using similar method to yours, except the water conditioner - I will probably retry it as I still have a small box of eggs somewhere. My hatching rate was good, but not great.

I found out that I had to clean the dish with ordinary unscented bleach before starting a new culture, otherwise the yield was always smaller for consequent cultures, up to the point of practically zero hatched artemia. Rinsing the dish with hot water and paper towel wasn't enough, only bleach "restored" the full potential of hatching. I am not sure about the exact reason, but even minimum leftover of bacterial film somehow interfered with brine shrimp hatching rate.

In my amateur experiments it didn't matter if I left the dish uncovered for some time or covered right away, the yield was about the same (I read that light will help in hatching rate, but it didn't seem to be the case for me). I always tried to keep high enough temperature so shrimp hatched in max 2 days. After 3-4 days the water became too stagnant/smelly and no new shrimp hatched.

It is certainly an easy method and very good hatching gadget if someone has a few fish, but being a lazy person I couldn't keep up with the needed maintenance (and bleach smell) and moved onto a different live food - Grindal worms. From more recent analysis these worms are considered as a very good source of all nutrients and can be fed daily (before it was believed that they are too fat to be a main diet). Their maintenance is next to none, just daily feeding with grinded oat meal and feeding worms to fish..  What's so wonderful about these worms is that all sizes clump together - from the tiniest worms to the adults. With one shot I can feed all the fish, even the newborn fry.

Occasionally I'm also using dry decapsulated brine shrimp eggs - which I rehydrate before feeding in a garlic extract (Seachem GarlicGuard). However these eggs seem to be too big for the smallest of Neoheterandria fry and even adults have problems eating them, so I feed them to Limias/Guppies instead. I'm afraid to use them without prior rehydratation as I suppose that these eggs would absorb liquids from fish guts instead and grow in size after being eaten, possibly constipating them. I tried it once or twice on big fish and it seemed to have negative impact on them, so I use rehydrated eggs only. No scientific measurements, so I might be wrong. Instructions on the box say to rehydrate the eggs before feeding though..


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## dwalstad

mysiak said:


> Thank you for the link for the updated article, I read it a few months ago before the revision, will go through it again
> 
> I have the very same hatching dish, the yield was "ok" for this small tank with Neoheterandria elegans, but no where near the need for my other bigger tank. I was using similar method to yours, except the water conditioner - I will probably retry it as I still have a small box of eggs somewhere. My hatching rate was good, but not great.
> 
> I found out that I had to clean the dish with ordinary unscented bleach before starting a new culture, otherwise the yield was always smaller for consequent cultures, up to the point of practically zero hatched artemia. Rinsing the dish with hot water and paper towel wasn't enough, only bleach "restored" the full potential of hatching. I am not sure about the exact reason, but even minimum leftover of bacterial film somehow interfered with brine shrimp hatching rate. )


I would read the new Nov 2019 article and follow my instructions. I believe the aquarium water conditioner is critical.

The brine shrimp hatching dish has worked well for me for two months now. No bleaching. I do gently wash the dish after each use, sponge wiping the sides but nothing more. Excellent harvests with 1/8 tsp eggs, 1.5 tsp salt, pinch baking soda, 4 drops aquarium water conditioner, light first few hours, room temperature (70F).


----------



## mysiak

dwalstad said:


> I would read the new Nov 2019 article and follow my instructions. I believe the aquarium water conditioner is critical.
> 
> The brine shrimp hatching dish has worked well for me for two months now. No bleaching. I do gently wash the dish after each use, sponge wiping the sides but nothing more. Excellent harvests with 1/8 tsp eggs, 1.5 tsp salt, pinch baking soda, 4 drops aquarium water conditioner, light first few hours, room temperature (70F).


Thank you for the advice, will definitely try it again with water conditioner.


----------



## jatcar95

I want to try raising some live food for my betta, I have some brine shrimp eggs on the way. I hadn't heard of grindal worms before though and it sounds as if they may be a good option as well. @mysiak, how did you go about starting (specifically obtaining) a culture of them?


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## mysiak

jatcar95 said:


> I want to try raising some live food for my betta, I have some brine shrimp eggs on the way. I hadn't heard of grindal worms before though and it sounds as if they may be a good option as well. @mysiak, how did you go about starting (specifically obtaining) a culture of them?


Let's continue with the discussion about Grindal worms in separate topic, it might be easier for others to find 

I put my reply here, hope you don't mind: https://www.aquaticplantcentral.com...live-fish-food-grindal-worms.html#post1002055


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## mysiak

After several weeks (or even months..?) without a water change, doing just top offs I decided to test water parameters. NO2 is zero, NO3 close to zero. GH (>14) and KH (4) seem OK, but lower than usual. However my pH is very low at about 6-6.2. My other, heavily stocked tank with weekly water changes has pH about 7.4 (used to be 8 ). Tap water is hard and alkaline (will re-check exact values tomorrow). Could I be experiencing the "old tank syndrome"? Snails had heavily eroded shells in this tank, which got partially fixed by feeding more of shrimp food (which I believe contains more calcium than fish food) and also adding a pinch of bentonite clay almost daily. Today I added a few small pieces of cuttlefish bone and did small water change. Hopefully it'll fix the water parameters slow enough without killing the fish which obviously adapted to suboptimal living conditions. 

I guess that I will start doing weekly water changes again to avoid this kind of pH drop in the future.


----------



## FrankWhite

mysiak said:


> Couple of pictures and thanks to everyone who got through this lengthy post..


You have a lot of talent, very impressive work.


----------



## Guibang

I've tried to raise brine shrimps too. I've followed the instructions from your article Mrs Walstad. I haven't tried using baking soda nor water conditioner yet (I use mineral water without chlore). 

- My first harvest was very satisfying. 

- But as Myasak points out my second one was way worse than the first one. I had just rinse and used a sponge on the dish in between the two harvests. 

- For my third attempt, I desinfected the dish with bleach, washed it with dishwasing liquid and rinsed it properly. The third harvest was excellent. 

- 4th harvest is on the way (same protocol: bleach, dishwashing liquind and proper rinsing)

It might be too early to conclude anything but I think Mysiak pointed out a real issue. Maybe your method does not encounter this problem thanks to the use of a water conditionner which Mysiak and I didn't use. Without this It looks like the dish really needs to be desinfected.


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## mysiak

After 4 small water changes (each time less than 10% of volume) and addition of cuttlefish bone pieces, pH got to 6.4 and KH is slowly moving up as well (~5 now). I want to get closer to the tap water parameters (pH 7, GH >21, KH ~6, NO3 ~20), so I am going to keep doing daily 10% water changes until I get there. I could swing there with baking soda right away, but that shock would probably wipe out my fish colony. 

I think that I was on the verge of crashing this tank and I'm wondering how are others doing it without a water change. I am an advocate of weekly partial water changes and this small experiment just confirmed it to me. For me it's much less pain to keep stable water parameters with PWCs than without them. To be honest, I never really understood the idea behind doing only top offs. 

Btw. I took out the brine shrimp hatchery dish to check the yield with and without a water conditioner. I will try to compare yields with/without bleaching between them as well. Experience of @Guibang sounds very familiar, so I'm curious if water conditioner will make any difference.


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## dwalstad

Interesting posts. 

Mysiak, what time of day do you measure pH? Before or after lights on? Your tank has so much plant growth that pH could have very steep fluctuations depending on when you measured it. I don't think pH 6.4 is that alarming, especially if that is what you measure before lights go on. Are your fish or shrimp having problems?

As to brine shrimp hatchery dish, that's very interesting that disinfection would make such a difference for both you and Guibang. Right now, I am wrestling with the implications of your posts. No easy answers! Something in the residue from first hatch is inhibiting future hatches. It must be very potent, not to be washed away by ordinary sponge cleaning. I'm thinking heavy metals or bacterial LPS (lipopolysaccharides), many of which are toxic, that stick to the plastic surface. Chlorox is a potent force to remove or destroy biofilms, perhaps containing toxic heavy metals and LPS. 

Aquarium water conditioners somewhat mimic nature's humic acids, which are beneficial. I just thought of conditioners as chelators of heavy metals, but they may have even more protective effects in brine shrimp hatching???


----------



## mysiak

I did the measurements in the late afternoon/evening, after the main photo period, so naturally occurring CO2 should have negligible impact on pH. 6.4 is after I did the "corrective" actions, it started with pH ~6-6.2 (chart for test strips have minimum value of 6.4, so it's only interpolation of color chart, but it was definitely below 6.4). Fish seemed OK, they behaved as always and even fry didn't show any signs of discomfort. Sadly all shrimp are gone from this tank, I am not sure about the exact reason, but I assume that freshly born shrimps got eaten by fish and the old ones died one by one of old age or due to molting issues. 

However I am certain that snails were suffering in this water lately. Ramshorn snails had so fragile shells, that even the most gentle touch crushed them. Even trumpet and nerite snails with their extremely hard and thick shells were showing signs of erosion - clearly visible white patches. Previously I did not pay enough attention to these signs of low pH/calcium. I believe that moving towards at least neutral pH will be good for snails and livebearing fish as well. I will probably try adding a few shrimp in the tank again then. 

About the brine shrimp hatching - it it were heavy metals, shouldn't they impact also the first batch? I struggle to understand how could heavy metals impact only consequent batches, but not the first one. Anyway, my first batch with water conditioner is very good, first artemia appearing after 24 hours, most hatched after ~36 hours. Tomorrow I'll start a second batch with no bleaching, but again with water conditioner. I'm really curious what will happen and if a water conditioner is really the "magic" ingredient.


----------



## dwalstad

Thanks for explanation about pH measurements. Snail shells probably would suffer from a lower pH, just as reef coral with ocean acidification. I wish other hobbyists would be as mindful of their snails! 

As to brine shrimp, I think that heavy metals are not relevant in your situation. Otherwise, you would have gotten a poor hatch on the first try. Something from the first brine shrimp egg hatching stuck to the plastic of the hatchery dish. Toxin must not be water soluble. Otherwise, it would have been easily rinsed off with a sponge cleaning. Thus, it has to be lipophilic (lipid-soluble). My first thought, admittedly with no proof, is that the toxin could be bacterial LPS--some kind of lipids leftover from the first hatching.

Aquarium water conditioners have more than one protective effect. 

I will be interested to hear what your results are.


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## Guibang

I don't know if this is relevant here. But as we're talking brine shrimps: a little update on my brine shrimps experiments. I've tried to add brine shrimp food (dry algae powder) to the dish. I thought it could make them a little bigger/more nutritious for my fish. The experiment doesn't seem to be conclusive. I've noticed a drastic reduction of the number of brine shrimps to be harvested


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## dwalstad

I followed Mysiak's excellent example and started a new thread on brine shrimp in a separate forum (Fish for the Planted Aquarium). Should have done this long ago...


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## mysiak

After one week and several additions of cuttlefish bone pieces, cuttlefish bone powder, montmorillonite clay powder/pieces, bentonite clay water suspension and many small water changes, I registered these changes on my testing strips:

pH from 6.2 to "almost" 6.8 (~6.7)
GH from >14 to "almost" >21
KH from 4 to "almost" 6 (~5.5)

More accurate reading is not possible with my equipment, but the trend is clearly visible and everything is going well as far as I can tell. The gradual changes of water parameters don't seem to impact livestock negatively. 

Unfortunately my knowledge in chemistry is lacking and I couldn't find any calculator to figure out the exact dosing of CaCO3 to achieve target pH and KH (especially with respect to water temperature and current pH/KH levels), so I only "guesstimated" the amount of powders. Basically I've been re-adding one of the ingredients whenever I saw that the previous addition dissolved. I am keeping a couple of cuttlefish bones pieces in the tank for snails to graze on which they obviously appreciate as there are always some moving over them. I expect less and less powder to dissolve, especially once I achieve neutral pH. After that point I plan to add powder on weekly basis + always keep cuttlefish bone in the tank. These actions along with weekly water changes should prevent the "old tank syndrome" in the future. 

In hindsight, I probably should have added limestone to the soil when I started this tank..


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## mysiak

Persistent dosing of calcium carbonate - cuttlebone and calcium oxide (?) - Montmorillonite clay shows its positive impact. pH went to 7 and population of snails "exploded". I finally see many newborn snails and adults do not die prematurely. New growth of their shells is finally healthy as well. It's time to re-introduce shrimp.

Salvinia minima started showing rot due to high humidity (condensate forming on the cover glass), so I'm going to do what I suggested to another fella with similar problem - raise the covering glass just a tiny bit.

All in all..everything seems to be on the right track again.


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## zahtar

mysiak said:


> I think that I was on the verge of crashing this tank and I'm wondering how are others doing it without a water change. I am an advocate of weekly partial water changes and this small experiment just confirmed it to me. For me it's much less pain to keep stable water parameters with PWCs than without them. To be honest, I never really understood the idea behind doing only top offs.


It's been quite some time since you asked, but it's only now that I read this. Around middle November (maybe earlier) I stopped doing water changes in my 15L tank. During the first weeks after setup I did plenty, but on 30 Oct I measured 38mg/L NO3 in running tap water, so discussing here we came to the conclusion that water changes would not help bring NO3 down. Last plant was added in early November (Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini', around 6/11). After a while I stopped doing water changes.



Code:


units are mg/L
	       CO2 	Cl2	PH	KH	GH	 NO2	NO3	
10/11/19	4	0	8,1	17	11	0,24	25
15/11/19	6	0	8	>20	11	0,09	19
29/11/19	5	0	8,1	19	11	0,12	5
05/12/19	5	0	8,1	>20	11	0,29	9
21/12/19	3	0	8,3	17	12	0,08	0
21/12/19	3	0	8,3	>20	10	0,09	5
18/01/20	9	0	7,7	14	8	0,17	0

I did a 2litre water change on 21/12, hence the double measurement. Since then I also did a 4L water change in late December, or early January, can't remember. The tank capacity is 15L, very close to yours. In general the tank is doing decently, apart from the issues we discussed on the other thread.

The idea behind top offs (if I assume it correctly) is probably maintaining the mass concentration ratio. It is different having 2g of a substance dissolved in 100ml of water (2/100=0,020 w/v) than having 2g of a substance dissolved in 90ml of water due to evaporation (2/90=0,022 w/v). I don't know if this could have big impact, maybe only longterm...


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## dwalstad

Based on your nitrate measurements and the high nitrate levels in your tapwater, it appears you are better off NOT doing water changes.

This is a lovely example of an NPT ecosystem removing nitrate naturally. This is done via both plant uptake and denitrification by bacteria in a soil-containing substrate. 

Thank you for providing this data for us!


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## zahtar

You are very welcome!


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## mysiak

Shouldn't we take also other substances into the consideration when discussing partial water changes? Purely from NO3 point of view, you're absolutely correct. Also my tank water has better parameters than tap water. However after few months without a water change, GH, KH and pH started to move downwards, and previously naturally hard+alkaline/neutral tank became soft(ish)+acidic water which couldn't sustain snails population and wasn't optimal for livebearers as well. I could imagine that it would be desired outcome for fish like Betta, but otherwise I believe that it's important to have stable parameters to avoid unnecessary stress of livestock. 

Even with assumption that 100% of waste products will be consumed by plants, it still leaves the question about minerals. By doing top offs, we are adding less than 1% of fresh water every week vs. 10-20% with PWC. 1% clearly isn't enough to replenish missing minerals and water parameters are not stable. However weekly replacement of 10-20% of water seems to be enough to keep parameters stable for years. I consider addition of small amount of NO3 contained in tap water a free fertilizer, which I otherwise must provide by other means (fish food).

IMHO, prevention is better than cure and I frankly see no point in skipping water changes and using chemicals instead to move parameters into desired, natural range (or worse, leaving the tank as it is and risking eventual crash when pH drops too low).


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## zolteeC

mysiak said:


> Shouldn't we take also other substances into the consideration when discussing partial water changes? Purely from NO3 point of view, you're absolutely correct. Also my tank water has better parameters than tap water. However after few months without a water change, GH, KH and pH started to move downwards, and previously naturally hard+alkaline/neutral tank became soft(ish)+acidic water which couldn't sustain snails population and wasn't optimal for livebearers as well. I could imagine that it would be desired outcome for fish like Betta, but otherwise I believe that it's important to have stable parameters to avoid unnecessary stress of livestock.
> 
> Even with assumption that 100% of waste products will be consumed by plants, it still leaves the question about minerals. By doing top offs, we are adding less than 1% of fresh water every week vs. 10-20% with PWC. 1% clearly isn't enough to replenish missing minerals and water parameters are not stable. However weekly replacement of 10-20% of water seems to be enough to keep parameters stable for years. I consider addition of small amount of NO3 contained in tap water a free fertilizer, which I otherwise must provide by other means (fish food).
> 
> IMHO, prevention is better than cure and I frankly see no point in skipping water changes and using chemicals instead to move parameters into desired, natural range (or worse, leaving the tank as it is and risking eventual crash when pH drops too low).


Do you have any experience on the rate as GH etc drops in your tank? My guess is that it could take pretty long before your tank goes acidic enough to cause any trouble for the snails etc.
Your chart above shows a little drop in GH, but that can also be some measurement uncertanity...


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## mysiak

zolteeC said:


> Do you have any experience on the rate as GH etc drops in your tank? My guess is that it could take pretty long before your tank goes acidic enough to cause any trouble for the snails etc.
> Your chart above shows a little drop in GH, but that can also be some measurement uncertanity...


The chart above is not from this tank and not mine, so it should be probably discussed in a separate topic 

Back to this tank - while I was doing weekly water changes, I was taking measurements about once per month with stable parameters. Then I stopped doing water changes and took one or two control measurements and as they were still the same, I didn't bother to continue with them. Over the course of a couple of months, I noticed that there were hardly any new snails born and those which were alive had heavy shell erosion. So I took a measurement and to my surprise the pH was very low, GH and KH were well below tap water parameters (even though not "catastrophic"). Unfortunately I do not have precise history of data, so not sure how long exactly did it take to pH to go down and for how long it was low enough to cause erosion of shells. Since I "corrected" water parameters, snails are breeding again and new shell growth is healthy too.

I am sticking to weekly water changes, but I might eventually setup a small jar with similar soil/plants composition to see how long will it take for the tank to "crash".


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## dwalstad

mysiak said:


> I am sticking to weekly water changes, but I might eventually setup a small jar with similar soil/plants composition to see how long will it take for the tank to "crash".


Please! I would wait for results before assuming a "crash".

Based on your earlier post (1/18/20), you were adding Ca sources to your tank. Thus, it is not clear to me whether the pH decrease/shell erosion occurred because you stopped adding Ca sources or from a lack of water changes.

Additionally, you seem to be adding a lot of fertilizers to your tank. Fertilizer additions can have secondary effects (metal toxicity?), necessitating frequent water changes.

Remember that fishfood contains a goodly amount of calcium. According to my calculations, the monthly fishfood input I used for my 50 gal tank provided 14 times what the plants required (my book, page 80). There should have been some leftovers for snails.


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## mysiak

I went through my posts and this is a rough summary of the history of the tank:

*July 2018* 
- start of the tank
- doing weekly partial water changes (~5-10% of water volume)

*April 2019*
- first sign of "missing" snails - population is stable but not growing in numbers as before
- still doing weekly partial water changes
- I'm adding EasyLife fluid filter medium (which is suspected to be only liquid suspension of Bentonite clay) after each water change
- also I put a couple of Montmorillonite clay "stones" into the tank
- water tests every few weeks showed stable parameters

*June 2019 *
- started with weekly dosage of liquid fertilizer
- somewhere between April and July I stopped doing water changes
- I'm still adding EasyLife fluid filter medium every week or two + a bit of Montmorillonite clay powder
- a couple of tests showed still stable parameters, so I stopped doing them

*August 2019*
- switched to daily dosage of liquid fertilizer (due to unstable Iron gluconate in Seachem Flourish)
- looking at the photos, there are hardly any snails now, most of them have eroded shells
- I'm still adding EasyLife fluid filter medium every week or two + Montmorillonite clay

*December 2019*
- I finally decided to do something about dying snails - by measuring water parameters, which showed low pH and lower than usual GH and KH
- I immediately started with many partial water changes and heavy dosage of Montmorillonite clay powder and cuttlefish bone
- I restarted doing weekly partial water changes

*January 2020*
- water parameters moved towards "natural" of tap water 
- snails are breeding and growing fine again, new growth is undamaged
- I continue with weekly addition of EasyLife filter medium + pure Montmorillonite clay powder about every two days. Also I keep several pieces of cuttlefish bone accessible to snails.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During all times I was feeding very generously, often switching between brands and types of food even several times per day when I was at home. There are next to none shells after dead snails, all dissolved completely very quickly.

I have been using the very same additives and double ferts doses in my big tank, but doing weekly water changes (~15-20%) very consistently. There was no drastic change of parameters during years, tank water is pretty much the same as tap water. Shells after dead snails stay in the tank and dissolve only extremely slowly.

These are daily doses of various elements in PPM for this tank (3 drops of Seachem Flourish for 16l). I believe that they are way below any toxic level - even if we assumed zero uptake and no PWCs, there would be 0.003ppm of copper after one year of daily doses.


Code:


Total Nitrogen (N)	0.00065625
Available Phosphate (P2O5)	0.0009375
Soluble Potash (K2O)	0.0346875
Calcium (Ca)	0.013125
Magnesium (Mg)	0.0103125
Sulfur (S)	0.025996875
Boron (B)	0.00084375
Chlorine (Cl)	0.1078125
Cobalt (Co)	0.0000375
Copper (Cu)	0.000009375
Iron (Fe)	0.03
Manganese (Mn)	0.00110625
Molybdenum (Mo)	0.000084375
Sodium (Na)	0.0121875
Zinc (Zn)	0.000065625


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## dwalstad

Thanks for the documentation. 

A lower pH would dissolve snail shells just like ocean acidification is destroying (or will destroy) coral reefs and marine snail shells. 

On page 5 (Table I-1) in my book, I compare acid-generating processes (animal respiration, nitrification, decomposition) v. base-generating reactions (photosynthesis, denitrification, water-air mixing). 

Even though your tank is heavily planted, it also has a very heavy "animal load" of fish and snails. Basically, more animals means more acidity. Usually, a planted tank can handle the acidity, because the more animals, the more CO2 for plants. More CO2 stimulates photosynthesis and the removal of CO2, which raises the pH and brings the tank back into pH balance. Thus, the typical planted tank has a highly effective feedback mechanism for maintaining long-term pH stability--without water changes. Your tank differs from the norm.

In summary, I support your premise that water changes and adding a good calcium source would help mitigate the snail erosion problem in your tank.


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## mysiak

Just a photo of the underwater jungle after trimming, I had to remove a lot of Hygrophila polysperma, addition of extra Calcium and/or raise of pH gave it quite a boost.


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## mysiak

A bit of irregular sunshine (reflection from an opened window). I'd say that tank needs trimming again, fish don't have much free space. 

What is puzzling me - Helanthium quadricostatus grows like crazy with barely any roots in the substrate. It's been like this for more than a year. I don't complain as plants are healthy, just that Sagittaria in my previous tank had roots everywhere, I almost couldn't see substrate over them. In this tank it's exactly the opposite. Could it be just the difference between plant species?


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## mysiak

After trimming, to my surprise there is a new growth of Cryptocorine (parva I think, not visible in the photo). I'm looking forward to the future "battle of plants".


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## zolteeC

mysiak said:


> After trimming, to my surprise there is a new growth of Cryptocorine (parva I think, not visible in the photo). I'm looking forward to the future "battle of plants".


How do you "prune" this so that you dont cut any fish into half?


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## mysiak

zolteeC said:


> How do you "prune" this so that you dont cut any fish into half?


I assume that you're joking, but I'm always afraid of this.  Fish are fast and shy enough, but I had a few accidents with shrimp while trimming a big clump of moss. :fear: The key is to do it slowly and shake with plants/scissors before cutting. Stubborn snails are sometimes very unfortunate being in the way though.


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## dwalstad

Your snails will have to learn to move a little faster.


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## jatcar95

dwalstad said:


> Your snails will have to learn to move a little faster.


Maybe the unintentional selective breeding will produce a line of super-speed snails.


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## mysiak

I had to reduce number of adult snails quite drastically as they started to eat fresh leaves of Hygrophila polysperma (probably due to lack of other food). Physa acuta is the main suspect, but bigger ramshorn snails probably took a bite as well. I expect the new population to adapt to amount of "ordinary" food and that they'll leave plants alone as before.

Otherwise no big news, after I stabilized water parameters, everything is "boringly good" again.


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## mysiak

I was being crazy with Neoheterandria elegans fry getting into the middle filtration chamber, every day I removed at least 2 of them. There is small "security hole" connecting middle chamber with the main tank area to prevent pump going dry in case of extremely low water line, so I glued a piece of plastic over this hole. Fry still got to the middle chamber. After several weeks I hopefully finally figured out how did they get there - through the coarse filtration foam in the first chamber. This foam is at least 15cm long, but fry was still able to swim through it. I have no other explanation.

Since I added a fine mesh (generic PVC mesh for computer fans) over the intake overflow, fish do not get even to the first chamber. The middle one is empty as well. I hope that it really solves my issue as I'm out of ideas (and Sera customer support as well).


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## zahtar

Nice idea, clean and tidy! If the problem reoccurs and plants cover the looks, you could also coat this mesh with nylon stocking without stretching it, I guess...


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## mysiak

I was probably celebrating prematurely, freshly born fry is still smaller than the mesh size. Just removed one from the left chamber and second one from the middle part. They can barely swim, but must push themselves through there.. Bigger fish stay outside though, so at least some improvement.

Black nylon stocking sounds good, it will be pretty invisible so gonna try it. Thanks for the suggestion! I had some filter floss at hand, so I "plugged" the intake part with it (while keeping the mesh as well). I hope that this time it keeps even the tiniest fry out of the filter.

Edit: mesh size is about 0.6-0.8mm (hard to measure with caliper), I will try to source smaller mesh.


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## barongan

Wow great looking tank so far.


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## mysiak

Update on FFF (Fry Friendly Filter ™)  

- filtration floss failed, I could not fill in all the gaps, so fry still got through

- nylon stocking works great, better said it's too good - it clogged in less than a day (powder from cuttlefish bone which I dose at least once a week played its role in this too). I might be able to regulate its "mesh" size by stretching, but risk of clogging the filter is too high, so I stopped using it. 

- currently I'm trying synthetic fabric of "unknown" origin (similar to nylon stocking, but less dense and more rigid - something like curtains). So far so good, let's hope that it won't clog.


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## FromReefs2Plants

what are you dosing cuttlefish bone for? Also I wouldn't sweat the fry, they die they die. Tank still powering along?


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## mysiak

@FromReefs2Plants - my pH and KH/Calcium levels were too low for livebearing fish and snails. Cuttlefish bone slowly releases Calcium and Carbonate which is greatly appreciated by all inhabitants in this tank. I don't like fish dying, especially quite rare ones as Neoheterandria elegans (at least where I live) so if I can prevent their deaths, I do it.

Tank is fully stabilized - cuttlefish bone and crushed coral in the filter brought pH to 7 and ~8dKH, I do not really need to dose anything special at this point (I keep a small bag of crushed coral in the filter though). I do not observe any issues with snails, plants or fish, all seems good.

FFF (Fry Friendly Filter ™) is great success, not a single fry got into the filter area since I modified it. It might have resulted in increased number of fish in the tank, I think that there are more of them now (probably more than 50). The only downside is that I can't take a photo of plants, as fish get in the view as soon as they see me (expecting food). 

Edit: I actually counted number of visible fish in a photo, it was more than 120.










If someone wants to count them, you can use this short video


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## mysiak

Counting.. probably not all fish are in the photo.


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## zahtar

Unbelievable! Thumbs up both for the achievement and for the way you found to count the visible ones!

As for the FFF, what was the final solution? Did you coat the metal mesh with the synthetic fabric of "unknown" origin you mentioned? Or was it something different?


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## mysiak

The app is very helpful, just wish it did the counting automatically. Manual clicking on every fish on the photo can get tiresome. 

FFF™  - yes, the "unknown" fabric is the magic ingredient. Even my wife has no idea what it is, but most probably it's from some kind of decoration which we threw out and I spared only a piece of this fabric. I keep it in place with the help of black fan mesh. No fish get through, it doesn't clog and it's practically invisible. Just wish it came like this from manufacturer - I contacted them with the suggestion, but they showed almost zero interest in improving it, saying that their tank is not for breeding purposes.


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## mysiak

Tank moved from bedroom to living room, so I can keep the filter running 24/7 again and also increase the lighting period (filter noise and light disturbed our toddler). Let's hope that change won't break the already established balance.. Two photos after trimming.


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## mysiak

Increased lightning period caused a little extra staghorn algae, but as it's very easy to remove, I don't mind it too much. Otherwise the tank's still pretty stable - fish numbers are about the same, plants need weekly trimming.. Except feeding, weekly water changes and daily fertilizing there isn't much to do, just watch.  This tank benefits from extra phosphates too, Rotala rotundifolia which was on a verge of dying out is growing new branches almost daily.

Oh and a handful of crushed coral in the filter definitely stopped pH "crash", pH is always about 7-7.2, GH >14 and kH 6-8.


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## mysiak

One year with no update..just to say that I basically don't have any update. 

Fish come and go (die of an old age, new ones are born), they don't have any visible malformations which is quite surprising as the colony started with just about 6 fish (when I did the last counting, there were more than 100 fish in this tank). Plants are competing constantly, there is almost always one clear winner, just to be pushed back in a few weeks/months. Small seasonal temperature/natural light fluctuations might have their role in this as well, but that's just a speculation. 

Shrimp are gone, ramshorn and bladder snails are stable in numbers, though none of them grow to their full potential. I noticed just a few surviving MTS snails, but sadly most of them are gone as well. 

One quick mobile shot as a proof that the tank is still alive.


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## dwalstad

Way to go!


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## mysiak

One year later, basically still the same..  

Fish population is stable, snails are very stunted in growth. I am removing a bunch of string algae every week and can't figure out why it's present. I tried to lower and increase the amount of ferts (iron and potassium), water flow, provide more or less oxygen, there was hardly any dent in its amount. It isn't growing to alarming amounts, is easy to remove and I got used it, but would love to understand why. In 1 of the 3 hidden filter compartments I have a very steady growth of black beard algae as well - it just occurred to me that it might be caused indirectly by addition of an air stone there. After I added the air stone, red root floater previously growing in this part of the filter and providing shade, disintegrated (they don't like movement and splashes from air bubbles). Now the chamber is fully exposed to the strong light above. I am going to test the hypothesis by providing a cover over this part. 

Rotala plant was taking over the tank so I removed most of it (wasn't looking very nice anyway). Otherwise..just a jungle.


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## johnwesley0

Curious about your substrate+cap. Is that what 2 inches looks like in a 4.2 gallon tank?


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## dwalstad

Nice to see the tank doing so well. 
It looks like you have a diversity of strong rooted plants. Thus, they can keep a deep substrate like this healthy.
I note the absence of driftwood and "furniture." Nice to see a tank that keeps the focus on plants and fish.


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## mysiak

dwalstad said:


> Nice to see the tank doing so well.
> It looks like you have a diversity of strong rooted plants. Thus, they can keep a deep substrate like this healthy.
> I note the absence of driftwood and "furniture." Nice to see a tank that keeps the focus on plants and fish.


Funnily enough, these plants refuse to go deeply with their roots since the start of this tank. For whatever reason they reach just maybe 3-4cm into the substrate. I don't know if it's the cap - a bit sharp(ish) crushed volcano rock or something else. On the positive note, I don't smell anything foul when poking the substrate, so I just let it be. 

I am a big fan of driftwood, although eventually it ends up completely hidden, like in this case.  



johnwesley0 said:


> Curious about your substrate+cap. Is that what 2 inches looks like in a 4.2 gallon tank?


Here is the picture when I started the tank. If I remember correctly, I used about 3cm of dirt + 3cm cap (~1.2 inch + 1.2 inch). Now I have about 9cm (3.5 inch) of substrate, detritus and snail shells raised it over the years.


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