Tiger Teeth by Clamence- Nano Planted Tank Journal

[Clamence]

Hi all,
Have been thinking of getting a planted tank soon, therefore will setup this semi-low tech setup to try out first. As im on a rather tight budget, the products i use will be rather economical, thus this thread can also be a review of these products which does not have much review. Newbies and fellow planted aquarists who are thinking of setting up a nano tank can also read this thread to learn from the mistakes i made from this journey, and shifus pls chip in advice and idea
Tank - est 3.5 gallon ious
For temperature control, this tank will be cooled with a small fan
For fert requirement, i will be using leaf zone and ocean free absolute liquid fertiliser. Note that these are the cheaper range of ferts
For CO2 requirement, im just going to use liquid carbon, specifically API CO2 Booster. Might be switching to seachem excel after a few months to compare the difference.
For lighting, im using led lights given by a friend, seems rather bright (does not look like those 0.5W per bulb type) Will confirm the wattage when i get the light.
For substrate, i will have a layer of OceanFree Super Bio Gravel as a base for bacteria to colonise and increase water circulation in the gravel (similar to ada power sand, except that i dont think there are nutrients.) This will be topped by HELP Advanced Soil for Plants. Both are rather cheap if not the cheapest.
I have yet to confirm the plants and fauna for this setup, hope u all can give some ideas Any comments +/- are welcomed!


___________________________
Aquarist.

[Clamence]

These are the things i have currently
1. Bio Gravel, looks like lava rocks chips



2. HELP Advanced Soil


3. 3.5 gallon ious tank, very small space to work with which is quite a challenge


4. Some scaping rocks bought from East Ocean. They are having 10% discount currently so went down to grab those rocks Note that the rocks have somewhat a sharp edge at the end, therefore naming my scape "Tiger Teeth" note also that the darker rocks are because they are slightly wet.

Thats all for now, hope you all can give your comments and advices



___________________________
Aquarist.

[Clamence]

Have been hunting for equipments for a while and busy planting and scaping, and finally the tank is complete
I got a new light for the tank, hope its enough.

Next, i got a fan too

This is the hardscape i did a few days ago.

Note the gravel actually mixed with the soil, so i had to redo the scape again without the gravel. This is the end product

Will take more photos when water clears.
Plants are crypt wendtii 'tropica', HC and JHG.
Thanks for reading any comments are welcomed

[OracleNemesis]

Originally Posted by Clamence

Note the gravel actually mixed with the soil, so i had to redo the scape again without the gravel. This is the end product

Will take more photos when water clears.
Plants are crypt wendtii 'tropica', HC and JHG.
Thanks for reading any comments are welcomed

Looks promising clamence. Keep us updated. Meanwhile, your plants look a little clumped up already in the tank. Overbought HC ? haha.

[Clamence]

Originally Posted by OracleNemesis

Looks promising clamence. Keep us updated. Meanwhile, your plants look a little clumped up already in the tank. Overbought HC ? haha.

Thanks bro yeah bought too much hc. Will it be a problem?

[OracleNemesis]

Originally Posted by Clamence

Thanks bro yeah bought too much hc. Will it be a problem?

Only worry is that there isn't much space for it to grow into left ? You could trim the yellow leaves and leave the healthy ones rooted =) Just a humble opinion though

[Clamence]

Its been about a week since i setup my tank, nothing much have changed except that some parts of the hc started to melt and i had to trim them off. Here are more pictures of the tank, ENJOY Comments +/- welcome






thanks for viewing

[Clamence]

Late update due to algae bloom in my tank...hair algae infested the tank due to my neglect. Should have did large water change at the start. Much of my hc is gone, but the remaining seems to be bouncing back to life Tank is much better now after i used SEACHEM EXCEL. Really good product, even got rid of some of my algae on the wall and now, hair algae is melting away. I will list below some methods i tried when to fight the hair algae:

First, i before using seachem excel, i was using API CO2 BOOSTER. This product did not really get the job done. No difference in algae growth, they still continued to grow.

Second, i tried adding shrimps. Crs were the first to go in, did not bother the algae at all. Next were cherries, they, too did not seem to reduce the hair algae significantly. I was skeptical at first about adding yamato shrimps, as they are larger and easily uproot my newly planted HC. In the end i added them as a last resort but was horrified by the damage it done to my HC, had to replant many stalk/bunches. Yamato seems to be good at eating some hair algae though.

Thirdly, i tried SAE. Moved a guy frm my other tank into this small one for a few days to see how things would work out. It seemed more interested in the algae growing on rocks and glass wall and didnt eat the hair algae, or maybe not significantly.

In the end, seachem excel got the job done in a few days. I actually had to manually remove some hair algae myself prior to adding excel so that the process would be faster. Sure enough, hair algae were melting fast.

Just sharing my experience so that fellow hobbyist can learn from it.

[Clamence]

Forgot to introduce the new residents 5 white cloud mountain minnow. Very active fishes, with an interesting behavoir: displaying finnage to each other. Pardon the low quality photo, shot taken frm a handphone

[stephenong]

Sorry I a newbie... What is HC?