New Tank for my Desk at Work

I set it up today (on my own time). I wanted at least 10 gallons, and maybe 20, but the approval process was much easier for 5, so I went with that. It has pool filter sand, and a small sponge filter driven by the little USB capable air pump I'm getting more splashing from the sponge filter than I expected, so for now I have a plastic clip board laid over the tank to keep my desk dry. I saw that Lucas Bretz of LRB Aquatics has fountain drink lids, with the air line through the straw hole, floating in many of his tanks to take care of that problem. I guess I'll give that a try, at least until I find a lid for the tank.

Plants are a small water wisteria, a myriophyllum propinum, one tiny water lettuce that got in the bag by accident, and some guppy grass held down by a few rocks. I have a small clamp-on LED light for it, but no place to plug it in yet.

The current inhabitants are the male and two female guppies I had in the 10 gallon tank with the red cherry shrimp at home. They've been in the tank for close to 2 hours, and while they aren't swimming around much they don't seem to be in distress either, and they each ate a little bit earlier (and a little bit is all I gave them), so hopefully they'll be okay. The plan is to leave them in there for 6 - 8 weeks to season the tank, then move them out and bring in some blue neocaradina shrimp.

 

Sounds cool!

 

All three guppies look fine this morning. I don't have a test kit here, but I did a 20% water change. I'll probably continue that for a while, and bring my test kit from home when I remember.

 

We need jpegs please!

 

We need jpegs please!

 

Since posting the picture above I moved the filter, moved the rocks and added a few, and plugged the light in.

 

What kind of plant is that? I like it a lot. Tank looks good

 

Great looking little tank. I think you have the perfect amount of decor in there. I wish I had a permanent desk at work where I could set something up

 

What kind of plant is that? I like it a lot. Tank looks good

I assume you mean the tall one on the right? That's myriophyllum propinum. I bought it at Petsmart. When I took the ceramic ring off I had 4 or 5 separate plants.

 

Great looking little tank. I think you have the perfect amount of decor in there. I wish I had a permanent desk at work where I could set something up

Thank you. I think it turned out okay.

 

Oh okay. I'll look into some for myself!

 

Apparently the three guppies I have in the tank to help season it for shrimp have been busy. Look what I found when I got to work this morning.

 

I thought I'd post a update. As I think I mentioned above, the long-term plan for this tank was for blue shrimp, and since I work for the TAMU system and I'm off work a few days for spring break, I thought it would be convenient to get them while I'm off. I contacted Jeremy Pearce about some, and he was very accommodating about shipping them so that would work out.

Before I left work yesterday I removed the guppies (I gave them to my daughter-in-law), and the shrimp arrived this afternoon. They were packed well, and all arrived looking good. I floated the bag for about 20 minutes for the temperature to equalize, and now I'm adding water to the bag a little bit at a time. I plan to continue that for at least 1-1/2 hour.

 

Pictures?

 

So I've been working from home since about the third week of March, but drove up there Sunday afternoon to check on the tank. The water had evaporated out until it was only about 2" above the substrate, and some of the plants had died. It sounds like I'll still be working from home for a while so I brought it home and set it up.

I had brought the shrimp home when I started working from home, so I got to add them back. Now there's only red left in the 10 gallon tank (at least for the time being; I'm sure I'll get some interesting colors from the blues and reds breeding). Also at least one of the blue shrimp I moved into the 5 was berried, so of course there's a good chance some or all of those eggs were fertilized by a red male, but I've been moving my culls from the 10 into the 20 long quarantine tank, and I'll do the same with this tank.