Pfrozen's 20g Aquascape Build

[Pfrozen]

Got a new tank set up today, gonna be pic heavy

Filtration: 2x 40g sponge filters on a Fluval Q1
Substrate: Triple potting mix capped with Flourite
Plants: Rotala Colorata, Hygrophila Siamensis B53, Cardamine Lyrata "Vietnam," Christmas Moss
Hardscape: Wood and Slate

Before pic.. I was told the tank has cling wrap on it but it was actually just glued :/ big pain to fix


After pic


Also discovered some poor silicon work but it holds water and it's on thick enough. I'll have to keep an eye on it.



Continued....

 

[Pfrozen]

Got my hardscape in the mail today as well. Here is the slate before big hammer smashy smashy



And after

 

[Pfrozen]

I added the soil and root tabs first. I am using a 3 part mix of peat moss, humus, and compost



Progress I'm surprised at how stunning the Flourite is once rinsed properly (which took forever!!!!!!!)

 

[Pfrozen]

Halfway point:


Aaaaand tank filled!!!

 

[Pfrozen]

Final draft before I go to bed: I have added a 100w fluval heater, a thermometer, and did some touching up. I've also dosed with Thrive C and added a cube of frozen bloodworms directly to the tank. It should cycle fast. I've been overfeeding my 10g with heavy feedings multiple times per day for weeks so I'll be squeezing them into this tank as soon as I see ammonia.

The Rotala is at the back to the far left and far right with the hygrophila in the middle background. The pot contain the cardamine which should grow out to fill the midground

Also I just filled this an hour ago. Not even cloudy

I just hope my lights are bright enough. They might not be but we will see.

Will provide updates obv thanks for looking

 

[AquaticQueen]

Looking good!

 

[Justin2526]

Was waiting for this! Following for updates

 

[DanielZebra32798]

It looks awesome, I'll be following along

 

[AcornTheBetta]

Following. One comment, the pot looks a smidge out of place

 

[jmaldo]

Impressive!

 

[Pfrozen]

Impressive!

Thank you kindly!

 

[Koneko]

Very nice!

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Following

Very cool

 

[Pfrozen]

36 hours after filling my tank the water is crystal clear and I'm reading 0.5 ppm ammonia. There is already biofilm on the driftwood. The Hygrophila is melting slightly but the Rotala and Cardamine already have new growth.

I'm shocked but it's already time to start my cycle

 

[Pfrozen]

Results from a second ammonia test are in. I used Fluval this time instead of API. This one shows 0.6 ppm so I am ready to add the concentrated version of TSS+. will also squeeze my other filters into the tank

 

[Pfrozen]

its been 3 full days since I started my tank and my parameters are as follows:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0.3
nitrate 0

I had 0.5-0.6 ppm ammonia just yesterday. I tested it with 2 different test kits

I'm not certain why my tanks cycle so fast. Maybe its my water? At any rate, I've added a 2nd cube of bloodworms. I'm guessing It'll be ready in 10 days or so total.

The biofilm on the driftwood is already getting out of hand. Again, its weird that this is happening so fast but I won't complain. I'll just do a big water change and vacuum it all off when my tank finishes cycling.

Day 5:

Ammonia 0.1
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 20

Looks like I'm almost cycled somehow. I used 2 full cubes of frozen bloodworms so my tank definitely processed a bunch of ammonia.

My lights don't look bright enough so I ordered new ones with 24 hour shipping.

Old lights: 2x Nicrew Classic 12" @ 6W/380 lumens
New lights: 1x Chihiros WRGB60 24" @ 65W/3500 lumens

Not sure if 10x more powerful lighting is overkill or not but uh.. at least my red plants will be red lol.

Think I'll add one more cube of frozen blood worms and order some ghost shrimp in for Friday. Not planning on keeping them long term but they should clean up all the rotting worms within a couple days. I should be able to start introducing my rasboras 3 at a time by then.

will post a 1 week progress pic in a couple days

water was clear this morning, now its green. and i have a ton of pest snails somehow

i havent been overdosing my tank with ferts or anything and my nitrates werent super high today so im guessing i started dosing with ferts too early combined with the fact that my lights are fairly bright with super low PAR. im guessing theyre only helping the algae grow right now and not the plants

i dosed with h2o2 at 1ml per gallon so we will see how things look in the morning. from this point forward im limiting my photo period to 6 hours with only one weekly dose of thrive. when the algae goes away ill install those super awesome new lights

ugh.

edit: and ill be adding more plants. i have some staurogyne repens on its way and ill be transplanting a large anubias from another tank. instead of doing a water change right now i think ill let the frogbit do its job and see how things look in the morning

tank sprang a leak where the drilled part is. had to emergency seal it. its now full of algae and sitting half full for the next 48 hours :/ my rotala melted into oblivion but i added some more plants in an effort to try and out compete the algae. this tank is on the brink of failing already somehow. i have no idea why 2 very weak lights designed for a 5 gallon did this much damage. hopefully i can get this resolved

 

[kanzekatores]

Snails are your friends here. Nerites will help with the algae and assassins will help with pest snails. And yes plants can always only help. Don't worry this can be fixed

 

[Pfrozen]

No algae this morning. Looks like adding plants and better lighting saved the day along with the peroxide dose. I also siphoned the gravel and got rid of the bloodworms. That being said, I'm going into today with high lighting and DIY CO2. I'll be using just one quarter of a standard dose of thrive to start off with a 7 hour photo period. My tank is going to be half empty until the silicon cures on the valves.

That being said I now have multiple plant species in my tank:

Duckweed
Frogbit
Anubias
Rotala Colorata
Alternanthera Reineckii
Hygrophila Siamensis 53B
Stayrogyne Repens
Christmas moss
Pothos

Fingers crossed, I think I intervened in time here but we'll see over the next few days.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Oof. You've had a rough few days

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 8:

All seems to be fine now. My cycle crashed a bit after the peroxide treatment but I didn't sterilize my tank or anything. No algae and the high lights/CO2 seem to be doing good things for the plants. I think they need to adjust for a week or so before I see them explode but for now it seems like everything i did worked out lol

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 10:

Incredible progress. I installed a much more efficient DIY co2 system and bought a beautiful sword plant that I hope does well.. all other plants are starting to take off. the cardamine especially is doing fantastic

I added another bottle of quick start with 3 of my rasboras from my other tank. 0 ammonia after 24 hours so I'm hoping it cycles without any issues. I cant believe how orange the one rasbora looks under the hight lighting!

I have a bit of fuzz algae but will be ordering a couple female flatfish to help out with it. If they start eating my plants too i can just move them.

 

[Pfrozen]

Hm. So I let the co2 run all night last night. All is well, but the water is a little bit green this morning. It's not noticeable with the lights on. The alternanthera reineckii is starting to get fuzz algae as well, so I will probably have to do a water change, remove most of the AR, and buy some more fast growing plants to help with the balance. Apparently AR is just algae prone. The sword I planted took right away, which is great, and is actually starting to turn red. It's not brown and theres no melting so I think I might have a giant flame or melon sword

 

[Royan]

Nice! Looks great. Never thought to use a clay pot like that but I'll be borrowing your genius for my next build

 

[Pfrozen]

Nice! Looks great. Never thought to use a clay pot like that but I'll be borrowing your genius for my next build

Thanks friend, I chose the pot because the driftwood had a little bend it in and it just seemed to fit lol

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 14:

So I purchased a CO2 diffuser/bubble counter meant for a high tech CO2 setup and got it working at 2-3 bubbles per second. Just had to change my reactor recipe to supply enough pressure. It takes 4-5 hours to pressurize the airline but works like a charm. The bottles seem fine, less pressurized then an unopened bottle of pop. I've left it on tonight as I believe my aeration is more than good enough to warrant it. Tested ph a couple times tonight and no changes. The fish are all swimming fine too. hopefully i've figured out an easy solution to getting these plants into high gear with high light and high co2. so far the plants have grown 4-5x

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 15 (belated 2 week progress)

The CO2 works great. No issues running it all night. I had to pull the slow growing temples and replace them with moneywort but no other issues. The plants are really starting to take off and the fish are happy. I added a bristlenose pleco so I will be doing daily water changes before turning the lights off. That hygrophila looks awesome!

I have some algae on the glass but the pleco should be able to take care of it. I might get some Otos once my filter catches up. The pleco will take up most of my bioload but that's okay. Oh and those long roots are the frogbit lol. Some of them are 12 inches long

 

[Pfrozen]

My camera isnt very good but the rasboras are especially bright this morning

 

[AcornTheBetta]

My camera isnt very good but the rasboras are especially bright this morning

View attachment 734619

Nice!

 

[Pfrozen]

Gonna have to sell some frogbit and duckweed soon

 

[LilyPipeDreams]

Lovely progress! The sword looks amazing!

Glad you were able to get past the algae.

 

[Pfrozen]

Lovely progress! The sword looks amazing!

Glad you were able to get past the algae.

Thank you!! Yes I was super lucky to get a sword like that from the store lol. I walked in right as they were unboxing the shipment! its grown 4 new leaves already

The algae was challenging but the hair went away when I tossed the alternanthera. It seems to be okay now so hopefully I have everything balanced properly

Thanks for reading!

 

[Pfrozen]

GAAAH woke up to hair algae on the bacopa this morning. I ripped the 4 stems I had in the foreground out. That corner is now cursed lol. The bacopa in the back has all grown huge roots down to the glass bottom so they should start to outcompete the algae soon. I guess I'm gonna need another fast grower for the front corner :/

I also found some ramshorn snails which is cool. I'm gonna have to get an assassin snail soon anyways though, the bladder snail population is way out of control.

I'll post another picture in a couple days so the progress is more visible

 

[LilyPipeDreams]

Sorry to hear that... I would suggest some medium growing crypts. I grabbed some Undulatus ‘Red’ and it actually made a massive difference for my slow growers. I bought TC and experienced little melt.

 

[Pfrozen]

Sorry to hear that... I would suggest some medium growing crypts. I grabbed some Undulatus ‘Red’ and it actually made a massive difference for my slow growers. I bought TC and experienced little melt.

I was thinking of adding a crypt actually, i really like how some of them look. I know that adding the big sword was a huge game changer so another root feeder might just be what I need. now, I have to install a hideout for my BN pleco, so I might not have room for plants at all lol. in that case I might purchase some type of lilly or a similar plant that will extend up and out rather than rooting in one place and taking space. we will see though

by the way, when I checked out your tank thread I noticed we use exactly the same ferts. Thrive S and Flourish Advanced. Is there anything else you use? I just started using the Flourish Advance and I've noticed a gigantic difference

 

[LilyPipeDreams]

Some great ideas
Really anything that can grow at a decent clip will help keep everything running well. I’ve got less experience than most but it’s working well for me haha.
And thanks for checking out the thread! I’m only using Prime, Stability, ThriveS and Advance. Right now I’m dozing 5 pumps a morning Of ThriveS (the 3x weekly dosing spread over 7 days, although I think I may move up to 6 given 2x water changes a week currently) with the recommended dosage of Advance daily. I’m going to run through the last of my 500ml bottle for the latter of the two.
I didn’t see to much really from the Advance - I noticed more development with my non-CO2 tank.

 

[Pfrozen]

Some great ideas
Really anything that can grow at a decent clip will help keep everything running well. I’ve got less experience than most but it’s working well for me haha.
And thanks for checking out the thread! I’m only using Prime, Stability, ThriveS and Advance. Right now I’m dozing 5 pumps a morning Of ThriveS (the 3x weekly dosing spread over 7 days, although I think I may move up to 6 given 2x water changes a week currently) with the recommended dosage of Advance daily. I’m going to run through the last of my 500ml bottle for the latter of the two.
I didn’t see to much really from the Advance - I noticed more development with my non-CO2 tank.

I'm pretty much doing exactly the same thing with the same products lol. I dose every 2nd day though, the alternating day is water change day with the flourish advanced afterwards. I wasn't using the flourish advanced until last week and after the first dose I noticed that my plants shot out waaaaay more roots overnight. I had a piece of pothos hanging over my tank and it was pretty much dead and wouldn't send out roots, but one day after using flourish advance it sent out roots and now it's fine pretty wild

I also moved to a 6 day schedule, it's too early to say how it's going but as far as I can tell it's working better

And no prob thanks for checking out mine! If you figure out any secrets feel free to share lol

 

[LilyPipeDreams]

Haha. That’s funny - I hope the six day works for you too; I only did that because I didn’t want to start off underdosing. Plus seeing all sorts of deficiencies in my other tank made me more skeptical of trying to manage the Seachem suite (plus, it’s easy to get out of whack)
Your CO2 is pretty steady? Fluctuations could definitely cause algae blooms. But getting them growing quicker will definitely help to offset that in some regards.

 

[Pfrozen]

Haha. That’s funny - I hope the six day works for you too; I only did that because I didn’t want to start off underdosing. Plus seeing all sorts of deficiencies in my other tank made me more skeptical of trying to manage the Seachem suite (plus, it’s easy to get out of whack)
Your CO2 is pretty steady? Fluctuations could definitely cause algae blooms. But getting them growing quicker will definitely help to offset that in some regards.

The CO2 has been good since I bought better yeast.. I'm using EC 1118 which ferments at a steady rate despite temperature and tolerates up to 18% alcohol. I haven't noticed the bubble rate changing at all

I noticed the growth has been better so I'm hoping the algae does too lol. I did stock a BN pleco and 3 hungry Otos though so I think it'll be manageable. Right now it's just the typical soft green algae and a bit of hair on the bacopa

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 19

Some major growth over the last 4 days. Stocked 3 Otos and all are happy so far. Also did a bit of a rescape with a clay pleco hide and I think it looks much better this way

 

[AcornTheBetta]

Day 19

Some major growth over the last 4 days. Stocked 3 Otos and all are happy so far. Also did a bit of a rescape with a clay pleco hide and I think it looks much better this way

View attachment 735581View attachment 735582View attachment 735583

Nice! Looking great!

 

[Pfrozen]

There are a few 1cm ghost shrimp in my tank this morning. The 3 that were berried are just releasing their fry now so it's not from them. I added one a few weeks ago that had eggs but she died right away. My guess is that she dropped some right under one of the sponge filters and they somehow hatched. Otherwise I have no clue how they got in my tank!

Life uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh finds a way

 

[Pfrozen]

Day 28

Added 5 amano shrimp today. I've been having some black beard algae issues so I've been adjusting my nutrient/lighting/water change schedule and I think I have it figured out now. I'm hoping the shrimp help take care of it

Plants are growing well. DIY co2 sucks but I cant afford to order a true set up way up here. I'll have to make do. Added some ludwigia arcuata and giant bacopa and removed the small bacopas that weren't growing well. So far both have exploded. Also added more hides

 

[Justin2526]

Haven't been checking up hear but this tank is looking awesome!! What floaters do you have there?

I've added some amanos to my tank recently as I've begun to have some hair algae problems and have a hope that they'll help with that...

 

[Pfrozen]

Haven't been checking up hear but this tank is looking awesome!! What floaters do you have there?

I've added some amanos to my tank recently as I've begun to have some hair algae problems and have a hope that they'll help with that...

Thanks my friend! Right now I have frogbit and duckweed for floaters plus a large pothos vine sitting on top the Amanos will definitely eat hair, I'm hoping they eat BBA too but that's not guaranteed in my case

 

[Justin2526]

Thanks my friend! Right now I have frogbit and duckweed for floaters plus a large pothos vine sitting on top the Amanos will definitely eat hair, I'm hoping they eat BBA too but that's not guaranteed in my case

All 8 of mine somehow manage to be completely unseen hiding under my large driftwood for 90% of the day and ive never seen more than 3-5 out at a time. Maybe they'll adjust as time goes on.

Awesome, thanks! I'm looking into starting to add more plants to my tank now but don't have a good planted substrate which limits my options a bit, but I think floaters will keep everyone in the tank happy.

 

[Pfrozen]

All 8 of mine somehow manage to be completely unseen hiding under my large driftwood for 90% of the day and ive never seen more than 3-5 out at a time. Maybe they'll adjust as time goes on.

Awesome, thanks! I'm looking into starting to add more plants to my tank now but don't have a good planted substrate which limits my options a bit, but I think floaters will keep everyone in the tank happy.

Well if it makes you feel better so far all of my Amanos are acting like I put them in a bucket of paint lol. They seem sensitive. Hopefully they adjust in both our tanks. I'm a big fan of frogbit btw it's just an excellent plant overall and it grows quickly. Always demand for it too so you can sell it every now and then

 

[Justin2526]

Well if it makes you feel better so far all of my Amanos are acting like I put them in a bucket of paint lol. They seem sensitive. Hopefully they adjust in both our tanks. I'm a big fan of frogbit btw it's just an excellent plant overall and it grows quickly. Always demand for it too so you can sell it every now and then

Yeah it seems like a great addition to any tank! I'm also trying to figure out of some type of val will work as a background plant even though I only have a sand substrate, and maybe an amazon sword as well. My java fern is also making babies so hopefully I can somehow cut and plant those around the tank?

 

[Pfrozen]

Yeah it seems like a great addition to any tank! I'm also trying to figure out of some type of val will work as a background plant even though I only have a sand substrate, and maybe an amazon sword as well. My java fern is also making babies so hopefully I can somehow cut and plant those around the tank?

Nice! For sure you can do that, java ferns are beautiful plants. I'd add some but alas I dont think I have room for a single other plant lol

 

[Pfrozen]

I'm having problems with DIY CO2 again. While I was getting enough pressure to run a ceramic diffuser before it was only coming out of one small area.. now that's it's been running for a couple weeks it's hopelessly clogged. Cleaning it won't help because with no regulator im working just with whatever pressure happens to be in the airlines.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy 3 T-valves. One T valve will be fed by 2 bottles of DIY yeast reactor with the output going to the second T valve. I will hook up my spare 40 gallon air pump to this and send the output to the ceramic diffuser. At least this way I can just unhook the air pump at night and send the CO2 into the air harmlessly. I'm hoping it provides enough pressure so I can avoid spending 400 dollars on high tech equipment.

There's always something

 

[Pfrozen]

The air pump just pressurizes the bottles and blows holes in everything lol. I set up a 10L container tonight with 2kg of sugar and my usual 2 packets of yeast. It should last a lot longer this way. I switched my diffuser over to a bamboo chopstick as well. From my tests with the air pump it seems like the bamboo does an excellent job. I'll have it up and running tomorrow.

Since I ran my tank without CO2 for most of a day I'm sure I'll wake up to some kind of algae problem lol