Orions Mraqua bow

[Orion]

This is a Mr. Aqua 7.5 gallon bowfront rimless tank

Lighting - DIY LED - 4 Cree XP-G Cool white/350 ma driver with 40 degree optics
Heater - whatever works at the moment
Filter - Internal Duetto

Pardon the quality, taken with a cell phone. I'll break out my real camera after I swap out the substrate.

This is more of my 'baby' than any other's I've tried to do. Ive had lots of fun trying new things and ways in this tank. I'm going to be ordering probably some Fluval Shrimp Stratum or whatever it's called this week to replace the Onyx Sand in there right now. I think the glosso, DHG and Micro Sword will do much better.

 

[Thyra]

Its beautiful, Orion! I love the drift wood.

 

[Kiara1125]

That's great Orion!! I would totally steal it and stick some Angels, Cories, and Tetras in there!!

 

[Orion]

Thanks all!

Thyra thanks for noticing! I did a bit of work to make it the focus point, and hope to keep it that way even when everything eventually grows out. I managed to make that franken-wood yesterday out of three pieces (one large and two small)

That's great Orion!! I would totally steal it and stick some Angels, Cories, and Tetras in there!!

Lol, tanks a bit small for those. No, right now this is an invert only tank. I've got at least 30 total Fire Red Shrimp, mostly juvies and 2 Tracked Nerite snails. I've been thinking of moving my Dario dario back into the tank, but I'm still on the fence. The shrimp hardly ever want to come out with those guys in the same tank, and I'm fond of watching my shrimp.

 

[KcMopar]

Very nice, got a pic of the LED's?

 

[Orion]

http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/aquatic-plants/63927-diy-led-light-5-5-gallon-planted-tank.html

The same ones used in that post. I've cleaned up the light's quite a bit and made everything look more aesthetically pleasing, but works still the same.

 

[KcMopar]

Ok, I remember that build you did, I made one a couple weeks ago when I put four 660nm red LED's on my algae scrubber for my 10G nano. I also bought five 12,000K LED's for the display, They look really nice. I used the white colored gutter for the roof as a housing for the LED's and driver.

 

[Kiara1125]

Sorry Orion. I didn't know the size of it. It looks big so Angels it is!!! ;D

 

[Orion]

I got a large bag of Fluval Shrimp Stratum that I wanted to try and swapped the substrates out yesterday. 5 hours later I just gave up and got tired of replanting all the glosso lol. So what's in there is close enough. I'll do some updated pics when everything clears up a bit.

I also turned off my timer by accident and left the lights on all night...opps. So I'm going full backout all day today in the hopes to avoid any kind of algae issues. I've had such good luck with both my tanks I would hate to have an algae outbreak due to something so stupid.

 

[Fuzz16]

ouch light cycle will e funny now unless you go for a full day and night blackout? might loose something to that

love the driftwood peice...i walked for two hours in the woods with my toddler and found not ONE single nice looking peice. blah.

 

[Orion]

Well with the intensity of the lights, I didn't want to take a chance of algae. Everything looks fine today, and I did run them a few hours late last night.

Finding the right driftwood can be a pain. I looked for weeks at stores to find the right one.

 

[Fuzz16]

do you have a clean up crew? was thingking mts for my shrimp tank in case algae gets outta control

and ya...i hate to pay for a peice of wood, but may end up doing that

 

[Orion]

This is an invert only tank, so the are my cleanup crew lol. I've got a bunch a juvie cherries and a few adults, plus 2 tracked nerite snails. MTS snails don't eat algae that I'm aware of, but the nerites will.

 

[Lotus]

Looks awesome! If you wanted fish, you could think of microrasboras. They're too small to eat baby shrimp. An invert-only tank would be good, too.

 

[Orion]

Thanks Lotus! Yeah, I have 7 Rasbora maculata (maculatas) in my other nano. Had 8 but one went weird and died, it just lost every bit of color, went ghost white then was gone. They aren't exactly a long lived species, so my money is on old age.

I have some Scarlet badis that might end up in this tank. The thing I like most about the rasbora's is that the shrimp don't change their behavior, but when I had some in with the badis they were almost hiding all the time. Also, I agree, they don't seem to be harming the young population any thats for sure lol.

The tank with the badis right now I'm going to try a moss tree and see how that works out. So I may move shrimp into that tank and the badis into this one.

 

[Fuzz16]

arnt the micro rasboras the ones that you cant get anymore due to them being endangered or something already?

 

[Orion]

Dunno, hadnt heard about that. I got mine from a LFS and they had a few different species in stock and was able to get more.

 

[Fuzz16]

krystal had said something about not being able to get them anymore...i am pretty sure it was the micros. not sure though. ive never seen them at any lfs

 

[OrangeCones]

"Microrasbora" are a lot of species of fish. I've not seen them at LFS but you can buy them from just about anywhere that ships.

 

[Lotus]

Our LFS gets the reddish-orange ones in (maybe maculata) fairly regularly. The owner has a thing for them, so they usually have them. I believe they import them directly -- not many of the wholesalers buy them, I assume. So, they're not common at most LFS.