two tanks

Twiggles

Medium Fish
May 4, 2010
91
0
0
#1
Here are a few pictures of the two tanks I have. I would post more pictures but I'm going to do that once I get my hands on a better camera.

Tank 1

tank 1 pic 1.jpg tank 1 pic 2.jpg tank 1 pic 3.jpg

This here was my first shot the planted tank. It’s where made most of my mistakes and “learned the ropes” of caring for plants and seeing the big picture really. I know dwarf puffers like lots of plants and for their environment to be interesting so I tried my best to accomplish the dense jungle river look where there would be lots of plants growing from run-off and whatnot. The driftwood provides a nice place for privacy while to the right is where retreating fish can run to, and in the middle an open patch that the puffers use sort of as a hunting ground when looking for snails and worms. The tank has been running for a few months well with no major problems. The puffers have probably been in there for a month +, and the plants have all found their way in their over time. It took some time before the tank could really settle in, and took quite a bit of work to get everything right. When I originally got the ghost shrimp there were two of them, a male and a pregnant female. The male died somehow but the female lived on to release her eggs. Last week for the first time I noticed a little tiny shrimp scaffolding up the driftwood and was shocked. I assumed that the puffers had eaten all the babies up but I was clearly wrong. What is even more surprising is that today I took a look at my main shrimp to see her pregnant... again.

Inhabitants
3 dwarf puffers – 1 male, 2 female
1 otocinclus
2 ghost shrimp

Plants
Narrow leaf java fern
Sword plant – echinodorus bleheri
X-mas moss
Java fern (regular)
Crypt balansae
Brown crypt
Green crypt
Dwarf sagittaria
Narrow leaf pygmy chain sword
Lilaepsis mauritiana (small patch)

Substrate
Black fluorite and white sand (2 types)


Tank 2

tank 2 pic 1.jpg tank 2 pic 2.jpg

I just redid this tank this yesterday; I use it to breed pest snails for my dwarf puffers and thought I would turn into a low-tech planted tank. To my knowledge none of the plants in there really need additional CO2, and since these are the only plants in there I think they should be fine. I might decide later to start dosing it with excel but I’m going to let it be for now. I like to think of this tank as my lake tank - where there’s more open water, fewer plants and a rocky bottom.

Inhabitants
Pest snails (food for puffers)
Looking into either getting a small school of cherry barbs or harlequin rasboras

Plants
Java fern
Java moss
Anubias nana
Marimo moss (in pieces)

Substrate
White silica sand
Rocks, pebbles, and some gravel

questions or comments are welcome
 

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Twiggles

Medium Fish
May 4, 2010
91
0
0
#5
Thanks guys! *BOUNCINGS
I'm trying my best to keep them healthy, I can't wait until everything has really grown in. I'll also add some pics when I put fish in "the lake tank" - can't wait to see how that one turns out as well :D
 

Twiggles

Medium Fish
May 4, 2010
91
0
0
#6
Tank Updates

So as some of you may know I decided to move everything out of my 9 gal with the dwarf puffers into an 8 gallon biocube. In a few days this new setup will be 2 weeks old so the plants are still adjusting and whatnot. This time I took out a few plants that I didn't want in the new tank; narrow leaf j. fern, dwarf sag., and the small sword plant .. I also decided to add some stem plants this time since I have more light - 18 watt, 10,000k on for 8 hours and an 18 watt 50/50 bulb (which gives me like 9 extra watts) that's on for 4-5 hours. So far everyone seems fine with the move, they seemed to have settled but I'm keeping an eye on them. If the time comes I might decide to remove one of the females but I'm going to decided whether I need to once all the plants have grown in. Let me know what you guys think!

epic.jpg CIMG0740.jpg CIMG0724.jpg CIMG0766.jpg wondershot.jpg
 

Twiggles

Medium Fish
May 4, 2010
91
0
0
#11
lol thanks guys! You can tell it looks a lot different from when I had it setup in the older tank, It was tricky trying to rethink my scape while still keeping it sort of the same. The substrate in there is a mix of black flourite, white silica sand and I think some kind of CaribSea sand. I can't remember the brand name 100% since I threw out the bag a while ago but it's not real sand, it's like a larger grained type sand used for marine tanks or something ..