Melbourne

Update - flow in the tank seems to be ok now that I have planted some stems in the back. I planted some HC in the front and Rotala/Cabomba in the back and some B.Japonica by the rocks. I'll probably replace the Cabomba with something else once the tank has grown in a bit. Still need to plant a few more things when I get some time. I'll see how the rock looks once its grown in a bit, it should not be as prominent. I wanted to get a larger foreground than I've seen on other small cube tanks. You can see my substrate gradient in the picture below - does it need to be higher?

Melbourne

Tank update. I took an updated front pic today. My Brighty K Step 1 came in today so I'm going to start to use that. The tank is going through the cycle now and the associated algae bloom appears to be in full force. The HC and rest of the plants are pearling still despite the brown algae (diatoms?). I've done a few water changes but I still have the brown algae - should I raise my pendant and/or reduce my 8 hr photoperiod? I also switched to RO/DI water - when I first started this tank I used tap water with prime. The TDS on that measured out around 55 or so.

My camera skills are terrible.

Front shot


Algae on HC

Melbourne

Tank update: Not much to report - HC is growing in a bit. Cabomba needs to be trimmed and replanted. Still have a good bit of algae, once things are stable I plan on replanting the center with something nicer and adding in some Cherry shrimp.

Genin

Once that blyxa takes off and the HC covers the foreground I think your tank will look really sharp. Good luck with the diatoms, most people say that after the tank settles a bit they should go away.

Melbourne

Genin - looks like the diatoms are gone now. I rescaped a bit but left one blyxa in the center.

Tank update: Looks like the cycle is complete. The rotala rotundifolia and cabomba were a bit too large for the scale of this tank so I transferred them to my shrimp tank. They were shading the HC foreground so I decided to remove them and look for a better stem(s) for the back. I also added in another rock to give a little more structural height to the middle. I temporarily replanted the hairgrass around the back to grow out a bit more. Planted a small hygro in the back to see how fast it grows - will pull it once I get the other stems in. I also put a black background on the tank.

I'm going to start building the stand for my ADA 60-P tank soon and I want to order all my plants at once from Aquaspotworld. For the cube I'm planning on ordering the following plants.

All of these stems are either really small or fine leaves - any other suggestions I should look at?

Microcarpaea minima
Rotala sp. 'Nanjenshan'
Myriophyllum mattogrossense


For the 60-P I plan on adding in a few more Rotala and pulling some other plants from my shrimp tank. I'm plan on a HC foreground there as well, I just like the way HC looks compared to glosso.

Melbourne

Update: I have a ton of snails in this tank probably hitched in on the stems I had earlier. This one snail is particularly large - it doesn't look like an MTS or a Ramshorn - should I remove it or is it a safe/good snail?

Blue_Dolphinvn

THis kind of snail reproduce very fast and they can eat your new leaves when they have not enough food...morever they have bad looking, haven't they?

Melbourne

Update: I left that big snail in there I have a some hair algae on the rocks. The rocks were from my old cichlid tank from years ago. I probably should have bleached them but I didn't. I'm going to pull them and bleach the rocks. I added in some floaters to help with nutrient uptake due to the lack of stems. My order from Aquaspotworld should ship this week, I'll post up when my order arrived.

ranmasatome

looks like the HC is taking o spread nicely..also i kind of enjoy the greenish patine on the rocks.. why bleach?? you can probably just add some yamato shrimps..and the hair algae should be gone in like 3 days

DonaldmBoyer

I would add some sort of slope in there.......it looks very two dimensional! You need some depth, I think, to really bring out the plants and hardscape.

I think that you have really nice plant choices in there, but the one stem in the back looks kind of out of place!