From March early this year, finally now I have set up my tank.

my first planted tank.

small compare to you guys due to small apartment.

Tank: mini S (30x18x24cm)
Filter: external Filter (sponge + Bio Rio + Seachem purigen)
Light: Chihiros CII rgb
Others: CO2 system
Plant: Monte carlo, Anubias nana petite (i think)
Soil: Neo Soil
Hardscape: cant remember the name of the stone.
Water: RO (summer RO from Speedmart)



pardon for the messy setup. first timer noob here. so difficult to planting the plant.
Daily water change (30%) till day 7. then probably twice a week. (any other opinion? no fertilizer yet)

Then test the water qualities and decide on the fishes/shrimps (small numbers). I like rummy nose tetra and caridina shrimps. but scared too crowded for the small tank.

Looking nice and neat
yeah start with something simple first.
Also don't really bother with water parameter.

Rummy nose is nice when you have a large forest green back ground to bring out its white- red color.
for tank like this, i would favor ember tetra.

And yes, once your tank is stable, you may add shirmps too.

you use RO water ? eh, not sure it is feasible in long run lol. and btw....the lily pipe look nice, until algrea build up.

ooooo thank you for the feedback. will have a look at your suggestion. ember tetra. hnghh.

yea about the RO. a hassle to always stock up. may op to normal tap water but need to buy something to remove chlorine (if any).

the lily pipe looks nice when new. super ugly when build up algae. hahaha. see how it goes.

How much is the tank btw... where do you get it from?
contemplating to start a new project with this type of bangsawan tank


yes, most of us use tap water. just add tension goon will do.
Else, you may also also use home filter water like Coway or LG

Rm321.30, i didnt make price comparison with other shop (as most shop dont have this size, mostly 30x30x30cm).

i got it from ADA malaysia at Damansara Damai (near MRT damansara Damai)





there is Rm1k titanium scissors yo. crazy price. lol

also RM14k tank (one piece rimless tank). took the pic below.



This post has been edited by azomic: Nov 9 2022, 11:03 AM

This really bangsawan type of shop.
but surpise as you new starter also go straight to ADA
Normally we start with a CC tank approx RM 120 for 30cm cube

Beware yo, no to scratch the tank.

The 14k rimless tank, many be inclusive of scaoes and live stock ba
well- it is like art piece- they could put what every price they like.

For me, prefer to scape it up myself, save a lot and enjoy the process

Im a sucker for bangsawan stuff. haha.eat maggie takpe. haha

i asked the seller, it is only the tank RM14k. it's a one piece glass. no tempat sambung. gila punya.

I tried scaping myself. end up messy, get the shop to help tidy up.

but it is fun, wishing for a bigger tank. yea first time using the razor to clean the glass, scared yo!

im in shah alam uptown.. had a lot of plants.. selling cheap cheap lah.. interested just let me know

where is Uptown, where exact location la
what plant you sell?
got shop, or photo only then COD?

Shah Alam uptown in located in Shah Alam Kompleks Muhibbah Section 24

currently only have ludwigia repens rubin

https://barrreport.com/attachments/31448642...37_h-jpg.17070/

red cabomba furcata (not many left)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/e0/1c/a4e...ae8bcc9a24c.jpg

riccia moss (not many left)

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tyIg305rMQE/T_7K...itans-rocks.jpg

java fern (still baby juvenile)

https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/pr...progressive.jpg

rotala ramosior florida (this plant really2 tiny dont be shocked haha)

https://shop.aquaria-usa.com/wp-content/upl...orFlorida_7.jpg

ludwigia glandulosa almost purple version not red version (not many left)

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0422/3218...pg?v=1612689554

and some other prefer cod since nowadays courier are sucks

This post has been edited by Kamm Matt: Dec 7 2022, 08:21 AM

Hi all..
Just bought this aquarium set and want to get more of basic knowledge:

1. Aquarium at living hall, no fan/air con during weekdays morning-evening due to working. Should I be worried about the water temp?

2. Changing water by using my Coway RO machine, still require any chlorine treatment?

3. Any essential accessories that must be purchased for tank maintenance? (thermometer? aux pump? ph tester?)

sorry about the OT, but couldn't find a active thread to ask about UV light.

Pond installer put these UV light into the pond. Is it safe for eyesight ?

Been inside for about a week and algae around the walls have gone.

guys. any recommendation for canister filter with budget rm200 for 2ft lowtech tank?

For most value, imo hang on backs.

I had a 2ft tank with about 80L, using a cf800 dolphin filter with UV light off. Good enough but i wish it had more flow. Nowadays sobo makes a 1000L/h version under rm200. Should be good. Can always redirect the flow, so don’t blow away your plants or fishes around. Water circulation is important. I usually only clean the filter and pipes once a year, loaded with lava rocks, ceramic rings, and sponges.

Another budget brand is sunsun. Good shit. Maybe able to get one under rm200 for 1000L/h. Sometimes they come in set with media from the seller.

and u may wan to upgrade the intake and out to 3rd party or Lily pipe later on. I find the parts a bit cheap and jank. Maybe okay for you. Not for my nano fish and babies. Plus black plastic pipe doesn’t look good in pics. Personal preference.

Im saving up for a Sunsun hw3000 it has a flow controller. Setup for a future sewellia stream tank.

Edit
Btw I always assume the filter flow rate cuts in half after filling it up with media. It is what it is. Can always sell and upgrade if you ever need more flow. The filter is to cycle the water not to collect fish poop. But it helps a little.

This post has been edited by Blinklime: Feb 2 2023, 08:30 AM

Hello shinchan

1- hard to say, everyone’s home and environment abit different. Have to slowly experiment. Depends whether your home has proper ventilation/insulation and other factors. Best in a fishless tank with your normal led light schedule and filter running, then record down somewhere. Ur equipment does expel heat. so less work if need to move around abit. Usually ground floor is best, more stable from temps fluctuation, good feng shui water energy. Most tropical aquarium fish can handle a slightly hot day. My tank is on the upper floor of my 2sto-house, with a big attic above it. Temps usually around 24 to 26c. No heater no chiller no fan no aircon. It just my aquariums in an empty upper hall. So I have a lot of open space and not cramped up in a room. The air gets a little humid and stiff but my tanks are cold to the touch. Just a get thermometer or those tds meter 2in1 10in1 with temp sensor. You should be fine. Just take note the type of fishes you intend to keep. Some prefer colder water, some like most tropical fish abit warmer. And also usually bigger tank, more water, less temp jumping around.

2. If u have good ro filter, you don’t really need to treat your water for chlorine or any other trace elements. Good for easy water change maintenance.

Some would recommended you check anyway just to be sure especially for a first time setup, can also take this opportunity to check ur tap water to understand ur water more. Plus you may have to check water parameters after setting up aquarium, with the soil stones sand etc. water will change over time, doing regular water changes is recommended.

You may wan to get some gh kh powders to remineralize your tank. Ro water usually have close to 0tds ppms. Plants and fishes do benefit from them. And decent Kh can help buffer ur water ph from jumping around. Talk to your fish store owner to understand more. There are a lot of educational material on this online.

3. These equipment while not necessary. Helps when you need to troubleshoot what when went wrong with your tank. Like going to the doctors to do bloodwork before consultation. Checking tyre pressure before long journey.

You don’t have to invest much, cuz who knows you may quit after 2 months lol. Can always run to you pet store when you need em. Start with simple tank, grow from there. I think many try to jump deep end, then stress over maintenance and routine. You have ro water, so on that front your good.

Aux pump helps to oxygenate the water, I don’t usually use it in co2 planted tank or low tech tank. So buy them for big fish tank, koi ponds. Etc.

Talk to your fish dealer. Some fish are hardy, some you have to baby them. The latter more affected when water parameters change. Some prefer acidic water <7 some alkaline >7. So buffer them accordingly if you want to get the best environment for a particular fish or biotope. But can’t go wrong with 7ph ro water.

Most important part of fish keeping or aquascaping, is routine water changes and maintenance. So invest in buckets and some mini water pump to help with water changes lol. Will make this hobby much enjoyable. My first few months, I use to gravity pipe out to my window to flush out the old water from the tank. Imagine carrying buckets to up down the house to the drains. didn’t wan my toilets to clog. plan out how far from ur ro water filter to your tank, then tank to drain/sink whatever. If u somehow can pump straight from filter to tank. Your winning already.

Edit
Just saw ur pic, small tank no problem. No need all that fancy equipment, water change is easy and fast for small tank. Do like 20-50% enough. Just setup near the filter your good. Make sure you don’t over stock with fish. Feed less food and enjoy. Fishes in the wild, don’t really eat much. Enjoy my dude.

This post has been edited by Blinklime: Feb 2 2023, 09:35 AM

I appreciate your educational reply on my queries. Many thanks for the pointers..

I talked to my tank setup dealer before, I wanted a maintenance free setup or so called ecosystem setup.. So he has helped me to do up the aquascaping and matched the types of fishes for me..

Currently after 1 month, what I notice in my tank which I haven't even change water before:
1. water is still considered clean and not murky
2. however certain plants show signs of dead leaves and leaves with holes.. anything I can do to check why the leaves are dying?
3. notice also recently my betta fish tail when tail spreading wide, got signs of slight rotten, not sure was it because of my other fish bite his tail off or due to water issue.. my tank most nastiest fish is the black molly always chase other fishes.. should I remove the molly?





my tank setup


my betta before rotten tail

This post has been edited by shinchan99: Feb 2 2023, 03:47 PM

I talked to my tank setup dealer before, I wanted a maintenance free setup or so called ecosystem setup.. So he has helped me to do up the aquascaping and matched the types of fishes for me..

these take time before things can balance them self out. usally for self sustaining system, people would keep loads of fast growing plants, and let the decaying matter to fertilize the plants, its ugly but like in real nature its like that. mr amano's style is for the refined nature keeper haha. usually people keep fauna with minimal bio load like shrimps and maybe 1 or more (depend on tank) fishes that can enjoy algae. i tried this once with neo cara shrimp and 3 ottos. top off with water time to time. i still did water changes just less often without disturbing the bottom. the bottom was like this video in the dead flow areas. i let rocks and side glass overgrown with green algae. 9 hour cheap led schedule. they survive for 2 years so so. probably aged out. the shrimp didn't breed much, water condition/environment was probably not ideal. water parameters was not perfect but plants and livestock were behaving fine. that was essential to me. good flow, algae growth was my trick for this setup. but you still have baby them when starting out. you may watch some videos on YouTube with few months of timelapse, have to understand, they might have used establish materials from one tank just moved into a new tank which really jump start the whole process.



Currently after 1 month, what I notice in my tank which I haven't even change water before:

water changes. this thing no matter what, gotta do. unlike in the wild, they get constant fresh water from streams, mountain, rainfall etc. new tank confirm cannot self sustain yet. even if the tank has gone thru its full nitrogen cycle, you still have to remove the nitrates in the water. this is where those test kits come in handy, u figure out what its wrong. too much ammonia? too much nitrates? maybe ph increase? you have quite a number fishes, doubt your plants are fully matured in that tank, bacterial bacteria still cultivating to take advantage of the fish waste.

btw are those sheryu stone at the front? those are a type of limestone, that release calcium carbonate overtime, increase water hardness, increase ph value. nothing to be overly concern, they are common in the hobby. just need to do water changes to keep things balance. topping up the water actually does little to nothing.

-----

1. water is still considered clean and not murky

all byproduct in the nitrogen cycle are invisible to us. can only tell what is wrong by testing the water. yellow plants? fish looking sick? algae? all maybe symptoms of water problems or imbalance elements in your tank.
water changes with ro water can fix this.

------

2. however certain plants show signs of dead leaves and leaves with holes.. anything I can do to check why the leaves are dying?

okay some plants in the hobby, may have grown differently before being sold to you, during transition period, plants can develop stress to adapt to their new home parameters. maybe immersed, submersed, maybe they had abundant co2, fertilizers supplement, fresh water changes. some plants will melt before growing back. i actually find this part of the hobby daunting, have to remember each plants like every fish, it has their needs and requirements to flourish. in a low tech tank i assume like yours, plants maybe starve for nutrients, maybe poor flow/water circulation, maybe lacking co2 for the amount of light its getting. substrate is very important, the quality of substrate can ruin your fun from day1. overtime u can add in root tabs or fertilizer if u feel need to.

for example, that anubias on the wood, its a really nice plant that actually prefer to be low light conditions/slightly shady area to prevent algae growing on its slow growing leaf.
some counter this with algae eaters, like amano shrimps. ottos. just put them in low shady area of the tank. still need light, just not the direct intense variety that promote algae.

hydrocotyle in the front need more light than de anubias, grows fast, you shouldn't be having problems. water movement is essential tho.

on the left, i assume those are dwarf sag. those guys need light. can do very well in nutrition rich substrate.

on the right crypto-grime some shit i think. those guys have a tendency to melt all away after being planted. i remember some guy teaching to cut away the leaves before planting keeping the rhizome and roots, to jump start the process. should be fine in low light, decent flow.


the pet store owner, may also recommended you get some fertilizer like potassium or some macro solution. not a bad idea. but best do the due diligence of making sure the water para is good first and then go down the list.
i usually only dose when plants look funny like most normie commercial stores. the daily dose thing is abit high maintenance.

------

3. notice also recently my betta fish tail when tail spreading wide, got signs of slight rotten, not sure was it because of my other fish bite his tail off or due to water issue.. my tank most nastiest fish is the black molly always chase other fishes.. should I remove the molly?

im not a betta guy, haha i feel these fish are really mistreated in asia. but my understanding on fish nipping

fin rot could be indication of poor water quality, bad water, stressed fish, fin rot. like human balding and stress.

now what could have cause bad water? lacking water changes, feeding too much, overstock tank producing more waste.

tetra are known to be fin nippers. usually out of stress, not to bully tho.

guppy/molly/platys these guy also unfortunately nip as well. tho not as often in my exp.

if i have to guess, you might have added all these fishes at the same time. before one species got comfortable with their home, you added other species that are equally stressed and confused. lacking hiding space, its own area, shit happens.

one way to counter this,
1. more plants more foliage, more hiding places. these guys are swimming in the same space of water. its get crowded, bully/fight.
2. some fish do nip themself, maybe out of stress, by accidental bites, or damage from hardscape like sharp wood edges or rocks.
3. move em out, really. if you see the fishes actively chasing other species, best relocate them. some fish just cannot exist under the same sky.
4. incompatible, some species dont play well in community tank. yours should be fine.
4. long tail vs short tail. ur fish jealous of the betta. like all short people secretly hate all tall people. some will nip on long tails just for lols.
5. most fish are peaceful. maybe need time to adjust to understand whose whose territory. neon mid level. molly usually also mid. betta all over the place.
neon are more happy in bigger schools, more safe, prefer more space to school around.
6. maybe some floating plants, notice ur fish like to chill upper level. though ur hang on back may push them into the water when drifting into their outlet. some fry like to hide in their root system. very cool. plus some shade for your anubias.



ur doing good, i first planted tank was in worst condition. just take time to adjust to taking care and maintaining the tank. once you know what ur tanks needs, you know what to do. everyone's setup, water, habits are different.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Blinklime

Hi.. so sorry I missed out your precious advise.. by the time I read this it is too late just to update my aquaplants most of them didn't survive, many of my fishes slowly gone up to heaven

last 2 months what I've done to my tank:
1. Did a full 100% clean up on my tank, removed some of my dead plants, removed quite a number of soil and sand for washing those fish waste but it never gets cleaned up to clear water level.. gave up washing those and put back into the aquarium

2. After putting in my new water, I notice my water is very murky. Probably I didn't put on my HOB filter as I was using it on my pale for my fishes when I perform the water change. After I install back the HOB filter, water slowly clear but still murky compared previously when no water change. I've added seachem stability also into the water but still can't get clear water as previously.

3. Bought some new plants and new fishes. Noticing my fishes slowly going to heaven one by one. Plants somehow some survived some are showing sign of rotting.

4. Suspecting it could be my water issue, so I bought a ph meter tester to test. My ph is recording 8.3, took a reading on my Coway water (as I use this water to do the water change) the reading is 8.1.. took another water test direct from my tap also showing a reading of 8.1 .. meter problem?

5. Did another round of water change last week, this time 20% water left inside tank without moving any sand or soil, result is still the same murky water compared to the first time. What could have went wrong? Is it because of the way I poured my water into the aquarium causing the fish waste to float more on the clear water?

I don't know where else can I find help but to get advise from experienced member here.
1. Adding another HOB filter so that it can help me to clean up my water?
2. Should I reset and redo my whole tank to make it alive again?
3. Should I start fresh just by putting soil and sand, just a bit of rocks and remove the wood as a start? As the aquashop owner previously explained to me before the wood can make the water turn yellow and raise the ph level..
4. I believe I have done many newbie mistakes.. What can I do again to enjoy back this passion given the chance to reset and learn? I think I was too naive back then venturing this hobby with the thought that I can have a ecosystem that can take care of itself with minimum water change..

This post has been edited by shinchan99: Apr 26 2023, 11:32 AM

1- if you keen, should get a canister filter. Dophin 600 or so less than RM 100
2- do you inject CO2?
3- plant die- either not enoguh light, or not CO2. you should plant low tech plants if there is no CO2.
4 - plant rotting- will cause too much waste in the tank, the plant waste will become ammonia which then kill the fish. So that is the reason we need to condition the tank. This is done via a decent filter and sufficient bio media ( not neccessary expensive). adding bacteria could help in a way. Let it cycle for 3-4 days without fish and see if water got clearer.
5- using RO water- you should still put some anticlorine. you may buy the cheapest, but many of us using tensiongoon. and remember to add water and mix to a pail, wait for 10 mins before putting into tank.
6- Dont worry too much about waste/bio mass at bottom of the tank, you may never ever fully get rid of it- it will decompose gradually ( and yes bacteria help). The only think you can do is to avoid plant rotting,a nd avoid over feeding. if you see any large clump of plant rotting/or large leave dying- just cut it out.



PS: very nice betta, too bad RIP.
though- the tail rot could be bad water, it can be coz u mix other small fish witt it. Tetra might take a nip on the tail

This post has been edited by Clueless07: May 3 2023, 08:29 AM

Hey bro
Thanks for your advise.

1. Should I get those with uv or without uv sterilizer?
2. No Co2
3. Will try to put some chlorine next time. Is it still recommended to use ro water or just normal tap water will do since we are going to chlorine anyway?

Any idea what are those brown deposits on top of my leaves?