nice..
glosso can survive with only excel? i'm looking for low tech carpet plant

i used to have a few planted aquariums and i quit nearly 2.5 years ago. now I'm itching to make another one.

but i sold my 2ft tank, cabinet, eheim 2215 and 4kg solenoid co2. sigh....

if i were to start again, i will only do a 1ft nano cube since i have the a small stand for it, an eheim 2040, diy fan and some rocks that i gave away to my friend.

things that i need to buy:
1. 1ft clear glass cube
2. ada soil (what's the price now ar?)
3. some driftwoods (if required)
4. anything else?

guys, suggest me a bit, what plants to have, i prefer simple, maybe just a mini iwagumi style, or minimal driftwoods with some spiky moss tied on it.

don't have to worry about the fauna, i got plenty of guppies and apple snails. lol!

CAE is a no-no. Its aggressive. SAE is okay. Its good in fact as algae buster. Only thing is it can grow quite big, so you need at least a 3 footer tank.

Don't you need lights? I would like Marco Polo as foreground due to its ease in growing, but I've never tried to plant in a 1 feet mini.

oh ya. for lights, i have 1ft t5 x2 and 2 LED lights. should be enough ad....

marco polo as foreground? later i go google....

i only want to do a low-tech planted la... so don't want high requirements plant....

Marco Polo is low tech.

Anyway I have some time. Thought to upload some photos.


During setup.


Five months growth. And many renos.


Yamato shrimp. Always berried. Pity they can't breed in freshwater.


My CRS. Still waiting for the fella to berry.


Dream Blue.


Tiger shrimp.


Bucephalandra. Just added over a month ago. Still waiting for the leaf to turn purple.


Panda Garra.

nice tank you have there. maybe i just wanna do something easy. i will use a max of 3 type of plants only.

you got co2?

is it ok to plant bucep into the substrate? i was told the roots will rot not sure how true.

nice panda garra there, couldnt find any at my lfs

Yes, I have CO2 - injecting at 3bps.

Buceps can be planted either on a rock or into the substrate - but I opted to tied the buce to a rock, and partially bury the rock into the substrate.

Panda Garras are territorial - its nice to look at, but I regret adding this fella coz its always chasing the SAE. Would not recommend Panda Garras, but that's just me.

ok then something less to worry about as i planted mine into the substrate.

they kinda look like bumblebee goby

Hey, what Buce is that? Just want to compare notes because not many places are selling buce and its expensive - I bought mine during the Pets Wonderland fair at Mines, but also got some from Penang.

This buce I believe is Brownie Ghost.

NICE!!!..i could stay in front of the tank for hours.

Bucephalandra Fino Sherry , i got mine, a small stalk not taller than 6cm for Rm30 at shrimpgarden. and also i have both bucephalandra catherinae and bucephalandra catherinae Rm15 each, also not taller than 6cm.

It's called Green neon tetra. It's more expensive than those common neon tetra. It's not hard to find though, I have been seeing in quite a few places.

This post has been edited by artsyfarty: Oct 28 2015, 11:28 AM

Monte carlo i believed.
easier than glosso they said. but still need co2

bro, your panda garra is not taking those shrimp as snack?? the mouth is quite big. just take precaution bro
also, not all bucep will turn into purple. so far, only bucep sp ghost is having purple leaf color once fully submersed.


soil vs stone vs dw.
seems bucep prefered stone. but my sifus said, not all stone can be used. some will make the root melt.

Thanks for the tip with the monte carlo and buce.

Panda Garra it seems is safe with shrimp. So far mine has never bothered the shrimp. But it constantly chases the SAE. One SAE jumped out because kena chase like crazy. Now left one more.

by the way, what's your tank temperature? there's some algae in your tank, how do you deal with it?

also, what fert do you use?

I'm using chiller, so my temp is 25-26C. As for algae, there's very little algae except for those that grow on the Buce. I was warned that its so slow growing, that algae would be a risk on buce, but I wanted to try anyway.

Other than that, I have a bit of problem with green spot algae that grows on the glass - so it needs it weekly cleaning otherwise the glass will turn green and ugly. I'm still trying to deal with this. Do you have any tips on how to control green spot algae?

For ferts, I'm using the full range of ADA ferts - Brighty-K, Step-2, Brighty-Shade, Brighty-Light, Green Gain, Phyton Git, ECA and Green Bacter. There's a dosing regime that I follow which is recommended by ADA Malaysia.
Through the naked eye, the algae is hardly noticeable, but in photos, its noticeable. But for control, I use my cleaning crew - SAE, Yamatos, Ottos, and Panda Garra. But Garra is not doing his job and causing problems. To me, SAE is the star performer in my cleaning crew.

But most important for algae control is the plants must be healthy. I'm still giving the buce time to adjust and shed its old leaves. I believe that's why algae is growing on its leaves. These are the challenges I'm facing with Buce.

If the algae gets very bad, which it did for me around the 3rd month of setup, with green hair algae getting out of control and some BBA taking root. I dose Phyton Git one drop per liter, and institute lights out and aeration for 48 hours. I've had reason to do it only once and after one week, it clears the tank. This method was advised to me by ADA Malaysia - they're my main lifeline for my tank.

If the plants are healthy, the algae should be in check. But that's the age old question isn't it?

What's your setup? I'm trying to catch the Panda Garra - and I'm looking for a fish trap to trap it. If you know any fish traps, please let me know.

i see, you have a chiller, no wonder you can breed those exotic shrimps, for a normal temperature like 29-30 degree celsius can only keep cherry shrimp.

if I were you, I would just try to do a spot treatment on the buce with excel dosage with a syringe. Repeat 2-3 times in a span of every few days, this should be able to kill it. as for the green spot algae, i use to have a lot too, i think the problem could be the excessive of nutrients in your tank, i don't bother me much, just do a weekly scrape then it would be fine.

as for your ferts, i guess you're doing it way better than me with all the recommended ADA steps. I only use seachem potassium and excel and i got a pretty good control over my algae... if the algae like bba etc, I would just take out the driftwood/rocks and bleach it, then it kill it like instant.

SAE when they are young, they tends to eat many kind of algae, but when they grow, they don't really eat algae anymore, they eat pellet. lol! I think you can also try using Malaya shrimp, i thought they did a better job than yamato.

Currently i don't have any setup, planning to set up a nano 1ft cube only. i think maybe by december. though i use to have numerous tanks...

Thanks. Just for the sake of discussion

Yeah I agree about the chiller. Its a deal breaker for many cases. Without chiller, my temp goes up to 31-32C. And I don't like to use fan.

As for SAE - here's my experience. There are many mistaken identities where the Flying Fox is sold to unsuspecting customers as SAE. The Flying Fox looks almost identical, but that is the one that you described - eats algae when young, and when it grows up, it becomes aggressive and eats only pellet food. Whereas the original SAE eats algae all its life and is never aggressive.

I had a similar fish last time which I thought was SAE. At first it was okay, but after a few months, it started to bite my shrimps and became aggressive. I returned it to the LFS, and I got the true SAE from another trusted source. I see my SAE now is always busy nibbling on the plants and it leaves the shrimp alone - although its over 3 inches long now. I may be wrong about this conclusion - but this is only from my experience.

I have no experience with Nano. Do you need to cycle the filter and how will you be controlling the temperature and algae?

I've always toyed with the idea to setup a Nano for my study room - but these uncertainties held me back.