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New old (maybe) planted tank - What to put in it?


Stephanie

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So after experiencing that awesome guppy disease everyone has and leaving my tank empty for ages to focus on breeding fighters and such, i've decided i've almost finished my grieving and tantrums and set it up again.

I despise planted tanks (looks like effort), but I would like one, so i've put in a piece of driftwood, a sword and some unidentified grassy type plant, and i'm using CO2 finally. I bought the nutrafin unit ages ago, and I thought i'd give it a go. $80 for a piece of plastic and a jar it would be rude not to. :roll: I made the mixture and it's working well.

Now i'm trying to think of what I can put in the tank in the new year. I want my plants to grow nicely first so i'm being good and resisting the urge to actually purchase anything without thinking first.

The tank is a Jebo R338, about 38 litres.

I've been thinking alot about mosquito rasbora, although we went hunting today to check them out again, we found 3, so i'd have to wait until more are available. Dwarf gouramis are another thing I look at every time i'm at HFF, but i've seen things on here about them not being terribly hardy. Pygmy cories were suggested today, which I like, but I would like more color maybe. Galaxy rasbora seemed like a good idea but they mostly seem to look all hunched over which I don't love. Silvertip Tetras are pretty cute too, but they may be too big to have a decent group.

I don't want to fill the tank with fish, just have one or two small hardy types, something that breeds fairly easily with no effort from me would be nice too. Basically just a nice display tank. Any ideas are much appreciated.

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Thank you. Will PM you. :)

Fingers crossed my tank works out. For some reason everything has always grown like crazy in it just with plain old water and light, maybe Jebo isn't too bad after all. It was my first ever fish tank so I can't ever bring myself to part with it. Gotta make it pretty. :)

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I learned the hard way that the Mosquito Rasbora's aren't overly fond of the trickle filters, being sucked up in the filter and laying around in filter wool doesn't help them live! Stupidity on my part, but if you go down that path... you might want to sort that out!

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I haven't actually sorted a filter for the tank yet. That's the one thing that's bugging me. Jebos obviously come with their filter, which mysteriously stopped working and I haven't replaced because I had guppy fry and threw a sponge in. As easy as it would be to go and get a replacement, they have pretty intense suction for a little unit and since I haven't worked out what fish I want I don't know what filter I want to use. Apparently not a trickle filter though!

Embers are really nice, i've looked at them too, there's just something about the red colouring rasboras I like. And they're just so teeny tiny!

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I have an AquaStart 320 (21l) with Mosquito rasboras in a blackwater setup - should go and take some pictures of it actually, but it will have to be an night as there are too many reflections during the day.

Setup as follows:

Sponge filter with cut down airflow

Peat substrate, about 20 - 30mm depending on where it is in the tank

Oak leaves and Indian almond leaves - crushed sitting on top of peat

Driftwood with narrow leaf java fern attached

Tinfoil over parts of the light to stop it reaching every corner of the tank - it is brightest over the plant

10 Boraras brigittae

Whole bunch of daphnia - the big ones won't fit in the fish's mouths but the little ones disappear after a while

The tank you have would probably be too small for Colisa laila - they are terribly territorial and if you manage to get a pair she will spend all her time hiding from a beating.

Corydoras pygmaeus are neat, especially in a large group, but are horribly expensive. They would go well with something else in the tank like Celestial Pearl Danios, but there again, these things seem to spend all their time hiding as well as looking hunched up!

There, I have probably confused you more now! :wink:

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The Eheim Classic 2211 is a nano filter, and is seen a lot in ADA nano displays, sometimes on tanks as small as 13 liters! It is an external canister filter, and it has a media volume of 1 liter. You could just put a piece of sponge over the inlet to stop fish being sucked in.

For fish I think you should get 10 Ember Tetras or 15 Mossie Rasboras, and a couple of pairs of Sparkling Gouramis, which grow to 3cm.

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Or you buy a gang valve, connect up one outlet to your sponge filter, set it to full flow and adjust the other to bleed off until you get the flow that you want out to your sponge.

25w heater, ph sits at about 6.6

The little squiggly lines you can see at the top in the middle are daphnia swimming about - the photo has a long exposure because the tank is so dark.

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