# 5 Gallon Desk Tank



## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Hi guys!
I just started a new aquarium after about 4 years away from the hobby. I'd have liked to do something around 40g but neither space nor money permit. So after doing a bit of research I settled on a 16x8x8 5 gallon heavily planted tank with scarlet badis.

Current plants:
1x anubias nana
10 stalks of bacopa
various tufts of dwarf hairgrass
some rotala

I'm not sure exactly what type the rotala and bacopa are, the rotala is red if that helps...

Intended stocking list:
2-3 Scarlet Badis
2-3 Otocinclus
a few shrimp

The tank was started about a week ago. I filled it up and tested it for about a day, then drained it, planted it, and refilled it with filtered drinking water. A couple days later once the plants had started to perk up a little bit I picked up a few ghost shrimp to keep the cycle progressing. I am currently just letting the tank mature before adding anymore livestock.I may look at adding the Scarlet Badis in about two weeks.

Let me tell a little about my setup:
The filter is built into the back right corner of the tank. It is just an acrylic partition I siliconed in. Water overflows into the top, and trickles through the different chambers by gravity. The first chamber holds three sheets of filter pad for mechanical filtration, next chamber is full of cut up drinking straws for biological filtration. I was going to use the pot scrubbers but oddly I couldn't find any. Finally the water ends up in the last chamber that holds the heater and return pump. The return gets piped out the side about 1" above the substrate. The pump I'm using is an eheim compact 300, which I had to turn down a bit as the flow was way too high.

Heater is a Marina 10W submersible. I think this is a little underpowered. The tank generally hovers around 76 degrees when the heater is supposed to regulate to 78.

For lights I made myself a DIY led fixture. It is currently just set across the top of the tank as I haven't finished the canopy yet. I'm using 15 1W Epistar diodes, 9x 6500K white, 4x 450nm blue, and 2x 660nm red. I'm pretty satisfied with the color and intensity, it was pretty easy to put together too. The diodes will just be attached to the heatsink with thermal adhesive, and the heatsink is big and sturdy enough to be most of the structure of the canopy. The diodes don't get as warm as I expected, I'm only seeing about a 20 degree temp rise from ambient at the most, and this should decrease after the thermal adhesive is applied.

For substrate I chose flourite black sand. I've always used play sand before but wanted to try something fancier and figured a smaller tank would be a good chance. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It's finer than I expected which should be good for the plants. It can be a little prone to clouding, but now that I have the shrimp sifting through the finer stuff is moving down, which is nice. It currently looks a little grayer than I had hoped, but I think once I get the light raised up a few inches and the plants grow in enough to make more shade I'll get the look I want.

For fertilizer I was planning to use flourish comprehensive and flourish excel. I'm not too interested in doing CO2 for this tank, but I'm open to the option if my lighting levels end up needing it.

I think that's all for setup, let me know if there is any other info I can provide.


I had a few questions about plant care, don't really remember some of the specifics for this part. The bacopa, rotala, and hairgrass were in pretty bad shape from the fish store. should I prune the damaged leaves? or let the plant repair itself? do I just pinch them off? I've read that to encourage thick growth you should trim the tops off plants, but on mine this is where the healthiest growth is, what to do? The bacopa seems to be trying really hard to grow, but all the new leaves curl about a day after opening, not sure what this is. The hairgrass has lots of very healthy looking bright green shoots, but also lots of old dead brown ones, do I just let these decay?

Ok I think that's everything. All feedback is much appreciated. Pictures are incoming!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

pictures!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

One of the bacopa shoots appears to be growing roots out the middle of one of the stems, can I cut this off and replant it?


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## essjay (Dec 30, 2012)

Hi Jeffrey

I'm not going to be much help because I'm still in complete novice mode myself, but I wanted to say...

WOW!! What a fantastic looking tank! You've done a brilliant job.

:BIGcool:


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Nice looking setup. 

I like the light array. That's a lot of light for a small tank, you've got 9 watts of 6500k for 5 gallons. I have 8 watts for 37 gallons and my plants do well. You may have to watch that you keep the light period a little shorter and get some shade with some floating plants so the fish have somewhere to get out of the light... most like some shade. Did you set up the LED array for switching of the coloured lights?... it doesn't look like it.

As much as your heater may be a bit too small, you don't want the tank sitting at 78F, for the fish you've selected closer to 75F is better anyway.

More plants. I thought that the plant list would have filled out the tank more so I am surprised that it doesn't look fuller in the pics. If you double up the stems you can avoid needing to do the cycle and give the shrimp and otos more leaf area to graze. 

The bacopa caroliniana and rotala wallichii are cool. I just got my first bacopa last week. It looks like it is best to let it go until it hits the surface... it might even grow out of the water... but you can cut it anywhere and replant it.... particularly if there are already roots as they help hold it in the substrate. I don't know much about the rotala but the same applies as it is a stem. 

On the curling leaves, your mentioned using filtered water. Do you know the parameters? hardness and pH? The water may be very soft or if it is distilled or reverse osmosis there is no hardness. This can adversely affect the plants as I think the minimum is around 5dGH. 

I don't think that you need both excel and comprehensive, comp alone should be fine.

As for CO2, your fish load may compensate. Your filter with the output near the bottom, likely won't disturb the surface enough to worry about CO2 off gassing either.

All in all that is one nice job you've done there. I'm looking forward to seeing it once everything is up and running.

BTW, welcome to the forum, great first post!

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Yes, there is a lot of light. In the past I have always had too little light, mostly by being cheap. This time I wanted to be sure I did it right. It's possible I have too much light now, but raising the light and shade from plants should help to mitigate it some. If that isn't enough I can always just bypass a few of the white diodes to drop the intensity a bit.

That's kinda what I figured for the heater, I'm just concerned that the slight fluctuations are bad for the fish. I really don't know much about how fish react to small but constant temp variation, but it seems to me that this would be somewhat natural.

The plants are definitely a bit sparse still. I'm considering pruning them, and then cutting them in half and replanting. This way they are deeper and get a little less light, as well as being more dense. I think this is ok to do with stemmed plants? I'd like more feedback on pruning if anyone can comment =)

The tap water around here is very hard. The lfs tells me it can be as hard as 400tds with PH around 8.4. I know not to use only distilled water. It was my understanding that the filtered drinking water was from a similar local source but would be a bit better than tap water. This seems to be the case. I have an API master test kit and have been testing daily, though I cannot currently measure hardness. The tap water measured at about 8.4, my filtered drinking water was around 7.4 on the first day and has been slowly declining. I think it is around 6.8 now but I can check tonight. I think this is because the buffering capacity of the water does not change, but organic processes are releasing acids into the water. Is this accurate at all?

Unfortunately I cannot use floating plants, they would get skimmed right of the top by the filter. Could I maybe grow something like lilies that would reach up to the surface and then make some shade?

My thought process on the CO2/excel was that with as much light as I have I should supplement some form of carbon. While my surface is not too disturbed, I think the super clear surface (courtesy of the skimmer), combined with the wet/dry filter would offgas quite a bit. On the other hand, it probably also does an excellent job of keeping the plants from depleting the water of natural levels of CO2.

Anyone have recommendations for plants I might like to add?


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Jeffrey said:


> Yes, there is a lot of light. In the past I have always had too little light, mostly by being cheap. This time I wanted to be sure I did it right. It's possible I have too much light now, but raising the light and shade from plants should help to mitigate it some. If that isn't enough I can always just bypass a few of the white diodes to drop the intensity a bit.


It looks like they are in series so just bypassing a bulb will increase the voltage to the rest, they will burn out faster as a result. Is there a voltage control on the power supply? 



Jeffrey said:


> That's kinda what I figured for the heater, I'm just concerned that the slight fluctuations are bad for the fish. I really don't know much about how fish react to small but constant temp variation, but it seems to me that this would be somewhat natural.


Up and down over the course of the day shouldn't be a problem as long as it stays in the range the fish are best in.



Jeffrey said:


> The plants are definitely a bit sparse still. I'm considering pruning them, and then cutting them in half and replanting. This way they are deeper and get a little less light, as well as being more dense. I think this is ok to do with stemmed plants? I'd like more feedback on pruning if anyone can comment =)


That's pretty much it. The best thing about splitting them is that the one plant growing now becomes two plants growing which almost doubles the ammonia consumption... cheaper than buying more.



Jeffrey said:


> The tap water around here is very hard. The lfs tells me it can be as hard as 400tds with PH around 8.4. I know not to use only distilled water. It was my understanding that the filtered drinking water was from a similar local source but would be a bit better than tap water. This seems to be the case. I have an API master test kit and have been testing daily, though I cannot currently measure hardness. The tap water measured at about 8.4, my filtered drinking water was around 7.4 on the first day and has been slowly declining. I think it is around 6.8 now but I can check tonight. I think this is because the buffering capacity of the water does not change, but organic processes are releasing acids into the water. Is this accurate at all?


Yes, more or less.



Jeffrey said:


> Unfortunately I cannot use floating plants, they would get skimmed right of the top by the filter. Could I maybe grow something like lilies that would reach up to the surface and then make some shade?


I assume that the water flow down through the filter is not going to be a vortex... you say wet dry, is it planned to be a waterfall affair or is the surface of the water going to be above the lip of the filter wall and the pump is going to suck the water through? I think that the higher surface level would best for a few reasons. Waterfall will make noise and off gas CO2. No waterfall lets you not worry about floating plants as they could float around in there too. Also, if a fish gets in there, it's not the end of the world for the fish and higher water level just means more water to help buffer the whole system. At five gallons you want every ounce in there that you can get.

Any lilies that I have looked at have leaves that I thought were too large for my 37 gallon, I think they would be over powering in a 5 gallon.



Jeffrey said:


> My thought process on the CO2/excel was that with as much light as I have I should supplement some form of carbon. While my surface is not too disturbed, I think the super clear surface (courtesy of the skimmer), combined with the wet/dry filter would offgas quite a bit. *On the other hand, it probably also does an excellent job of keeping the plants from depleting the water of natural levels of CO2.*


I don't understand the bolded statement. 

If your water is so hard and the KH is a high component of this, then there may be enough carbon without supplementation as the plants may take up the carbon from the CaCO3 in the water as well as the CO2. I wouldn't recommend a liquid supplement, some chemical ending in "hyde" as a preservative or something... reminds me of formaldehyde and anything related shouldn't be in a tank with live stuff.



Jeffrey said:


> Anyone have recommendations for plants I might like to add?


With the light levels you have, most plants should do very well, in fact you might want to stay away from the lower light plants as they might be overdriven. I've heard that crypts don't do well in too much light. I'm a lower light LED guy so I can't help with high light plants much.

Oh, some sort of dwarf sword , chain sword or similar. 

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

The leds are driven by a constant current driver, if I remove a few diodes the driver will drop the total voltage so that each led are driven at the same power and current as before.

The filter is currently set up as a waterfall. The water flows down through the chambers and is pumped out the bottom. The amount of water sets the level in the filter, while the level in the tank is fixed at the top of the partition. The waterfall is very quiet as it just trickles about .5" down the side before hitting the first media. I definitely could just raise the water in the filter until it was even with the rest of the tank to eliminate the skimmer and wet/dry portion. I may do this if having floating plants would be such a benefit to the tank, though I do really like the pristine surface I get from the skimmer.

My understanding of the interaction between carbon and plants in water is shaky at best, I need to read more about this. But my thinking was that if the plants were using lots of CO2, a turbulent surface would help to replenish the CO2. I guess this could only work if plants were using so much CO2 that levels were lower than I want anyway. But that's hypothetical. If I start having CO2 issues i can make some changes/ worry about specifics.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Oh. A turbulent surface removes CO2... I don't think that the plants can use enough that there would be any draw out of the air that the turbulence would let replenish. I did find that my KH lowered by as much as 25% due to plant activity in the tank which I first thought was due to the plants using calcium... which was just guess work at the time, it was the carbon from the abundant CaCO3. This effect has reduced now that I have lots of fish producing CO2.

Cool power regulator. So you could put switches on the LEDs to control them in banks if you wanted to vary the intensity. Was this a kit or something you sourced parts for?

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

The parts were sourced independently, not sold as a kit. The driver is intended for LEDs though, I think drivers of that type are pretty standard.

I also got the parts for the hood cut today. Some of them are a bit off, I just was dumb and forgot to update some measurements. I'll clean them up with the dremel and hopefully have new pictures soon! Perhaps if I get along to it I'll do some work on the plants too.


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

Sorry for the hijack...


You both seem to know your LED's. This is something I've been interested in. The furthest I've ever messed with them was splicing several strips together and using a charger from a toothbrush or something as a regulator. ( Go ahead and laugh but the tank looked pretty good!  )


Is there a good source of info, like a tutorial, on how to do something like you've done here? I'm about to redo the hood I built and I'm currently running 2 T12's and a T8. It's kinda crowded as you can imagine. (29 gallon)


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

*LEDs*

No problem!

I'd love to help out with some LEDs. While I have limited experience with what light is best for an aquarium, I'm an electrical engineering grad student and would be more than happy to advise on any electrical stuff ;-)

One of the things I really like about LEDs are that they are so small. It's easy to mix and match to get just the right color and spectrum, this sounds like it could be really nice for your crowded hood. Maybe if you start a build thread it would be easier for us to comment? I think the place to start is by deciding how DIY you want your fixture to be. I'm pretty sure I could walk you through a scratch assembly if you wanted to do it yourself, and I'd be happy to do so!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Also LED related, maybe this will help you get some context.

My fixture is 15W. It is far brighter than I expected, too bright too look at. Even pointed into the tank, the glow will light the entire room. I'm pretty sure the light is burning the plants (is burning the right term for aquatic plants?). The bacopa is sending out new leaves like crazy, but after a day or two they start to curl/discolor. I'm going to trim the stalks and replant them lower, and also going to raise the light. We will see if that helps, but I think I'll probably end up removing a couple diodes. Fortunately, with a custom setup like this removing the diodes is very easy, it is sort of a shame to have wasted diodes, but these were $1 ea anyway. I'm just surprised/impressed with how easy it was to get SO much light.


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

Yeah there's not much info about LED's and planted tanks. I'm currently running 2wpg. (60w)


I built the hood using 1x4's. I tore apart the light hoods and put the ballasts on the outside, back of the hood. The entire top opens up but I added a double hinge so you can only open the front 5 inches for feeding, water changes, etc. 

Anyways the lights are sitting too close to the water and I need to completely redo the hood. So I might as well take a little extra time and learn how to build an LED set up.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Ok well when you get going feel free to point me toward your thread or message me, I'll help in anyway you need ;-) Decide what light you want then build the fixture to match. I'm currently running 9white, 4 blue, and two red, I think 8white, 3 blue, and a red would be about perfect (still very much on the strong side).


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

Haha I was going to build this based off an LED set up. So I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing yet. I'm literally an LED retard. You throwing out 8 white, 3 blue, etc. I don't even know where to begin. Is there a good site with a walk through on how to build a custom LED set up like you have? (Trying to make it easier so you, yourself, wouldn't have to type out everything you did)


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

I'm very happy to share my info, this stuff is fun, and I like being able to give back to the community so soon.

The diodes were selected as follows: White provides the bulk of the visible brightness and "veiwing light". They emit a decent spread of wavelengths with a nice spike in the blue range that the plants really like. I supplemented this with 450nm blue because this is supposed to encourage thick bushy plant growth and because I prefer a darker light. The red was added because there is another spike in what the plants respond to in this range and because I didn't want the tank to look too blue. I think the red is less important for the plant health, but the diversity can't hurt and it should make any red colors in the tank look better.

I actually had a very hard time finding led info for freshwater planted. All the reefers seem to be recommending using only the highest quality diodes, planted tanks just don't need light of that quality or intensity. The hydroponics guys have done a fair bit of research here and have decent info. Most of my information came from charts of the light absorption of the different chlorophylls and other pigments, combined with searching for LEDs that could produce similar light. That's a really technical way to do things though. If you know absolutely nothing about LEDs and want to both build your own fixture and understand what you are doing, I would start by just googling LEDs and reading up. Don't bother looking for aquarium specific info, just get a basic understanding of the diodes operation. Then when you go to build your fixture you'll understand what to look for. Also read up about how light works, wavelength, par, lux, wattage, color temperature, etc. Again I'm more than happy to answer any questions that come up during your research!

Edit: I feel like I should add that I like to get really technical and specific when I build (oops my engineer is showing). LEDs don't have to be complicated if you don't want them to be. You could make an educated guess at what lights to buy and with just a little help still build a top notch light.


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

Sounds good! I'm sure I'll have some questions at some point. This won't be happening very soon so I have some time to research. Thanks for the help so far.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

A couple of quick comments.

If the whites are in the 6,000k to 7,000k range you don't need the blue or red, that sounds like saltwater coral influences. The blue in freshwater is for a "moonlight" look on it's own and is typically only 0.1watt or less per bulb. 

With 1watt bulbs they can be spaced in pairs 4 to 6 inches apart depending on how much light you need. I have a fixture that is 24" over a 30" tank 22" deep that has 8 1watt bulbs and it is good light for all but the most light needy plants. The reason for the short fixture is that it is a manufactured unit and they don't make a 30" size, although it has sliders to adjust to fit up to a 36" tank I offset the fixture to provide a dark end for my java ferns and crypts so it worked out very well.

These LEDs provide something around 1,800 lux at that depth. The plant light range is about 500 to over 2,000 lux and the closer to the surface the higher that value is which is why floaters do so well. Without doing the math on your DIY fixture I am pretty sure that you are WAY over 2,000 lux due both to the close spacing of your LEDs and the shallowness of your tank. 

If you happen to have a lux meter, perhaps even one you could borrow (I used to have one but have no idea where it went) you could check this out. Some of this depends on the focal lens on the bulb but most are focused very tight... particularly when compared against a tube. 

The only reasons I didn't look into DIY were timing, Christmas, lack of plant knowledge and these were on sale in boxing week.

Jeff.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Curious, what was the bill on the parts?

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

JDM said:


> Curious, what was the bill on the parts?
> 
> Jeff.


About $60
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

These guys make LED bars that I've used to supplement aquarium lighting.


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## erinbirdsong (Jan 16, 2013)

Great Lil' office tank you got!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

JDM what you say agrees with my research. I wish I had more info about how my light selection will actually work for plants but I just don't have that experience yet. Hopefully over the next few months I can document my experience and get some really good info for freshwater planted. I'll do my best to give regular updates! Yes the whites in my setup are 6500k and the red/blue is not necessary. Once the intensity gets under control I think they will provide a better overall light than white alone could, but we will see. And as I said before, it's partially just because I like the color. I do know that typical white leds contain almost no red light, I don't know if my plants will actually care. Perhaps further down the road I can selectively turn off my extra colors and see how it affects growth, could be a fun experiment. My intensity is definitely very very high. I've had trouble with under-lit tanks before but I totally underestimated just how bright these 1W leds are. 

Tank update: I was having some cloudy water problems. The water had sort of a whitish milky tint to it. I think this was just a bacteria bloom from it being a new tank. It seems to be clearing now. My ghost shrimp are growing like crazy. I didn't know animals could grow so fast! When I got them, most were around 1/2". Now about half are 1" and one is at least 1.25"! I didn't get a chance to work on the tank last night, but today I should be able to do my pruning and hopefully get my light raised up a little. Anyone have suggestions for where to read up on how to prune plants? I don't want to damage mine...


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Stems are a matter of cutting and sticking into the substrate. I was thinking that there might be some interesting tricks but there really aren't... there is almost no way to get it wrong or to do it better. The nodes are where the leaves sprout from and, as you have probably already seen, roots as well. If there are roots at a node you can cut a bit below that point and plant it, the already established roots will help to hold it in place. Removing the leaves from this node seems to make little difference but leaving them on if there are no roots yet helps to hold it in the substrate, but otherwise it makes little difference if there are no existing roots as they develop pretty quickly anyway. I'm letting my bacopa grow so I have not directly pruned and planted these yet but I have tons of other plants so I don't need the fast propagation.

One thing that I did play with was cutting above and below a node. That node then produces both leaves and roots simultaneously. You could cut the stems into many nodes, leave them floating and just plant them as they develop new stem pieces... this would really kickstart the proliferation of plants in a tank but I don't know how successful that might be for all stems, Dwarf Hygrophila and red ludwigia definitely work. Other varieties might do better with a few more nodes left on the stem.

Sidenote, the roots don't do much more than hold the plant in place. Leaving most stems floating works as they take almost all of their nutrients from the water... which is why they are such a great addition to any tank.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Hood is almost complete. The splash guard isn't cemented in place yet, I need to see how the plants react to the changes in lighting first. Then I can finalize my diode selection and finish up the hood!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Did a heavy trimming last night. Removed all dead or damaged leaves and cut most stalks in half for replanting. I combed out the hair grass a bit, and tugged out new runners for replanting. Also vacuumed out all the plant matter I stirred up.

The anubias seems pretty happy, but the leaves collect fine debris really well. I'm a little worried about the debris collection, but am counting on the otos to take care of this. The shrimp don't keep the leaves as clean as I had hoped. The bacopa is growing extremely fast and has fresh leaves sprouting for almost ever node. The rotala looks like shit but is slowly getting color back and is making a few new shoots. From looking at the rotala last night it seems to be growing its roots much more slowly than the other plants, I expect this is why it is taking longer to perk up. It also gets a fair bit of water flow across it, does this matter? It's not getting blasted but it's definitely in one of the more turbulent parts of the tank. The hair grass is doing very well. All tufts are showing thick green growth and spreading fast.

Intensity aside, I'm really happy with my lighting. The color is beautiful. The surface has a light purple shimmer and the tank just glows. Now that the silt has settled, the substrate is developing a deep black color. Some of the glossier pieces reflect the colors of the leds in bright red, blue, and purple flashes.

I tested my water today, ammonia .25ppm, nitrite 0 - .25ppm (maybe like .1ppm), still no nitrate. I've done a lot of water changes the last week, I'm planning to reduce the amount considerably from now on while things settle out and mature. Still no signs of algae.

I wanted to talk about stock a bit. I'm still feeling pretty good about the choice of scarlet badis. I think they are a perfect size and temperament for this tank. I'm a little concerned about the otos though. I absolutely love them in planted tanks, such a useful fish, but I'm worried that I won't be able to keep them in a big enough group. Is there a particularly small type of oto that I could maybe fit four or five of? I'll be feeding them in addition to using them for algae control, so I'm mostly worried about overstocking. I think between the plants and the filter this tank has a better ability to process fish waste than most 5 gallon tanks, but I'm still concerned. Let me know what you guys think.

Pictures are post pruning. The last picture shows a snail riding another snail, yee haw!


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

Otos are very hard for us to keep, but it improves when then learn to eat zucchini. 

Did you find any female scarlet badis?


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

I have always had great luck with otos, such a sweet fish. I haven't found any females, I haven't really looked. I know they can be hard to find. I'm not really looking for fish yet though, I don't think the tank is ready yet. When I do I'll probably look online. I'm not too impressed with my local store.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Looking good.

If you put a group of the Badis in and try to squeeze the oto's, even though they are small, you might be pushing it. Probably put one species in, let the tank settle for a few weeks before considering the second... more plants would be beneficial first. Perhaps once your stems have been split again, which might not take long.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Oh don't worry! I'll definitely put them in one species at a time. Which comes first probably depends on how much algae I'm seeing once I feel then tank is ready for fish. Yeah the stalks are already splitting, they should have grown into healthy new shoots within a few days.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Jeffrey said:


> Oh don't worry! I'll definitely put them in one species at a time. Which comes first probably depends on how much algae I'm seeing once I feel then tank is ready for fish. Yeah the stalks are already splitting, they should have grown into healthy new shoots within a few days.


Do yourself a favour, if you start seeing algae, either reduce your light period or reduce the number of white LEDs firing. It would suck if your dedicated algae eaters didn't like your variety of algae and it got out of hand.

Jeff


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Yeah this is something I'll be sure to keep a close eye on. Lack of diverse algae eaters is one of my biggest concerns for this tank. In the past I've always used a combination of shrimp, otos, siamese algae eaters (real ones), and plecostomus for algae control and that worked real well. Speaking of lighting I need to remember to get a timer for my light...


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

My experience has been that a razor blade works rather well for algae in small tanks.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

On the glass right? Do you clean the razor first? Some of them are pretty greasy...


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

Jeffrey said:


> On the glass right? Do you clean the razor first? Some of them are pretty greasy...


Yes, the glass. I don't use them on anything except the aquarium.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Good news and bad news.

I came home from class yesterday to only 4 shrimp left in the tank. Found them dead in the filter. I had noticed a couple days before that the biggest shrimp had gone missing. Water test showed about .5ppm nitrite and 5ppm nitrate. I think the big one died (somewhere), and started to foul the water. the other shrimp probably got sicka nd started to float, and then got skimmed of the top and died. So I fished out the casualties and did a pac. Remaining shrimps perked up immediately and are still looking decent today.

On the bright side, I read somewhere online that the brown tinge on my bacopa leaves could be nitrogen deficiency. Immediately following the shrimp loss the bacopa perked up, turned a darker green, and began to grow even faster. It's growing about .25" to .5" per day, and the new growth is very dense. Each node has fresh leaves sprouting at all times and many nodes are dropping roots (picture attached). I'm going to snip and replant all the rooting nodes to continue increasing my density. The dead hair grass is finally thinning out, which helps the look of the tank a lot. The anubias is growing slowly, just chillin looking great with its big healthy leaves. I'm still not happy with how the leaves catch debris though, need to get some otos in here! The rotala is not improving. The tops do have fresh new growth, which is a beautiful bright pink color, but most of the stems are very ratty. I think they are getting too much flow and they delicate leaves are just getting damaged. I'm going to try moving it and adding something like spiral val in it's place. If anyone has a plant they think I'd like I'd love to hear it!

I'm going out of town for 5 days at the end of next week. I would like to have a new set of shrimp in the tank and feeling well established by the time I leave so that everything can stay healthy while I'm gone. I think I'd like to try ordering online this time. Does anyone have any online shops they really like? I was looking at: Bob's Tropical Plants - Home and Invertebrates by Msjinkzd | Specializing in invertebrates and micro fish from around the world.


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

I ordered plants from Bob's. No issues at all.


The Wet Spot always has a ton of fish in stock. They currently have these shrimp in stock:
Amano Shrimp	
Blueberry Shrimp	
Cherry Red Shrimp	
Golden Sunset Shrimp	
Giant Blue Wood Shrimp	
Marble Wood Shrimp	
Singapore Shrimp

Almost at the very bottom of the list: Click


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## Strand (Jul 20, 2011)

BTW I've never ordered from them. I've read a lot of good things about them and from browsing their website they seem to be pretty good at what they do. They stock mostly wild caught fish.

Once I figure out a direction with my current tank I'll be ordering from them.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

*Update*

Hi guys, figured it was time for another update!

Tank is still coming down from it's nitrite spike. Remaining ghost shrimp are doing ok, no more losses and water parameters are improving. I've blocked some of the light as raising the fixture didn't seem to do enough. The new light levels seem much better and put me at about 2.3W/G. I think I'll probably rewire it with a few less diodes soon. I've continued to lightly dose seachem flourish every few days (3-4).

I moved the rotala out of the flow of the filter outlet, so we will see how it looks in a little while. I think if it doesn't improve I'm going to take it out and try something else. Possibly cabomba, as I like the finer leaf structure. The bacopa is still giving me a hard time. The tops grow extremely fast, older growth wilts and eventually develops holes/tears. Generally after the new leaves are a couple days old and have a few newer leaves growing above them they start to wilt, no idea why. The anubias nana is alright, I think it's generally pretty healthy as it's growing a bit and the leaves look ok. Some of the leaves have little brown spots on them, but I think this is just diatoms. There is one leaf on the left that has developed a white tip, I'm not sure what this is or if I need to do anything. You can see both the supposed diatoms and the white tip in the picture. The hair grass is still growing like mad and just looks better and better. Each time I do a water change I tease out the new growth and replant it, so you can see it all over the front of the tank now. The old dead blades continue to thin out.

I noticed that my PH is drifting between about 6.9 and 7.2, is this ok? Part of it is probably just me slightly misreading the colors each time, but it does seem to vary a bit.

Thanks for showing me the wet spot strand, their selection is impressive!


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Looking good.

The pH shifts as the CO2 decreases over the day and increases over night... so if you test at the same time every day it might be always the same... colours aren't the most accurate method either. 

Jeff.


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

I've only been able to grow cabomba in a ten gallon rearing tank for australe killies with a sand substrate.
I'd guess your pH fluctuation to be experimental error.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

So it's finals week for me, but I've continued working on my tank because fish > finals. My water quality problems are all but gone, Ammonia and Nitrites at zero, with Nitrates steady at 5ppm without water changes. The remaining shrimp are more active and have better appetite. I'm not going to be adding any more creatures until I get back from a 5-day vacation on the 28th. If everything looks good then I'll get the cherries.

I think I have an idea whats going on with my plants. The Anubias and hair grass are both very healthy with good color and growth. The rotala and bacopa have fresh growth but old leaves all whither. I think the stem plants were in such bad condition from the lfs (no roots at all) that they were having trouble absorbing fresh nutrients and resorted to reabsorbing the old leaves. Now that some of them have roots they are starting to perk up and keep their leaves. The other possibility was that the water I've been using is lacking trace elements/etc. So just in case this was contributing to the problem, I added 2 cups of tap water this morning. It bumped my pH up from 7 to 7.5. I knew it was hard, but wow, I wasn't expecting so much change. Probably won't be doing that again.

The hair grass is continuing to spread, fresh blades are popping up all over the front of the aquarium (yay). I can't wait for it to fill in!


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

you are over stocking for a 5 gallon, but it is still do able. make sure the tank is heavily planted first. then add fish slowly 1 by one. otos have always been a hit or a miss for me,...


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

I'm back from vacation! And last night I finally found out what happened to all my ghost shrimp. There were two left, the big one and the little one. The little one was looking a little whitish, so I was watching him hoping to see him molt. Once he started the big one grabbed him, killed him, and ate him. Asshole shrimp. I had been finding bits of shrimp in the tank whenever one went missing, I assumed they were bits of dead shrimp, but I think they may have been the shed skeletons of shrimp that tried to molt. There isn't really much to do with one mean ghost shrimp, I haven't ever flushed a live fish before, but this guy left me no choice. Down he went. Did a water test and water change as part of my after vacation maintenance, everything is looking good.

Today I went exploring in the area looking for better aquarium stores. The first one I went to was salt only, but they recommended another store about a mile away. I checked it out, thinking they might be okay. WOW, this place is amazing. It's called Wet Pets in Arroyo Grande. The fish were incredible healthy, everyone had great color and vigor. I was blown away by the quality of the livestock. They had a tank filled with corries that were all swimming together and playing in the current, rummy noses all had brilliant red noses, and this place had the biggest most healthy looking rams I have ever seen. On top of it all their prices were really pretty cheap. And not just cheap with respect to the quality of the fish, they were just cheap. The rest of their products were very fairly priced as well, none of the ridiculous markup you see at most lfs. There was a beautiful new 60g tank and stand, $60 for the tank and the stand was cheap too (can't remember exactly how much). If I had more space for tanks this would have been a very expensive discovery =p. I asked them for 10 red cherry shrimp and a bunch of spiral val. They told me that they did have cherries, but that they were running low so I would probably receive juveniles. My what great honesty. At that point though I didn't even care, the livestock was all so healthy. Nonetheless, they fished around in the tank looking for the best specimens and even gave me two pregnant females. When I got home and unbagged the val I realized that it was actually five smaller bunches and not the single bunch it was sold as, bonus! I can't recommend this place enough, they were so nice and friendly too, really a perfect example of what an lfs should be. If you're in the area you should give them a try.

The new shrimp are doing great in the tank. Much more peaceful than the ghosts, and they have wonderful color.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

I forgot to mention, I've been continuing to revise my stocking plan. While I have always had great luck with otos, I do agree with the people that have been saying the tank is a bit small for them. After I add my main shrimp species if the plants are staying clean enough I'll probably leave out the otos. I think the snails and shrimp are doing a decent enough job cleaning anyway.

While I was at my newly discovered lfs, I also got to look at their tank of sparkling gouramis. I had never seen these in person and they were way more colorful than I expected. What a pretty fish! I may get these instead of the scarlet badis, as everyone I've talked to has said that the badis can be really picky eaters. I just don't want to deal with picky fish right now.


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

Ottos do well for me, IF they learn to eat zucchini.
Badis do well for we with brine shrimp. They also soon take flake.

Wayne


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## Boredomb (Feb 21, 2011)

I can't get my Scarlet Badis to eat anything but Live foods. They won't touch anything that doesn't move. I have had them for awhile now and have come to the conclusion they just won't take prepared foods (well atleast not mine.)
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

My Scarlet and Rainbow badis are in a 20 long, with various other small community fish.
They may have learned to take flake from the breeder, the pet store, or from their companions in their tank.
Everyone in that tank loves brine shrimp.


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## tlindsey (Mar 30, 2013)

If you decide to change the level of water from what was planned for the filter maybe change the media to a submerged media such as ceramic rings, or other media made for letting the beneficial bacteria survive fully submerged.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

I've been debating what to do with the water level in the filter. I originally did intend for it to be a trickle filter, but that is giving me two problems. First, evaporation has been a real pain in the ass. I'm losing water faster than I expected and the fact that the change in water level is only in the filter amplifies the problem. I lose probably a half inch of water out of the filter per day and have to refill daily to keep it functioning properly. The second problem is that since the overflow is waterfall style shrimp are able to get into the filter and are exposed to air when it's run as a trickle. The first part is an inconvenience but not really something I can change, I may consider cutting a piece of clear acrylic to fit right on the top of the aquarium to minimize evaporation. Anyone have any info on how much this limits oxygen exchange? The second part of the problem was definitely my fault, a waterfall overflow was a stupid idea. I thought the height of the water over the edge of the overflow would just be a tiny sheet and everything would just leave it alone. Surface tension causes the water to rise a fair bit before it will actually overflow. I'm definitely going to modify the top to be slotted. I'll let you all know how things go.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

I doubt that it makes much difference. My tank has a glass top that seals close, everything seems to still breath OK but I have almost no evaporation, not enough to notice anyway.

The slots would fix your issue as would raising the water high enough to overcome the surface tension issue, and then a bit more to accommodate the evaporation.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

So a few days ago my tank was starting to grow a lot of soft looking algaes, as well as some of the dark green stuff on the leaves. I was at the lfs and they had some very healthy looking otos, vigorous and obviously eating well. I bought a pair and they got right to work. They've been eating non-stop for a few days now. About two days after getting them I saw a slight bump in ammonia, maybe .1ppm, but after that my parameters are back to perfect. Barely even any measurable nitrate.

Yesterday I noticed that my PH has been creeping up and was at about 7.5. I got some distilled water from the grocery store and mixed some in with my regular water for todays 40% change (so about .5g distilled and 1.5g of the regular). Immediately after the change the PH was about 6.8, a bigger change than I had expected. Is it bad to have such a sudden change even when its a change toward what is best for the fish?


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## tlindsey (Mar 30, 2013)

*Fluctuating PH*

Some species of fish can take fluctuating ph better than others, for example neon tetra take changes to ph better than the cardinal tetra. I've read that changes have to be gradual.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Ok I have a couple questions. First a reminder of my current maintenance schedule, and tank info. My tap water is extremely hard, as far as I'm concerned it's unusable. For water I use "filtered drinking water" from albertson's. I do not know the hardness of this water, but it's pH is 6.6 directly out of the bottle, and 6.2 after sitting in the test tube for 30 min with occasional shaking. Using only this water the tank stabilizes at right about 7.0. The tank is just over one month old, and currently houses: 10 cherry shrimp, 2 otos, some malaysian trumpet snails, anubias nana, bacopa, spiral val, and dwarf hair grass. All plants and livestock seem extremely healthy. I dose flourish .5ml per 5g every three days, and .5ml flourish excel daily. I currently feed one small piece (nowhere near a whole disk) of hikari sinking wafer daily. ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all 0.

First I wanted to ask about replacing evaporated water. It's my understanding that I should replace evaporated water with distilled water so as not to constantly add "stuff" into the tank. Water changes should still be done with the regular filtered drinking water as that has been creating a reasonable pH for my fish. Is this right?

Second, I am starting to have some green water. I actually haven't had this problem before and am not sure what to do. Do I decrease my photo period? Should I blackout for a few days? Big water Change? Maybe reduce fertilizing? If I do reduce fertilizing should I keep dosing excel? 

As usual I appreciate all the help. I'll try to get some pictures up once the water is clearer ;-)


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

If its were me I'd drop the excel, reduce flourish (I assume comprehensive) to once a week, reduce the light but I don't know what your photoperiod is. I checked your LEDs... is that a 15 W equivalent or actually a 15W LED fixture? If its a 15W fixture that is WAY too much light for a 5gallon. assuming that the light is of the right spectrum you could get away with a 1 or 2 Watt setup. For reference, I run an 8 Watt for a 37 gallon tank and get good growth on all but the most light needy. 

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

OK, so: I reduced my fixture to 11 electrical watts, and the LEDs aren't super efficient there is a fair amount of heat being dissipated. Of that 11, most of the intensity comes from the 7 electrical watts of white 6500k, the rest is red and blue. My photoperiod has been 8 hours/day but was reduced to 6 a few days ago. I have reduced my fertilizing to once per week (yes its comprehensive). I have also reduced feeding to every other day. Why do you recommend stopping the excel? It seems to me that carbon is my limiting factor for plant growth, and excel is known to be an effective algaecide. Just gotta know why =)

I did a 50% water change yesterday. While I was at it I added a 45 degree piece of pvc to my filter output to redirect it toward the front of the tank. The result is a gentle current along the front of the glass, and the output is no longer battering the tall plants along the back. The otos have been enjoying playing in the current. They are doing extremely well, round bellies, excellent vigor. I found a few baby cherry shrimp in the tank the other day, yay! Water test today still shows zero ammonia nitrite and nitrate.

Ill update again about the green water. Once it clears I'll be adding in the scarlet badis as the lfs has them in stock now.


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## cwmorrow (Dec 25, 2011)

I've cured green water by turning the light off and covering the tank from outside light. A couple of days, as I recall.

The antique diatom filter worked, too. That was more fun.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

I still think that your light is very high.... you may need the excel. Lower light would not need it and it might serve you well to at least temporarily block some of the light getting into the tank if only to slow down all the photosynthetic processes. You might try a blackout period to see if you can kill off the green.

I would suggest to test your water for hardness unless you know what the bottled water is, I'll bet that you could use a few more degrees. What is very hard in reference to your tap water, do you know the numbers? Unusable is relative, I start with 23dGH and use it. I couldn't keep oto's at that level though.

Oh, you asked about adding to top off. If you are using bottled water and changing water every week you really don't need to worry about having any stuff buildup in the water. That would be an issue if you never changed water.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Yes light is very high, If I could redo the build I would use less. It might even have been a good idea to switch to the regular 5mm diodes for such a small tank. Fortunately the tank is clearing. I have been running the lights 4 hours a day and fertilizing once a week for a while now, and over the last few days a lot of the green has receded. After the next time I go grocery shopping and pick up some water I'll do some maintenance and post pictures.

The lfs got two male scarlet badis in about a week ago. I picked up two and am pretty happy with them. At first they were very shy and I barely saw them, but after a few days they got some confidence and now they act like they own the tank. They have formed territories on opposite sides of the tank, and part from occasional chasing they leave one another alone. They are very picky eaters. I haven't really seen them eat anything other than baby cherry shrimp (which they seem to really like). Two sets of cherry shrimp had hatched just a few days before I got the badis. After adding them, all the babies disappeared and I thought some of the adults did too. Eventually during feeding one day I happened to count all the shrimp out at once. I guess they had just been hiding more after the addition of the badis. The shrimplets are big enough to spot pretty easily now, and at least 3 are now too big to be badis food, hooray.

Ph is a little higher than I'd like for the otos at 7.6. I'll be adding some distilled water in an attempt to continue tweaking it. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all still at 0. Is it odd to have so little nitrate? does this mean the plants aren't getting enough?

I'll try to post pictures soon!


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Looking forward to pics.

With the light being so bright I might expect that the plants are just using what nitrate does show up as they would run out of ammonia pretty quickly. If it is always at zero you could try adding some and see if it gets used as well, it couldn't hurt as long as you don't go overboard with it.

Who was your parts source for the lights,and stuff? I've been mulling over building rather than buying as I think the next fixture size may be too much light for me. I might build what I want rather than just use what I can get.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

The heatsink was from heatsinksusa. I bought the diodes and drivers from a vendor on ebay named joy-deal. Transaction was smooth enough, he sells in lots of ten diodes but let me mix and match the colors. The drivers are simple but seem to work just fine. If I were to do another build I'd probably use a driver that could accept an input from a microcontroller like these: The Triple - Dimming LED Driver. This same site is a good place to get the thermal adhesive I used, they also have the proper optics for 1 and 3 watt leds.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Jeffrey said:


> The heatsink was from heatsinksusa. I bought the diodes and drivers from a vendor on ebay named joy-deal. Transaction was smooth enough, he sells in lots of ten diodes but let me mix and match the colors. The drivers are simple but seem to work just fine. If I were to do another build I'd probably use a driver that could accept an input from a microcontroller like these: The Triple - Dimming LED Driver. This same site is a good place to get the thermal adhesive I used, they also have the proper optics for 1 and 3 watt leds.


Oooooo... Time to go shopping. 

Thanks.

Jeff.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Picture time! Water has cleared up nicely and everything is healthy! Only thing I'm not happy with is pH, which is slightly higher than I'd like. Shrimp continue to breed and each time a few grow big enough to be safe from the badis. I'm attaching a bunch of pictures, enjoy!

For any members who are curious about my lighting levels, I have finally achieved water clarity through a short (4 hour) photoperiod and infrequent fertilizing. JDM is entirely correct about my lighting being too strong for this tank, I should have used less. I also probably should be running CO2 with this much light, it's an upgrade I'll consider in the future.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

Brightness aside, the overall look of the tank makes it seem to be much larger than 5 gallons, small leafed plants create an altered sense of scale. That will be one advantage of higher light over low light here, the leaves will stay smaller rather than larger as they seem to do in low light.

4 hours... Too bad for the viewing period.

Jeff


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Been a while now, so I think it is update time.

I started the tank at school, but am in a different location for my summer job. So at the beginning of summer I had to move the tank home where my parents would care for it. Moving the tank was stressful. It was so healthy and I really didn't want to upset the balance I had achieved. I was worried that with such thin glass (5 gallon tank) it might even be damaged during the four hour car ride. I was also concerned about temperature and filtration during the four hours it would be without power.

I made a base for the tank out of a thick piece of plywood to keep the tank from bending or flexing during the drive. To this board I glued four wooden blocks to hold the tank in place and keep it from shifting during the drive. Then I saran wrapped the top to prevent splashing and bubble wrapped the whole thing. After cutting some air holes in the top I started to drain the tank so I could get it to the car. I live on the fourth floor so it needed to be light :|. I drained it down to within about a half inch of the sand and the fish were obviously stressed. It wasn't too heavy and I got it loaded into the car with no problem. Once it was all tucked in I filled it up to about halfway and drove home.

Unloading was no problem and it filled back up and was clear by the next morning. Unfortunately all the shifting had uprooted a lot of the plants. All my nice slopes in the substrate had leveled out and the anubias (which had apparently developed an enormous root mass) had lifted out of the substrate considerably. I lit it sit and settle for a couple days, and then took the chance to do some maintenance. Most of the plants that had uprooted were stems of bacopa, and they had already started to drop roots from some of the nodes, so I split them up and replanted all the new cuttings. My bacopa stems are quite thick now. I have considerably more plant mass than when I started. I tried to tuck the anubias back down between its rocks but the root growth was too extensive for me to do much. I just left it alone and I expect the bottom to fill out a bit over time.

I had noticed while I let the uprooted plants float that the other plants looked healthier and the fish were more adventurous. I really like the look of the floating plants and I think it added a lot to the tank. I also remember from when I was still tuning my photoperiod that the plants grew much better with a longer period, I just had to turn it down to keep algae under control. I think I am going to try some frog bit in the tank and see if I can increase my period a bit as they fill in and decrease the intensity of the light.

A few days after moving home I noticed that the larger of my two scarlet badis had a split in his tail. He was still acting healthy but definitely had an injury. Over the next few days it developed into some sort of tail rot. It is a light purple fuzzy spot. Now I'm going to document how I handled it and what I think was happening, but I want to say upfront that I DO NOT have much experience treating sick fish. I looked around online for a bit and I think I got a pretty good idea of what was going on. As best as I can tell the fish was injured sometime during the move. In combination with the stress, this caused the wound to develop a bacterial infection. From what I have read, a bacterial infection is not particularly visible (maybe some inflammation/ rawness). The purple fuzz was probably a secondary opportunistic fungal infection that took root due to the fish already weakened immune system. From my reading it seems that most organisms don't really have much trouble with fungi unless they are already weakened somehow. As far as I can tell, the best way to treat this was to use an antibiotic to treat the bacterial infection, and then let the fungal portion run its course. Some of what I read suggested that the after the bacteria is treated the fungus can even assist in the removal of dead/damaged flesh, and will then die off as the fish heals. I selected tetracycline as my medication and followed the instructions for dosing. The dosing completed about 48 hours ago and the injury looks slightly less fungus-y. I think this is to be expected, since the antibiotic treats the less visible bacterial infection. The fish has already survived about two weeks since I first noticed the injury, and is still eating and otherwise acting healthy. I take this to be a pretty good sign, in my experience most injured fish do not last anywhere near this long. I will keep you all updated on the treatment. At this point I think I have done about as much as is reasonable for the fish and will let nature take its course. If it doesn't work out, I've recently found a great new lfs that I think may be able to get me some female badis.

As something of an aside, the two big rocks are starting to show a very attractive coating of dark green algae. I was hoping it would grow in this way, I think that allowing it to grow on the rocks (which I like the look of anyway) will help prevent it growing elsewhere (like all over my anubias leaves GRR!)

Oh and other than the badis all the other fish are healthy as can be.


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## Antonpd (Jul 29, 2013)

*Love your tank. Novice looking for help.*

Hi. I think your tank looks fantastic. My two young daughters want a "pet" so I'm planning to get our first fish tank but want to stick to a 5 gallon and avoid a large investment in case it doesn't work out for us.

The tank I'm planning to buy is the Fluval Spec V Aquarium Kit. Besides what the tank comes with do you recommend anything else such as a heater, air pump, etc. Any plant recommendations, I'm assuming lowlight due to the leds in the Fluval. What about substrate, gravel? And finally fish. I love how you have fish, shrimp and snails all in that little tank. What kinds to get that can survive in a small tank without a large time investment. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

In my opinion, starting with a spec v is probably not your best bet. Small tanks tend to be disproportionately expensive, and small water volumes (like 5g) are hard to maintain. They can destabilize quickly. I have decent experience keeping fish and I still think this was a hard tank to manage. In addition, a 5g tank is too small for almost all fish. To be entirely honest, the fish in my 5g probably don't have enough space, a 10g would suit them better.

I would start with a 20g (regular or long) tank with standard florescent hood, basic heater, and aqua clear hob filter and play sand for substrate. You could probably do this for about $150, though the actual cost depends a lot on exactly where you buy everything. This setup will be easier to maintain, and really open up your options for fish. A lot of people new to the hobby don't realize this, but fish actually need a decent amount of space.

My favorite beginner plants are jungle vallisneria, anubias barteri, java moss, and java fern. All are hearty and easy to keep.

As for livestock, you have tons of options with a 20g. Cherry shrimp are cheap and easy, this is the shrimp I have in my 5g. They are excellent scavengers and do a great job keeping the tank clean. The snails in my tank are malaysian trumpet snails. These too are easy to keep and are also scavengers. They are one of the few freshwater creatures in the hobby that burrow, this gently and slowly agitates the top layer of the substrate which is great for plant health. For fish I recommend you look around to see what you and your daughters like. The variety is enormous but if you have any specific questions about species feel free to post here and if it's something I have personal experience with I'll chime in!

Good luck, let us know if you have any questions :-D


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

And don't be intimidated by the 20g, it's really not that big. Fish make great pets, they're silent, they don't smell at all, and they really aren't too tough to take care of.


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## Antonpd (Jul 29, 2013)

I only have space for the 5 gallon. Thanks anyway.


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Ah ok then, the plants, shrimp, and snails recommended will all work in a 5g


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

Anubias is blooming!


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## Jeffrey (Feb 21, 2013)

While I was away at my summer internship the other badis died. Same story, some sort of rot and died a little after.

Got home and the tank looked kind of bad. Nothing was sick specifically, but the otos looked kinda tired, not many shrimp left and too many snails. Some algae growing on the glass and all the plants looked sort of wilted. Ammonia and Nitrite were both 0, but nitrate was 30 which is super high for this tank. pH was up to 8.0 from 6.5.

I got my API GH and KH test kit in the mail just the other day so I figured I would give it a try and see what turned up. GH was 0 degrees and KH was 9 degrees. We have well water here, and while I didn't remember the parameters exactly I have had a lfs test the well water before and it was decent for fish. So I tested the kitchen sink (where we get our water changes from) and got the same thing, 0 degrees GH and 14 degrees KH. Wierd. So I took samples from all over the house including the hose and our RO drinking water. Tested them all, the hose was the only one that matched what I expected the well water to be, 13 degrees GH 11 degrees KH. Apparently all the rest of the house is on a water softener. Argh.

So I wanted the icky softened water out. Did a big 75% water change consisting of 50% well water and 50% RO. Fish and shrimp perked up almost immediately. I'll continue doing water changes every few days with 50/50 well and RO. This should bring my GH to 6.5 degrees and KH to 5.5 degrees.


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## JDM (Dec 9, 2012)

That will help. Too bad about the livestock. 
Jeff
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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