20L spare tank revamp!

[zacsbee89]

After getting some inspiration from Triggs, I decided to pull down, clean and rescape my 20L again.

It was actually not as dirty as I first thought which was the reason for not doing it sooner :/ lol

So it was basically sitting there with a corner bubbler, Some floating plant (not sure what it is but it grows great in my pond) and what looked like algae but turned out to be just crap on the bottom and sides.

Quick empty and scrub and it was ready to be rescaped. This is when I realised im out of all supplies lol. Substrate was the last of some riversand I used for my turtle tank and red cherry tank. I had to steal a rock from my pond which is covered in algae and to my surprise has some bonded fontinalis moss...I know I put my odds and ends of plants in there, but wasnt expecting it to bond to anything. Also had to take some clippings of Pink baby tears and Hemianthus micranthemoides so I could actually have something to plant!

ill probably end up using this tank for some choc shrimp when I have the cash to buy some, Or ill grab some Zebras off of Bob if i go to Cairns in 2 weeks!

anyway heres some pics.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

AND ALL 3 TANKS:

[Triggs]

Wow! You actually went and did it straight away, wish I had your get up and go lol.

Looks good mate, Look even better when you get some chocolates or zebras in there :P

Nice to see another K-mart tank kicking around hahaha.

Cheers for posting the updates!

[zacsbee89]

Lol yeah it'll look a bit better with something actually in it! haha

Ill have to get some more plants/mosses for it. fill it out a bit better. Only problem with that is that light is only like 1.5-3w ebay led. So i doubt it'll keep anything alive!

[Triggs]

Lol yeah it'll look a bit better with something actually in it! haha

Ill have to get some more plants/mosses for it. fill it out a bit better. Only problem with that is that light is only like 1.5-3w ebay led. So i doubt it'll keep anything alive!

Java moss & Anubias. Those things will keep alive and growing even in a tank with nothing more than room lights.

Best part is the lower the lighting on them the cleaner and greener and nicer they actually look.

[zacsbee89]

ahh sweet, java moss and anuibas are exactly the 2 plants I actually have spare!! lol

[zacsbee89]

there we go, pink baby tears got the toss! no bingo!

anubias on drift wood looks way better

[Callan]

Nice Post. If I may can I add a warning to becareful when adding plants from an outdoor pond. I added foxtail and it grew really well and did look fantastic. The unfortunate thing i didn't know at the time was that it must have had dragonfly eggs, which hatched out in nymphs and they wiped out most of my shrimp before I realised.  I would know treat any plant from a pond before adding to any of my shrimp tanks.  Perhaps someone can suggest a good way of treating the plants without damaging them or killing shrimp.

[kizshrimp]

Hey Callan, I doubt there's any dip treatment that will kill dragonfly eggs in aquatic plants. Eggs are notoriously resistant and the female dragonfly actually deposits them inside the plant tissue. Otherwise potassium permanganate (condy's crystals) is the traditional aquatic plant dip and I've heard of people using "internal parasite clear" more recently - probably just to get rid of planaria. 

 

I hope you're planning to check out the shrimp comp this weekend.