nanojungle

[nanojungle]

Propagating moss

So awhile back I bought this silly little contraption called a “moss dome” which came with 3 sprigs of willow moss. It’s a semi circular cage which fits onto a solid plastic dome with some ceramic balls in it. When it came in the mail and I was mega unimpressed but thought, fuck it let’s see how it goes. A couple of months later, it didn’t grow to become a sphere/bush of moss like the packaging promised. The one in the photo was possibly created using a co2 setup but I can’t bring myself to commit to one.

Next to the moss dome in the first photo there is a plant pot the Anubias came in which I had weighed down with a ceramic plant weight and stuffed a load of moss in. Not tightly packed in, but the idea was that the moss would get a lot more water flowing through it, because moss feeds from the water column, not through roots. The plant pot grew so much more than the dome did. So I had another idea…

I had this idea that I wanted to try a take on the Dutch aquascape using only moss, but using 4 varieties of it in these neat little squares like you would see from an aerial view of the countryside landscape. The idea was that I would make a cage which would trap the moss and let water flow through it but also allow the shrimp to pick at it like they were little farmers. I actually preferred using them like big picture frames on the back wall of the aquarium and the shrimp love to pick at them.

A sortof tutorial:

Materials:

- fishing line

- barbecue sticks

- tank safe super glue

- a new plastic bath luffa (the one that’s made of a bunch of nets)

- airline pipe suction cups

- Hair elastic (possibly not aquarium safe so go with caution on this one, but I’ve had this in my tank for 2 months and we’ve been good )

Step 1, make the frames

I cut some barbecue sticks to 10cm cutting off the pointy ends and then cut little notches 1cm from the ends which would allow them to slot into eachother nicely. I then used an aquarium safe super glue to glue them into a square. Make two of these. They should fit together neatly when layed on top of each other.

Step 2 adding the netting

Cut the plastic bath luffa into 2 neat 10 x 10cm squares

Take some fishing line and use either your hands or a sewing needle, evenly thread the fishing line through the net and wind it around the one of the wooden frames, secure it at the corner with a knot and then continue until the net is evenly distributed. It’s good to have a bit of slack so the moss isn’t completely squashed. Do this for the other side and then tie them together at one side so they open like a book. You now have the frame!

Step 3 Adding to aquarium

Loosely pack some moss into the frame. You should allow all the moss to get some water flow and light. If you pack too much or too tightly it might suffocate and go brown.

To close the frame, tie one corner shut with a small hair elastic. (As I’ve mentioned before, I use this to secure my nets and have had no problems but if you can find something more certified fish-safe then go for it)

Fix an airline suction cup to the wall of your aquarium and then hook the frame onto it like a picture frame.

Hope this helps someone! It was a very quick and satisfying craft project that can be done in an hour or two :3

[nanojungle]

Month 4

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog. Sorry for the ugly pics, I’m working on getting a macro lens soon.

Since last time, I’ve fought a hydra outbreak with No Planaria, I had a massive population boom of shrimp just when I thought they would never breed and I swapped out the big rocks for a bunch of driftwood which budged the pH from about 7.6 to 7.0.

In fact, almost immediately when I removed those rocks, the shrimp started reproducing. No one liked to use the cave anyway so it won’t be missed.

The big bit of driftwood in the back has had a few bits of Anubias wedged into it or glued on, but it’s a recent addition so I’ll be decorating it much more soon. I love the fluffiness of aquatic moss. In my next post I’ll show the weird home made contraption I used to cultivate willow moss and riccia fluitans.

[nanojungle]

The amanos and cherries are lazily picking the fry food off the surface tension.

[nanojungle]

Week 4

Gave the tank a little trim before taking this pic. It’s crazy to see how far it’s come since the beginning of the month! We have no more Monte Carlo carpet, just one small sprig which I keep out of curiosity. Hair grass is actually pretty hardy and puts up with abuse like me cutting it down pretty short. It helps it grow sideways instead of upwards.

Pothos is actually getting pretty long and I’m not sure what to do with it! Maybe I should buy a trellis that fits behind the tank to drape them off when they get too long. It’s something I’ve seen on Pinterest which looks pretty awesome.

I picked every bit of red root floater and separated it from the duckweed and placed into the floating ring. Before that none had roots which surely meant a slow melty rotty death. I had heard that they don’t like water agitation (which I have barely any) so I thought the ring might be their best bet and just like that they grew the red roots within 3 days!

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All of a sudden, many babies have come out of hiding!

They are about a week old. I’ve sprinkled some fry food and they’re having a great time.

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Got some amanos in the mail today!

[nanojungle]

So this girly was full of eggs. She gave birth last week and at one point I saw a very tiny shrimp who landed on the glass and then darted off. I’ve not seen one baby since! From the day I saw her loose a couple of eggs, I sprinkled Hikari first bites into the water just incase the babies were in hiding and needed some food. No one showed up. I also made a little shrimp banquet and gave them all a ton of food in the rock cave on top of catappa leaves and no babies showed up for that too. They must have all been eaten by something :<

Currently I have 4 females and 1 male and they are all pregnant. I’ve bought some marimo moss balls and java moss so next time they’ll have a lot more places to hide just incase it’s the adults eating them.

[nanojungle]

Moss baskets to try and grow some fluffy places for the skrimps to forage. I bought the first one off eBay and when I got it in the mail I thought, is that it?? For £5?? And I went and made myself a diy one using some fishing line, an old aquatic plant pot and a ceramic weight. Just stuff it full of Java moss and gently pull tendrils through using a small crochet hook (mine was 2.5mm) hopefully it gives the moss something to hang on to and lets it feed through the water column. I’ll update if it actually works or not!

[nanojungle]

I got blue jelly cherries and I will protect them with my life 🥹 they have been acclimated and are now enjoying a snack

[nanojungle]

Fish Wishes!

(Images aren’t mine, snatched from google)

Ok so I’ve thought about this for awhile and I’ve seen a couple of these guys in fish stores and done the research to figure out what’s going to be happiest in my 15G nano tank.

Honey Gourami as the centrepiece fish

When I see these guys iRL, they’re always inquisitive, swimming right up to things and then giving them a little pat with their feelers. They’re cute and interesting to watch. Generally considered a peaceful community fish but Reddit has been full of stories of them bullying their own kind until they die :< As they’re happy solo, I think I can give them a stress free life being the centrepiece fish of the tank with a few easygoing nano fish friends.

Or Sparkling Gourami as the centrepiece?

I love the idea of Sparklers. I fell in love with the YouTube series from Foo the Flowerhorn where they set up a tank with sparklers and amanos. In reality I think it’s very risky for the amanos; I’ve had LFS guys and Reddit posts give me anecdotes about the sparklers eating shrimp or killing them off slowly by beating them into hiding. Let’s be honest, I do this hobby to relax. I’m not going to have violence in my tank! Such a shame as they’re so pretty. The image of these guys with their turquoise scales and a backdrop of a bunch of baby blue jelly shrimps would be soo cool but I know there would be suffering so it would never be worth it.

Nano fish

Celestial Pearl Danios

Excuse the shitty iPhone vid. Sometimes you just have to go to see some fish iRL to figure if you’re really going to love them.

I’ll tell you what, every time I see these guys in real life they make my heart flutter with how stinking cute they are. They have beautiful colours and are so small. The ones I’ve seen in store have been about 0.8” in length.

Chilli rasbora

These are another species that always catch my attention in person. Their little faces and big eyes are too cute to handle and their body shape looks like a miniature red shark. They’re also micro predators so they would have a great time gobbling up the creatures and loose eggs in the tank. Thankfully their mouths are too small to do any damage to shrimps!

Extras;

When I think of all the gross lil non-fish creatures I would enjoy in a tank, my mind always gravitates to cherry shrimp or amanos. With amanos I think i’d like the peace of mind to rely on these lil dudes to clean up the nastier hairier algae if it turns up.

However, a hoard of cherries swarming the tank and filling it with bright colours would also be so fun! Blue jellies are the cutest but bright orange ones look like you’ve got a tank full of pre cooked shrimp or living cheetos.

Anyways, that’s my fish wishes! Im not going to get every one of these fish, just a centrepiece fish, some skrimps if compatible and a small shoal of nano fish.

Next weekend I might go to the LFS and see what I can find, I’m so excited!

[nanojungle]

Despacita’s babies are all walking on the surface tension!

I stayed at a friend’s place over the weekend and came back to a snail and duckweed explosion. Here in these two pics I’ve cleaned it up but it had completely eclipsed the surface of the tank and all the baby snails were tarzanning about on the roots. I wish I took a picture now but the amount had filled up an entire breakfast bowl. I’m sure it will happen again cause duckweed is always super prolific.

I’ve lassoed all that could fit into a loop of airline tubing and tucked them into the corner. I use a bit of fishing line and a plant weight to anchor it down. They’ll break free and spill over eventually but I like how tidy it looks for now and the snails can still chill on them.

Floating plants are actually very helpful in reducing nitrates so I’m happy to see them grow. I’ve got a wider leaf variety recently: Red root floaters (Phyllanthus fluitans). They don’t have their red roots just yet but the critters love hanging out on them like mini lilly pads.

[nanojungle]

Week 3

So after a bit of research and with some help from the lovely people at the local fish shop, my lil underwater garden is looking luscious and healthy!

I’ve chosen plants which are nitrate hungry. The LFS guy said that plants that are bought off online stores sometimes arrive so beat up that they usually can’t muster the energy to root. It might have been a pitch to sell me some plants but I found that he was right. All the plants I bought managed to take root within the week and are looking bushy and happy.

The Monte Carlo is now completely cleaned out and the Rotala also got trashed too. Instead we have water weed, water wisteria and hornwort as the background plants (all nitrate hungry fast growers) and we have Anubias on the rocks and Java fern by the filter. As the Hornwart grows, I chop the new shoots up into little bouquets held by lead weights. They function as new plants so I can keep filling in the background.

The best news of all; the tank is cycled! I’ll give it a week to see if it’s stable and then we can get some wet pets in there!!

[nanojungle]

Week 2

Added some Ludwigia repens, duckweed and a pothos (hanging off the top)

Monte Carlo is still rotting away, although there are some tinyyyy sprouts of new growth. I just think a carpet with these guys will never happen. So I swapped it out for some dwarf hair grass (parvula) in hopes that it will enjoy my water parameters better.

A better view of the new dwarf hair grass carpet. I’ve opted for the “plant in bundles” over the “plant individual blades” option. I’ll see how it’s doing in a week and then give it a trim to encourage lateral growth.

I usually place the duckweed cloud above the hornwort to stunt it’s crazy growth. This pic is just a few days after a trim and it’s already made a couple of skinny tails.

I might have done something silly by swapping out the sponge filter. The first one was not very efficient at oxygenating, the bubbles that came out of it were massive. This might be a set back as the bacteria from the first filter was still growing. I was pretty sure they weren’t fully established because I had too much nitrite in the tank, not being converted to nitrate. Hopefully this new filter will encourage both bacteria and plant growth a lot better.

[nanojungle]

So, I found the snails doing the dirty and soon after I found a bunch of eggs 🙃 this is the second time they’ve been at it.

I’m like 95% sure that these are Bladder Snails, which can move quite quickly (for snails), breed asexually and can float/swim about freely in water. They’re pretty cool, but I’ll probably not feel that in a week when there’s another 1000 of them.

The thousands of babies will upset the water parameters. I might have to buy an assassin snail to murder them all.

[nanojungle]

Some snails appeared in my tank. There were 3, but the third disappeared. I call the bigger one Despacita and the smaller one Grub.

[nanojungle]

Week 1

Hi welcome to the journey of my first ever tank! I live in the UK so my tap water tends to be hard and basic (pH) but with thankfully very little chlorine. My plan is to build an ecosystem from scratch, encouraging beneficial bacteria and tons of plant growth.

I got a bunch of plants and stones in the mail! For the hardscape I wanted to provide some hiding spaces for my inhabitants. I want blue jelly cherry shrimp and either tetra or rasboras, fish which are suitably small and would be happy with the amount of space in the tank.

I’ve grabbed a bunch of plants which are known to be fast growing. I had big dreams of the soft fluffy carpet of Monte Carlo but they were not thriving 🥲

The most successful plant by far is the Hornwart which I have to trim back every week.

The Rotala is slowly melting away and I thought it was best to give them a chance. Perhaps the new growth would outweigh the melting!