my nephew's 1st planted tank

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 00:33

I have not set up a planted tank for a long time already (> 4 years) other than some nano tanks. 2 weekends ago, I received a phone call from my 4 years old nephew telling me that he wants to "keep fish". I took the liberty to decide to create a low tech planted tank for him.

So last week, I went to C328 and bought a 2 feet tank (oceanfree brand) for $30 and some GEX substrate (light green package). After work on this Friday, I went to C328 again to have a look at the driftwoods being sold there, and finally decided on buying 3 cheap pieces at $2.50 each to create some tree roots aquascape.

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 00:39

Yesterday, I scrambled around Singapore to buy the plants I had in mind to be used as I had a tight schedule to meet, I had to assembled the tank in the evening. After reaching home, I quickly boiled some water to disinfect the driftwoods first (sorry nephew, I didn’t have time to soak the driftwood long enough) before proceeding to disinfect the plants of algae and snails using diluted bleach.

First was 2 pots of Anubias which I bought for $5 per pot, they are really big pots and I was able to split them into many smaller clumps. This is supposed to wrap around one of the root on the right and then extending to the centre root.

Then was one pot of Cryptocoryne balanse which I intended to have them growing out from behind the trunk, followed by a pot of needle leaf which was supposed to be tied onto the trunk above the Anubis.

The last was 3 pots of some Cryptocoryne sp (hmm wendtii varient?) which will be used to fill up the back of the roots and in-between the left and centre roots.

After all the disinfecting was done, I proceeded to tie the Anubias and fern to the driftwoods. After extracted some mulms from my tub in the balcony as well as some hornworts, water lettuce and nerite snails, I was all ready to go over to my brother's house.

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 01:03

It is when I started to assemble the tank that I realized many mistakes I made. I started with adding a packet of EIHO base fertilizer followed by a little bit of GEX substrate before adding in a Tupperware of mulms-filled water.

I then topped up the remaining of the substrate forming a hump at the base of the trunk before adding in the driftwoods. Sigh, I realized that the soaked driftwood which is black in colour has no contrast to the black GEX substrate. Sigh, the leaves of the Anubias were too large also and I did not get the effect I wanted.

I topped up a bit more water before proceeding to plant the cryptocorynes. Sigh, I did not buy enough substrate, the layer of substrate at the left side of the tank was quite thin and difficult to root the cryptocorynes in place. The cryptocorynes chosen were also a little too big for the tank.

Despite the difficulties, I completed the planting and filled up the tank with water, added and old 15W FL light and an old Eheim Liberty 100 and switched on the power. My poor nephew, stuck with this tank as his first planted tank.

**Graeme** · 24th Aug 2008, 07:42

Your poor nephew??

I think he will love the tank.
Its a bright green
looks great
and will be easy tank to maintain

I like it !!

Graeme

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 10:59

The cryptocorynes were all facing "left-right-centre" and not in the spread out manner I expected to show their nice left pattern like when I saw them in the fish shop. Sigh, hopefully they don't melt. Can the entire setup scrape through with just 15W if FL?

I will post an update next week when I go to his house, wish that my nephew and my brother will heed my advise and wait for a few weeks before adding fishes (already added 1 mosquito fish inside to test water)!

**jwuog** · 24th Aug 2008, 11:06

I think your nephew will love it, great job

Pity my own 2-year old nephew, all I say to him when I change water on my tank: no touchy!

**beetlejuice403** · 24th Aug 2008, 11:14

Nice tank done for your nephew illumbomb!!!

[Sigh! If only I have an uncle like you back then to get me started in Planted Tanks....

]

Hope to see updates on this tank soon, cheers...

**vwsj84** · 24th Aug 2008, 13:20

Great tank ! Very thoughtful of you to setup a tank for your nephew. Hope it inspires him to become an avid aquascaper in the future. Who knows... maybe by your action you have inspired a young mind to become the next Takashi Amano.

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 18:10

Luckily my nephew's "standard" is not too high and is generally satisfied with the tank, phew...

This is a photograph of him checking out actions created by the mosquito fish attempting to eat an insert that landed on the water surface. My brother is going to custom-make a stand a.s.a.p. to elevate the tank to prevent the kids from tempering with the equipment.

**Boesman** · 24th Aug 2008, 21:35

Not a bad set up after all.
Where to do you buy all the new plants ?
They look great and healthy.

Cheers.

**route** · 24th Aug 2008, 21:37

the tank looks really good! i like the feel of the tank.
your nephew is so lucky to have an uncle like you.

**illumbomb** · 24th Aug 2008, 23:19

Originally Posted by Boesman

Not a bad set up after all.
Where to do you buy all the new plants ?
They look great and healthy.

Cheers.

Hi Boesman, I bought the cryptocorynes from Keong Seong and narrow leaf ferns and Anubias from Colourful. C328 has lots of huge pots of Anubias too at similar price. For narrow leaf ferns you could run a search within the Marketplace section. one bro is selling it at 20 leaves for $10, a reasonable price I felt as compared to those sold in the LFS but he was just staying a bit too far for me to make the trip without someone sending me there......

**Boesman** · 25th Aug 2008, 00:23

Originally Posted by illumbomb

Hi Boesman, I bought the cryptocorynes from Keong Seong and narrow leaf ferns and Anubis from Colourful. C328 has lots of huge pots of Anubis too at similar price. For narrow leaf ferns you could run a search within the Marketplace section. one bro is selling it at 20 leaves for $10, a reasonable price I felt as compared to those sold in the LFS but he was just staying a bit too far for me to make the trip without someone sending me there......

Hi illumbomb san.
Thanks for the info.
Anyway, will be waiting to see how your nephew's tank will turn up during your next update. Cheers & Regards..

**fireblade** · 25th Aug 2008, 11:10

lucky nephew!!
nice tank you have there and I like the way you place the driftwood!
aggreed that the plants are too big to show the beauty of the driftwood though..

do keep us update!!

**Verminator** · 26th Aug 2008, 04:17

I like your method of clustering the Anubias together so compactly. Will grow into a nice formation.

Brilliant little set-up to get the young ones enticed into the hobby

**Cough** · 27th Aug 2008, 00:56

Nice job. What I am curious though is the disinfecting part as I am a newbie to planted tanks. I would usually just rinse the plants I got from the LFS and check for snails. Wouldn't bleach harm the plants? Can I use any type of washing bleach?

**Verminator** · 27th Aug 2008, 06:22

A light bleach mixture can be used to wash off any unwanted pest's and can kill some algae (if im not mistaken). Obviously prolonged exposure will harm the plant. So just a wash will do, making sure you leave no trace of bleach on the plants themselves when you add them to the tank.

As for what bleach can be used, i don't honestly know. Never actually done it myself, i prefere the method of a quarentine tank

**illumbomb** · 27th Aug 2008, 10:11

I treated the plants in diluted bleach (the normal clear colourless type for washing floors) of concentration about 1:100 for 5 mins minutes, then increase the concentration to 1:30 and soak the plants for an additional 2 minutes. Then I soak the plants in water with excessive anti-chlorine solution (read somewhere that this will help to remove all traces of bleach).

I did this instead of just visual inspection as I want to be absolutely sure that the tank is as low maintenance as possible to retain my nephew's interest in the hobby (can imagine my sister in-law screaming at my brother or nephew if they need to start to spend a lot of time maintaining the fish tank?!?! haha). And also, I think some of the snail's eggs are rather hard to detect visually especially when you buy large quantity of plants.

Also, I threw away a pot of Hygrophila difformis look-alike (if I never identify wrongly) as the leaves started "disintegrating" even when I soaked them in the 1:100 bleach solution, Patches of green on the leaves started to turn translucent and the patches grew larger in size the longer you soak them. So be careful when you try this when you are not sure, you better test with one leaf first and not throw the whole pot of plant into the bleach solution like me.