ghim's 100L Project - Picture intensive

[ghim]

Started this new project 10 ago. Final scape should be a jungle

Customed-made Tank
60x40x45cm 12mm glass

--Substrates--
Magic Soil 10L
JBL AquaBasis Plus 5L

--Filtration--
Eheim Ecco 2232
Hydor Nano Wavemaker
Do!Aqua Voilet Pipe

--CO2--
2L CO2 Tank
External Reactor
ADA CO2 Drop Checker

--Lighting--
2ft LED light set(2 tubes)

--Cooling--
Mr Aqua Super Tornado

--Re-used Item--
Flora, fauna and driftwoodx2

Setting it up step by step

Filling up the base soil






Filling up the water - magic! Water is very clear.


Side by side with the shrimp tank

[ghim]

Preperation for tank cycling:

Day 2

[ghim]

Day 10

Tank pretty much stabilized. Crypts melting, due to planting of narrow leave fern near them.

Faunas added:

20+ Boraras brigittae
several shrimps - cherry, wild cherry and india zebra
3 otos
3 fishes (don't know the name)



You can see the crypt melting and the grosso growing


Boraras brigittae



Don't know what fish


Will be doing the actual scaping this weekend.

[Shadow]

where do you get the fish on the last photo? how big are they?

[ghim]

where do you get the fish on the last photo? how big are they?

It is around 3-4cm. Got it from Seaview some time back.

[illumnae]

they're threadfin rainbows...quite easily found in most LFS

[Shadow]

Ok thanks, found it description at practical fishkeeping magazine:

Threadfin Rainbowfish = Iriatherina werneri

Notes: These fish are one of the most peaceful community fish around and although small look fantastic in large, graceful shoals.

[illumnae]

you got to feed them small grain pellet food...they have tiny throats

[ghim]

Some updates for my tank after 1 month.

Did some minor rescaping. And just added a LED spotlight - a little bit of DIY. Shining it at the riccia.

The 2ft LED light seems alittle too weak. Still waiting for the LED light tube to arrive, no stock now.

BBA seems to thrive at the bottom and my glass wares.



Created hiding place for the shrimps. If you notice the bottom right corner.




The spot light.

[Xianghao]

whats the spot light for? to create ambiance? also i was wondering, hows the cooling system you are using? is it effective? I saw it before in the LFS but it looks to me like a fancy fan.

[Jervis]

Because your tank is 45cm high plus the fixing legs (a couple of inches there)... naturally the LED is unable to penetrate through to the soil bed plants. I am using 3 tubes on a 36cm tall tank. Still hoping to see some good results

[ghim]

whats the spot light for? to create ambiance? also i was wondering, hows the cooling system you are using? is it effective? I saw it before in the LFS but it looks to me like a fancy fan.

The spot light fixture is normally used for ponds for ambiance. I changed the light bulb to LED light. Am using it to have focused light at the riccia.

The fan is very quiet. It did lower the tank temperature by 2C.

Because your tank is 45cm high plus the fixing legs (a couple of inches there)... naturally the LED is unable to penetrate through to the soil bed plants. I am using 3 tubes on a 36cm tall tank. Still hoping to see some good results

I did tried lowering down the lights - after reading your post But find it too closed to the water surface. Which did not shines on the taller plants. I did find the LEDs becoming yellowish now. As I compared them with the new spot light LEDs. Am thinking of a way to have a mini fan blowing at the LEDs, as LED will function better when it is cool.

[ghim]

Finally added in 1 more tube of LED lights. Now my 2ft LED light set has 3 x LED light tubes.

Riccia finally pearls after 4 hours of photo-period. And without the use of the LED spot light.

[Shadow]

Interesting finding. Does it mean 3x2ft LED roughly equal 1x55W PL brightness? not sure if I can make riccia bubble with 36W PL light. Just trying to compare the brightness of LED light tube and PL light.

[ghim]

It should be brighter than 1x55W PL, but not as intense. 1 tube of 2 ft LED light is equivalent to a 2ft T5 tube. 24W x 3 = 72W.

The issue with LED light is more on intensity and coverage. My glosso are growing happily even with 2 tubes of LED lights. But hairgrass is experiencing very slow growth.

If they can make a light set packed fully with LEDs(around 400-600) on a 1ft X 1ft light panel, this should be good for a 2ft cube tank It may have the same effect as a MH light.

[Jervis]

Finally added in 1 more tube of LED lights. Now my 2ft LED light set has 3 x LED light tubes.

Riccia finally pearls after 4 hours of photo-period. And without the use of the LED spot light.

That's a very interesting discovery!!! Now we all know Riccias pearl under LED

[blue33]

Interesting, keep us posted.

[Shadow]

The issue with LED light is more on intensity and coverage. My glosso are growing happily even with 2 tubes of LED lights. But hairgrass is experiencing very slow growth.

I found hairgrass to be slow starter, but once it start it become a weed.

So how much a gain for 1 tube?

[ghim]

The gain is supposedly 24W for 1 tube of 2ft LED light. 1 tube contains around 200 LEDs. With the use of resistors and capacitors, it allow AC to power up the LEDs. Consumption for 1 tube is 7.5W, which I am observing my electricity bill to see if it actually consumes that amount of electricity.

I think the doubt for most people is, there is no commercial/actual measurement for LED light. The merchant will always quote an equivalent PL/T5 light's wattage. In which most merchant cannot state the correct equivalent. This is actually the same reason why street lights are not using solar-powered LED lights yet.

[Shadow]

for us probably because of lack of equipment to test. But for those manufacturer, they should have equipment to measure the luminous emittance of the LED at the surface depth of the tank and compare it with other light source. Lux per square inch or something like.