Journal Fishstery's 20g Long Plant Farm

[Fishstery]

Here we go on Tank Journal no. 2!

If some of you have been following my nature/garden hybrid journal, you'll know that I decided to rescape the tank to a full nature style. I'm also taking up farming rare Buce which I am importing from Vietnam. I was able to combine these two projects by moving most of my stem plants that aren't being reused in the rescape into the new farm tank.

Unfortunately the war in Iran has delayed my import. Instead of shipping out yesterday, shipping logistics decided it's best to wait until next week. That puts me at about 2 more weeks until my (huge) import order arrives.

Until then I wanted to get the tank up and running after selling off my 12g long shrimp tank. I've just been throwing in trimmings from the 50gal for now to give the shrimp and fish something to keep them comfortable. The end game is to have the left side of the tank house all of the buce species which I will be growing in a 7 tier acrylic display shelf, and stems I want to keep for future use on the right.

Here's what I have going on currently, with this being a Frankenstein tank put together with spare hardware I had laying around from past builds.

Hardware:
20oz paintball co2 tank
Stainless steel in tank diffuser
FZone Paintball dual stage regulator
Twinstar E series Light (may swap out for my first gen Chihiros Vivid if the mount will fit over the tank rim)
Oase Biosmart Thermo 100 with a spraybar outflow

Fauna:
6 Hastatus Corydora from my breeding project
~25 plus tons of newly hatched Crystal Red/PRL shrimp that I've had for many years
A few Ramshorn snails
Adding 10 Adolfoi Corydora next week

Flora:
Rotala 'Mexicana'
Rotala 'Blood Red SG'
Rotala 'Ramosior Florida'
Limnophila Aromatica
Bacopa 'Colorata'
Bacopa 'Salzmannii Purple'
Ludwigia 'Super Red'
Cuphea Anagalloidea
Cabomba 'Furcata'
Nymphoides 'Taiwan'
Clump of Buce that was sold as BG 11 but I'm skeptical until it grows out, based on leaf shape.

Water Parameters:
I'm using BDBS and tap fertilized with APT 3 once daily
pH 7.6
kH 3-4
gH 6-7

So far things have been easy as can be. I have the lights on for 8 hours a day and co2 injection low as I acclimate the cories. The drop checker isn't even fully green, which is fine as I don't need or want crazy growth rates in this tank. It's currently one week in and the first set of clippings I put in are doing very well. Coloration is good and zero melting despite not many of them having roots when I planted them. The corydora were not doing very well when this tank was species only, with lighter sand and sponge filters. Since putting them with the shrimp on black sand and a canister filter, they have been active nonstop and eating well. They're far more bold and I'm hoping adding the group of Adolfoi cories will help them be even more bold as time goes on. I'm really enjoying the tank so far, it's very set it and forget it. Zero algae and I gotta say, I'm really loving the black sand with black background. It's making the colors of the plants really stand out. While I had plans to switch the 50gal rescape from brown controsoil to fresh black, I'm seriously considering just using BDBS in there instead, to avoid the ammonia dump and algae issues.

Updates on this tank will be minimal until my import comes, barring any issues. Once my plants show up, prepare to be bombarded with photos as there are going to be some very rare buce species in there!

Until then, here's some pics I got tonight before I added some more species from the 50gal.

 

[Fishstery]

Also for funsies a photo of my fat cat Leo, who is very happy I pushed my ottoman over so he can watch the fish and shrimp

 

[techman81]

I keep debating if I want to get a couple cats, so I do enjoy seeing photos here and getting confirmation the cats and fish get along OK without too many incidents. I think I've seen too many FB reels of cats going for brief swims.

 

[Fishstery]

I keep debating if I want to get a couple cats, so I do enjoy seeing photos here and getting confirmation the cats and fish get along OK without too many incidents. I think I've seen too many FB reels of cats going for brief swims.

I have three cats and they have never bothered my tanks! Two of them don't really care about the fish at all, Leo is the only one. He really enjoys watching the fish swim. At least once a day I either pull up a chair for him or just hold him and we admire the tanks together.

I think the most important thing is just having the tanks on stands that are sized for the tank footprint. If the cats don't have room to jump up on the stand, they don't bother with it. The majority of those posts I see are people that keep tanks on a kitchen counter or a table. Kids are the ones you really have to worry about haha! I can only take good tank photos on water change day, otherwise my glass is smeared up with sticky toddler handprints. My son also likes to press his face up against the glass so I also find kissy prints often

I'm a cat person so I'm biased, but I say go for it! Cats are awesome.

 

[Fishstery]

2 week update:

Don't you love when you have nothing but issues in a tank that you spend weeks obsessively planning, monitoring, and throwing money into? Just to have a tank that you toss together with random crap laying around with minimal effort and it absolutely thrives? So typical.

The farm tank has already been far more enjoyable than I was expecting. My intention was to just have a tank I could keep my shrimp and cories in and grow some cool plants, it wasn't anything I was expecting to stand there and watch. I have no idea what the PAR is, but my twinstar doesn't have the dimmer adapter on it so it's just been running at 100% and my plants are getting far more color than the 50 gal. Algae is literally non existent. My cories are finally thriving and my shrimp are breeding like crazy despite no longer having softer water from aquasoil.

I added a few new species after doing some trimming on the 50 gal last night to help it fill out more. I have some plant orders coming this week and fingers crossed my import order ships on Tuesday, so there will be a complete layout change in here shortly. I'm so excited for this project, and to get my buce rack together. Since I'm going to have so many species, some of which look pretty similar, I think I may use my label maker to put labels on the side panel of the tank glass in an order that corresponds to where the buce is on the rack, that way when I go to sell later on I can be sure of a species ID.

For now, he's progess photos of the clippings currently in here:


Ah to be a baby shrimp, perched peacefully atop a young buce clump

 

[MrJG]

Love the little candy cane pieces you put in there! Looking great.

 

[Fishstery]

Love the little candy cane pieces you put in there! Looking great.

Thank you! I sold their tank to condense my projects but couldn't stand to let them go. I've had this colony for about 7 years now, they're very tolerant of water parameters and incredibly hardy. They're perfect little inhabitants for a farm tank so in they went. I think having shrimp and corydora only will be fun as I don't typically keep cories in my display tanks.