Lake Inle Nano

Starting tomorrow when I collect my Fluval Flex (57l or 15G US)
Ths won't be a "strict" biotype because at the moment I am planning to stock with celestichthys margaritatus (CPD) which are from nearby. I observed these in my LFS and they seem a lot less shy than c. erythromicron which do come from Lake Inle. My water is hard and slighly basic so these two species came out on top of my list of micro species that would work in my tap water. I also plan to add RCS (before the fish). Again its only from the same continent but I think will add nicely to the appearance and hopefully contribute as a source of live food in the future. I am also contemplating a riparian garden to replace the filter - but if I do that will be some time in the future.

I'm currently rinsing out 10 kgs of black limpopo sand and will include some pebbles and bits of wood from my collection. MTS will be collected from my community tank and go in with the water on day 1.

Initial planting will be Ceratopteris Thalicroides (water sprite), egeria densa (elodea) and blyxa japonica (dwarf soft rush). The first 2 are obviously easy and fast growing (and a good choice for new tanks) but are both prolific in Lake Inle. Initially they will be a mix of planted and floating. I have read mixed reports about blyxa without CO2 or intense lighting so fingers crossed on that.

I am thinking sponge only in the filter and will probably add a mini dose of ammonia next week and rinse my canister sponges in the tank. I'm off on two weeks hols at the end of next week. Hopefully that will allow time for the plants to take and the BB to establish. Will assess when I get back how close I am to adding the RCS.

I'm sure there will be plenty of pics to follow

seangee said:

I am thinking sponge only in the filter

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that is all i ever use.....in any filter

If you have live plants, do not add ammonia. A comprehensive plant supplement will be better, something like Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium or Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti. These have ammonium.

Was only planning 1ppm to keep the filter alive, or feeding the MTS an algae wafer every couple of days
Fertiliser is a good idea though. Might actually put my Anubias in there for a "rest" while I'm away. For some reason the Sids have suddenly taken a liking (or is it dislike) to it over the last few weeks and it could do with the peace and quiet.

As a matter of interest do the bacteria die off if not fed or just go into a suspended state? I ask because the pond never has an issue in spring when it starts warming up. I do leave the pump running over winter just to keep the filters oxygenated.

seangee said:

Was only planning 1ppm to keep the filter alive, or feeding the MTS an algae wafer every couple of days
Fertiliser is a good idea though. Might actually put my Anubias in there for a "rest" while I'm away. For some reason the Sids have suddenly taken a liking (or is it dislike) to it over the last few weeks and it could do with the peace and quiet.

As a matter of interest do the bacteria die off if not fed or just go into a suspended state? I ask because the pond never has an issue in spring when it starts warming up. I do leave the pump running over winter just to keep the filters oxygenated.

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Our understanding of nitrifying bacteria has changed especially over the last decade or so. Old ideas are now more myth than fact.

Nitrosomonas sp. and Nitrospira sp. bacteria (the ones responsible for the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate respectively) will appear and reproduce by binary division to the level for which food (ammonia and nitrite) is available. If the food diminishes, they have the ability to go into a sort of suspended state. Other factors are involved, such as temperature, pH, etc, but we don't need to get that detailed. If the food increases, they come back to life, so to speak. You may find this article of interest:
https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co...you-know-filter-bacteria-dream-on?rq=bacteria

Another aspect of this is that live plants generally take up ammonia/ammonium faster than the bacteria. I'm using "bacteria" here, but there is evidence that archaea may be as involved or more involved once the initial "cycle" is established. [You can read basic info on what archaea are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea ]. But that doesn't matter, the point is that your plants will do this quite efficiently and effectively, provided you do not overload the system. Which is why I do not advise adding ammonia (as pure ammonia) with live plants; you run the risk of killing them.

Certainly makes sense. Last week the air temp here was hovering around 2C. For the last 2 days its got up to around 18 and the water temp has raised 6 degrees in that time. Temperature is obviously a bigger factor than nitrogen availability but those big messy Koi have suddenly become a lot more active. Despite all that I have no reason to fear that the system is about to crash. I personally keep the pump running all year but I know many simply turn theirs off. And yet we never seem to have a series of "help my pond has gone into a cycle" posts when spring comes around.

seangee said:

Certainly makes sense. Last week the air temp here was hovering around 2C. For the last 2 days its got up to around 18 and the water temp has raised 6 degrees in that time. Temperature is obviously a bigger factor than nitrogen availability but those big messy Koi have suddenly become a lot more active. Despite all that I have no reason to fear that the system is about to crash. I personally keep the pump running all year but I know many simply turn theirs off. And yet we never seem to have a series of "help my pond has gone into a cycle" posts when spring comes around.

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I have a pond, only 120 gallons. For a few years I had goldfish, six of them around five or six inches in length. No filter, just a small fountain. They overwintered under frozen ice cap, and spawned, and fry overwintered under ice. Sadly the fish are gone, raccoon found them and wouldn't relent for several years and finally got them.

Up and running. I like this little tank, the design is quite nifty and it looks cool. I ended up getting the tank specific sponge because lfs is still a few weeks off getting its pond stocks in so it was the cheapest piece of sponge I could get. The one I found is only 3 months old and looks brand new. Previous owner used it as a QT (hence no media) and its the "upgraded" version with the covers for the filter slits.

Powerhead is too noisy for my liking so I may replace that with one that has adjustable flow control. No air trapped but I have yet to strip it to make sure everything is properly aligned. Personally I would have preferred a simple timer to the remote control with all the funky LED effects .

Not worth any pics yet because all it has at the moment is sand, water and a few MTS. Plants haven't arrived yet so I'll wait for it to get up to temp before I stick my hands in.

seangee said:

Powerhead is too noisy for my liking so I may replace that with one that has adjustable flow control. No air trapped but I have yet to strip it to make sure everything is properly aligned. Personally I would have preferred a simple timer to the remote control with all the funky LED effects .

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Given the tank size and fish species intended, a single sponge filter would be the best filtration. I have this in my 10g, and a dual sponge in my 20, 29, 33 and 40 gallon tanks. For quiet water fish, there is nothing better.

Air pumps can be remarkably silent. I have two Fusion pumps, and I cannot hear them; I see the bubbles up the sponge filter tube so I know they are running, but absolutely silent. And quite inexpensive.

Byron said:

Given the tank size and fish species intended, a single sponge filter would be the best filtration. I have this in my 10g, and a dual sponge in my 20, 29, 33 and 40 gallon tanks. For quiet water fish, there is nothing better.

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I will defer that decision for the present. If I follow through with the riparian garden idea I will need to lift the water out of the tank.

First pic. Still some way to go as I want the pebble course to flow through the space rather than just sit there in a pool. My initial visualisation had the bank on the left with everything flowing downhill to the front right, but the filter inlet location forced a change of plan.

seangee said:

If I follow through with the riparian garden idea I will need to lift the water out of the tank.

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Ok scrap that comment. Now I've had a look at how sponge filters work. Tricky bit is that they only seem to sell them on eBay or Amazon and there are no specs - specifically dimensions. Would like to keep everything in the back and the viewing area clean. I already have a sponge filter, only difference is the water is pulled through it by a powerhead rather than pushed by air. So I could buy a sponge filter and an air pump for about £20 (everything available in the UK has mixed reviews on noise - getting a fusion here would cost more than I paid for the whole setup), or I could spend a tenner on an Eheim 300 powerhead, turn it to minimum and not have to worry about changing any plumbing.

In other news the pebbles do now flow, but I need to find a small rock or cut some wood to get them to flow all the way from the back of the tank. Also verified the thermostat on one of my spare heaters works. Plants still not here and I don't want to raid the community tank because I've already upset its balance this week by re-locating most of the frogbit into the garden pond . So for the time being its lights out until Monday and I've left an algae wafer so the MTS don't starve in the sterile environment of a brand new tank

seangee said:

Now I've had a look at how sponge filters work. Tricky bit is that they only seem to sell them on eBay or Amazon and there are no specs - specifically dimensions. Would like to keep everything in the back and the viewing area clean. I already have a sponge filter, only difference is the water is pulled through it by a powerhead rather than pushed by air. So I could buy a sponge filter and an air pump for about £20 (everything available in the UK has mixed reviews on noise - getting a fusion here would cost more than I paid for the whole setup), or I could spend a tenner on an Eheim 300 powerhead, turn it to minimum and not have to worry about changing any plumbing.

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I use a single sponge in my 10g and a dual sponge in the larger tanks up to the 40g. Below is a photo of the two types, the dual on the left and single on the right; these happen to be Hagen Elite, but two years ago when I was setting up a new tank I couldn't find these, so I bought a couple of different brands on Amazon that are the same design. They were considerably less expensive too. But they work fine, incredibly so I find. You can adjust the position of the sponge so it can be horizontal or vertical, and the single can be rotated so it will be along the back wall or the side wall or out into the tank. In my 10g the single sponge is horizontal and hidden by a chunk of bogwood; the photo of this tank below shows the air lift tube in the left rear corner, and the sponge is behind that chunk of wood. You can see the tube rising up in thee corner, but nothing else. The air lift outflow at the top can be rotated to direct it along the back wall or out into the tank, etc. These need a small air pump. In your 10g you only need the single sponge; you will be amazed at how much organics it can collect. I just rinse mine under the tap at each water change.

Bah. Phoned plant store this morning to find out where they were. Through to voicemail on both lines. Web site says order is still in process so I have cancelled by email - won't be using this supplier again.

No chance of getting to a physical store before I leave so have started a fishless cycle and left the lights off. See you all in about 3 weeks.

Well I'm back. Cycle appears to be complete. I rinsed the sponges from my community tank cannister in the tank before I left - this also added a healthy amount of organic matter. Ammonia has dropped from 4ppm to 0, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is well over 100. I just used straight tap water initially so nitrates stared at 50.

Off to LFS this weekend to see if they have any plants I can use, will raid the community tank for water sprite and get my original order delivered. Hope to have some CPD in during the next week (need to do the scape first). Assumed the ammonia would kill off the MTS that were in there but just spotted two of them being quite active. No visible algae because its been in a dark room with the lights off.