20G Ecosystem dirted offshoot from 40G thread

So in my other thread Here, I had planned on doing a 40G breeder with 20G fuge/sump, but due to a likely house move in the next year, I felt like that would be a difficult setup to properly move. After much deliberation, I decided on a 20G standard/tall. I decided to have this be the thread so the title was no longer misleading.

This all started with my 8yo daughter asking for "a fish". My background is both FW and SW reef, so I have learned to appreciate the ecosystem approach, have a background in both biology and engineering (Horticulture science and Mech/Elec), and I am not afraid to take a few chances. This 20 is a perfect opportunity for that while giving her a smaller scale tank to learn from. That said, I have been tank free for about 12 years.

The plan is/was dirted sand with light filtration, heavy planting and small fish/shrimp bioload. I know there are some adamant anti-dirters on here, but I have differing experience (and dirt).

First I had to make a stand (it's in the other thread, but here are a couple of pics. Just a brute force design with a nice skin.

Frame


skin on

There is a bit of experimenting going on in this one and I may regret it, but there is precedence. My "dirt" I got from literally scooping top(ish) layer of mud from the creek in my back yard. I had intended on just adding a little bit to get things started, but the pudding looked so good I used it as the "dirt" layer under the sand. I went with about an inch of goop and 1.5" about of multi-purpose sand from HD. I should have rinsed the sand, but it was very cold outside and it "seemed" clean -- more on that later. I will also use water from the creek for WC. My feeling is it is better than tap, but there is always a small risk of introducing things, but also many benefits of bio-active nature-filtered water.


plants arrived

Here's my plant list -- I ordered it from buceplant (I couldn't tell you what landed me there):
Fissidens Fontanus
Cryptocoryne Parva
Ludwigia Natans Super Red
Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green
Rotala Indica
Eleocharis Pusillis
Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo'
Bucephalandra Belindae
Alternanthera Reineckii 'Mini'

Running and Aquarium Co-Op light with smart plug. Currently keeping it at 50% 8 hours. and will monitor. Also running a HOB Seachem for the main supplementary filter -- this was just to get something in the loop and may or may not be used all the time.

You can see below after aquascaping that it is a bit cloudy, but not terrible. It has already cleared up quite a bit more since the pics, but I will do a bit of water changing to polish it a bit more and post pics after a few days of settling in. I think most of the plants were in great shape. Some are small (esp the Wendtii), but that is the nature of tissue culture. They are in the right spots, so will fill in in time the right way.




Now it's a lot of hurry up and wait. In the past, I rarely tested water parameters, but will be doing a bit more with this one early on just to see what happens with that very active "dirt" substrate.

I'm looking forward to the updates on this one.

Today pic. Definitely cleared up a bunch. A little bit of yellow tannin visible, but everything looks to be settling in. I will just be watching for any algae signs or anything else that might call for lighting adjustment or WC. Keeping the light at 50% for now.

Seeing lots of little life around the edges. Initially there were several planarians cruising the glass and a few other odd transparent things. I haven't seen the planarians since day 2 though. Maybe they found better places to hide. Now there are lots of little daphnia and other tiny pod things at the sand edge. So far it seems good.

Out catching freshwater isopods this morning. Here is a link. Aldo, some nice person at the EPA did a cataloging of them for the USA here. The long term plan is to have 2-3 Amano shrimp and a colony of red cherry shrimp for cleanup, but for now I need something to start grazing biofilm etc. in there until this thing is settled in. I'm not going to try and take a pic, but after about 30 minutes I had 7. We caught 5 yesterday. They apparently breed pretty freely. I may make one more attempt, but this is a decent start. They are only about 3/8 -1/2" occasionally getting a bit larger. I think it is almost certainly some Asselus spp.

On that note, I am not trying to make a biotype, but I do try and fill all of the ecosystem niche needs with something. I was pleased today to see some kind of aquatic earthworm in the substrate tunneling along the glass. My experience is the more things you have doing the full spectrum of activity, the less problems you will have. Worms both break down organic matter, but also continually open up the substrate structure and prevent compaction.

This is similar in approach to keeping an immaculate perfectly sterile home landscape as compared to working with what you have to keep something that looks great from the street, but might not be perfect on close inspection. One takes more maintenance, herbicide, pesticide, fertilizer, results in soil compaction, disease susceptibility and outside treatment more frequently. The other is more of a managed ecosystem that encourages effective natural response to stress. I once had a turfgrass professor, Tom Cook at Oregon State -- developer of ecoturf approach, explain that it just needs to look good from the street. I have always taken that to heart. That said, different requirements, resources and risk factors don't always make one way or another "better".

Anyway, only update is a black background. I went back and forth on white or black or frosted. This was just some blackout static film from amazon. Went on easy, inexpensive and simple to undo.

Looks like I may have inadvertently caught the biggest one having a moment with one of the ladies. I was borrowing my wife's phone because it's way newer and actually takes good photos. At the last second you can see her come rushing out.


Also, I went to clean the glass and discovered it has several hydra attached to it. I got a decent vid of one through a magnifier snatching something. I guess it is a good sign that the tank is healthy. Lots of critters on the glass.

One week in update. Getting a little bit of melt and recovery on the emersed-grown plants (as expected), but most of the stuff is just starting to show positive growth. The isopods have made themselves at home and are very active, sometimes climbing all the way to the top of the wood like a "king of the world" moment. I am going to pick up some red cherry shrimp soon just to get something doing a bit more cleanup though. There's a ton of biofilm and bits that would probably be better cleaned off of the plants at this point. I am waiting a while for fish, but it really could use some cleaners, so I am ok with the shrimp.

You can see quite a bit of growth on the Alternanthera 'mini'. It's prpbably the most obvious at this point. Also, some of the native moss from the creek rock is taking off just to the right of the Alternanthera clump.


When I get a decent phone camera, I will try and take a few more pics of the micro critters. Some of those will probably disappear after shrimp and fish start arriving.

Looks good! I always like having lots of micro critters in my tanks. Biodiversity=stability, in my experience, within reason of course. Also, I think the extra snacks give fish a good start once you add them.

So I know I said I would do some testing even though I generally haven't tested in the past, but given the more experimental nature of things, I figure I'll at least check.
I used one of the API 5 in 1 tests:
According to my eyeball interpolations, it looks like:

Nitrates: nonzero, but negligible
Nitrites: zero
PH: ~7
KH: 100-120
GH: ~120



I have no algae on the glass, so I wasn't too worried, but pleased with the results. I knew the water was a little harder due to the limestone in the area. Mostly I just have biofilm and some organic bits that have settled on a few of the plants. I may bump the light up from 50% to 60% since I am not seeing any sign of algae. The creek muck mud, seems to have helped stabilize the overall process.

I have cherry red shrimp coming Saturday, so that will get some more of the process going and I feel better that params are good. I really want something in there doing physical cleaning. The whole thing is filled with microfauna, but nothing bigger than the isopods (~1/2") and some worms that I am aware of. I joke that there is some large creature in the muck that is just waiting to spring out. Once the plants hit that paydirt, I expect them to be very happy. It was basically dark brown pudding consistency.

So I discovered a good way to capture the microfauna on camera. I rubber banded a 10x loupe to the lens and had some fun. In the last post, I joked about there being a monster in the depths. Well it looks like I may have found it. I was looking at an ordinary aquatic earthworm and noticed a nearby channel/tunnel against the glass with SOMETHING ELSE!

It's only about 2.5 inches long total, but you can only see the top third, and appears to be a freshwater Annelid (Polychaete ) worm, possibly Nereis spp. They have gobs of legs and are related to the marine worms. It's hard to see the legs clearly on video, but they are kind of transparent orange and the whole thing just undulated in the hole. After a while, there was a nice pile of the finest sediment all around the hole at the surface.

I managed to get some cherry shrimp from aquaswap. They are doing exactly what they should. The place is much more cleaned up as far as the plant leaves etc. The interesting thing is they seem to be making the isopods more comfortable about coming out in the open. They have usually hung out in a wood "cave" in the bog wood. I have seen them encounter each other a few times and touch antennae. The current mood seems to be more than peaceful. For perspective, the shrimp in the pic is very juvenile -- maybe 1/2".

"Hey cuz!"


On the topic of plants though, the moss in the bottom right is native and came on the rock. If I would have known, I might have avoided adding moss altogether. It was the one addition I wasn't 100% sure about in my plant list. In some ways, I envision the wood being bare with the C. wendtii just growing up and having the clear wood rising above. We shall see...moss makes for good safe habitat for micro stuff though.

Almost 2 weeks. Just figured I'd post the Monte Carlo. It was tissue culture, so melting was expected. It seems like the melt is done and new growth is visible. I am interested to see how well and quickly it recovers. Patience is a must in this world. I will try and post some 2 week pics of anything noteworthy.



Also, I have purchased a second light. The one I have from Aquarium Co-op is great and plenty bright, but in sliding it front and back, I feel like I would rather get overlapped full coverage and run both at 50% while hitting the edges. It's pretty much just basic linear geometry that you can't get full direct coverage with a single 3" wide fixture at several different depths. I will post pics when that arrives. Also grabbed a bit of Pogostemon helferi 'Downoi' Red from an Etsy seller. The texture is really something that was missing in this aquascape.

Pics from 2 week update. These are from a few days ago. A few things to note are some added floaters, the "a fish" my daughter originally asked for that started all of this and some plants trimmed and moved. The Eliocharis is really filling in. I'm going to have to watch it so it doesn't get out of control.

E. pusilla taking off with a vengeance. Mr. Rainbow in the pic. Currently the only fish. Shrimp and isopods seem to really be thriving and he seems to leave them alone. Probably not the wee ones though. They have lots of places to hide and I have seen even small ones stand their ground. He just moves on.

I split up the TC Crypt parva a bit more. It was really well-rooted in the substrate so that's a good sign. I put some in the very back of the aquarium too. Monte Carlo doing ok after melt. I am interested to see how it fares long-term. New growth is green and compact though, so that's a good sign. Low tech, but good light in here so it will hopefully just be slow and steady fill.

Rotala indica growing well. I have trimmed and replanted several tops. It has grown about 2-3 inches in the two weeks. The C. wendtii taking off too. It will be a while before it reaches it's intended stature though. Everything was pretty intentionally planned for mature sizes. Also, Mr. Rainbow.

Ludwigia natans 'super red' doing ok. I had a lot of melt from emersed-grown. The tops recovered and grew nicely. I have snipped and replanted those as they get enough growth.

Floaters in some 3/8" tube rings. I had very good luck boiling for about a minute and flattening the ring so it was extremely level. Then tied it off to a suction cup hook with some bamboo floss.

Phoenix moss looking healthy. Not much to say here. It is growing.


I have a few more small plant changes coming. I am adding Cryptocoryne crispatula tonkinensis as a small controlled area of height right in the middle of everything. Just a little island of light texture for things to swim around while still keeping the low areas low. I also have another buce going on the wood.

Oh yeah. Second light should arrive this week. Just another ACO. I don;t need more, just really like wall to wall coverage. I will probably run the 2nd one at 50% and use it for the front half with maybe an hour cut off of each end and use the back for 8 hrs at 60%. I forgot in the last post to mention I added a rosette of Pogostemon helferi 'Downoi Red'. Once there is any division, I will put a couple of more rosettes in key places tucked into nooks. It is such a neat texture with rocks or wood as a backdrop.

Super nice tank
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