George's Nano Journal
- Thread starter George Farmer
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George Farmer
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Thanks for all the positivity everyone. I hope to reward us all with a decent aquascape at the end!
I went for the Interpet PC T5 as this seemed the only logical choice. No other fluorescent tube would fit under the hood - except the 9" 6w Arcadia tubes and I'd need three of them to stand a chance at growing glosso - not to mention the extra cost and cramped space.
I'm not concerned about the ballast overheating, it will be situated away from the aquarium in a well-ventilated spot. I realise the lamp itself may get hot but the 8 x 10mm drilled holes should help.
As far as I recall the main trouble with the Interpet units were with twin 36w and twin 55w lamps. I'm hoping a single 18w won't get too hot.
I'll post some 'interesting' techie info on the lighting and substrate situation soon.
Thanks again everyone. I might out some rock 'scaping tonight so I'll hopefully have some more photos for you. What a crazy Saturday night I have planned?!!
Thanks Sam. I expect you are secretly hoping I get plagued by algae!?Looking forward to seeing how this one doesJust out of interest why did you go for the interpet ballast? Not worried about the overheating issues?
Sam
I went for the Interpet PC T5 as this seemed the only logical choice. No other fluorescent tube would fit under the hood - except the 9" 6w Arcadia tubes and I'd need three of them to stand a chance at growing glosso - not to mention the extra cost and cramped space.
I'm not concerned about the ballast overheating, it will be situated away from the aquarium in a well-ventilated spot. I realise the lamp itself may get hot but the 8 x 10mm drilled holes should help.
As far as I recall the main trouble with the Interpet units were with twin 36w and twin 55w lamps. I'm hoping a single 18w won't get too hot.
I'll post some 'interesting' techie info on the lighting and substrate situation soon.
Thanks. The substrate is from my LFS; The Waterzoo in Peterborough. It's lime free so won't raise pH and hardness. The 1-2mm grain size should be ideal for glosso and the colour suits my intended layout. I was going to use some old black 1-3mm quartz I had left over from my previous set-up but saw this and had to have it. It was £4.99 for 5Kg, I used about 4Kg. As you can see it needed plenty of rinsing though. They do 25Kg bags too that are better value for larger tanks.
Thanks again everyone. I might out some rock 'scaping tonight so I'll hopefully have some more photos for you. What a crazy Saturday night I have planned?!!
Looks good m8.
My biggest gripe with the interpet lighting (other than heat) was the clips. I had a few close calls with the clips releasing the tubes.I used 2 bits of lockwire to support the tubes in the end.
Have fun with the glosso again m8 lol
My biggest gripe with the interpet lighting (other than heat) was the clips. I had a few close calls with the clips releasing the tubes.I used 2 bits of lockwire to support the tubes in the end.
Have fun with the glosso again m8 lol
Looks great mate,
Personally I can't see a way of getting that kind of lighting under a hood that size with anything other than what you have used...
I think with the holes you have drilled in the hood for ventalation and the low water temp. you intent to keep, that you will not have a problem with over heating or condensation.
Im sure this will inspire a few planted 'newbies' and perhaps some existing planted tank members to have a go at a similar nano that perhaps they have been pondering on for a while.
Anyway looking good so far keep the pics coming.
andy
Personally I can't see a way of getting that kind of lighting under a hood that size with anything other than what you have used...
I think with the holes you have drilled in the hood for ventalation and the low water temp. you intent to keep, that you will not have a problem with over heating or condensation.
Im sure this will inspire a few planted 'newbies' and perhaps some existing planted tank members to have a go at a similar nano that perhaps they have been pondering on for a while.
Anyway looking good so far keep the pics coming.
andy
three-fingers
Fish Connoisseur
Woah this is cool, thats the same tank as i have, and i was thinking of eventually doing something like that with it if i'm ever allowed another permenant tank. Im going to follow this thread closely, cant wait to see the result!
Oh and btw, where did you get the hood for it? The one mine came with is much smaller and i wouldednt be able to fit a light like that in it
.
Oh and btw, where did you get the hood for it? The one mine came with is much smaller and i wouldednt be able to fit a light like that in it
.Nice little tank George, interesting substrate.
The light should be fine, the problems as you say were with the 36 and 55watt versions, the only thing I would say in relation to the light, although I may be wrong is that I thought the interpet endcaps were not totally waterproof, I thought you had to use them with a condensation tray or glass covers, anyway im sure you know best, I may be totally wrong here, I have always used them in conjunction with glass covers.
One other thing if I may, would HC be better suited given the leaf size in relation to the tank size? anyway just a thought, looking V good so far, should't take 4 hours to plant the glosso anyway given the size of the tank, definatly a bonus!
The light should be fine, the problems as you say were with the 36 and 55watt versions, the only thing I would say in relation to the light, although I may be wrong is that I thought the interpet endcaps were not totally waterproof, I thought you had to use them with a condensation tray or glass covers, anyway im sure you know best, I may be totally wrong here, I have always used them in conjunction with glass covers.
One other thing if I may, would HC be better suited given the leaf size in relation to the tank size? anyway just a thought, looking V good so far, should't take 4 hours to plant the glosso anyway given the size of the tank, definatly a bonus!
jayjay
The BE-Team Fighting For Betta Extermination
I have 2 of these tanks and one is planted. Yours will be better though i'm sure
Good luck, hope it turns out well.
Good luck, hope it turns out well.
OP
OP
George Farmer
ad aqua
Thanks mate. I'll keep an eye on the clips. Nice idea on the lockwire, I can get plenty of that!
Thanks.
Thanks for the support mate. Not fancy going nano-planted yourself? Less £££ than reef!
Thanks. The hood came with the tank. It is quite flimsy, made of a fairly thin (1mm) plastic. I coated the underside of where the lighting is attached with "speed tape". It is used for quick repairs on aircraft and is a durable self-adhesive aluminium thick foil type material. My hope is that this combined with the polished aluminium reflector manage to prevent the heat from damaging the hood.Woah this is cool, thats the same tank as i have, and i was thinking of eventually doing something like that with it if i'm ever allowed another permenant tank. Im going to follow this thread closely, cant wait to see the result!
Oh and btw, where did you get the hood for it? The one mine came with is much smaller and i wouldednt be able to fit a light like that in it
Another shot of the hood
Cheers mate. I'm glad you mention the substrate, I'm quite excited to see how this performs as I've never tried anything like it. Nothing like trying out new techniques and learning from them, one way or the other.
You are right; the tubes fittings are not waterproof and are designed for use with glass covers et. I'm taking a risk here with not using any but I have had success with similar fittings on T8 end caps in my Juwel. Only one way to find out!
HC was my first choice but I went with glosso due to its fast growing properties that will hopefully fend off algae all the better. If I have success with glosso then I'll switch to HC and maybe incorporate some more complex aquascaping designs in the future. For the time being I'm keeping it ultra-simple. One good thing about glosso - if I can grow this well then I shouldn't have difficulty with anything else.
Thanks. I hope we can learn from one another. What filtration do you use?I have 2 of these tanks and one is planted. Yours will be better though i'm sure
Good luck, hope it turns out well.
OP
OP
George Farmer
ad aqua
As promised here's some lighting info for the techies amongst you. I've tried to keep it simple so hopefully all levels of experience can understand.
Lighting my nano - watts per gallon versus surface area lighting
The only real choice for lighting this 12 l. / 3 gal. was PC T5. To grow any demanding plants at least 5wpg is needed in a tank size like this. The smallest PC T5 available for the job is the 8.5" 18w Interpet Triplus lamp - thus giving me 6wpg and hopefully enough to grow glosso successfully. They don't produce this size tube in the Daylight Plus spectrum which is a shame as I prefer the colour rendition.
Rather than just use watts per gal. (wpg) I like to use another calculation - light per surface area. This is even more useful is you can find out the lumen rating of the lamp. The lumen is a more accurate measurement of light. Watt is a unit of power - not light.
The rating for the 18w PC T5 is 1000 lumens. Interestingly 1000 lumens is approx. the output of most 24" 18w T8 tubes.
So actual light per watt is almost the same for PC T5 and T8. The same applies for HO T5. Where T5 is superior is the concentration of light is greater due to the smaller diameter of the lamp i.e. 5/8" for T5 and 1" for T8. There is also more light per length of tube i.e. 18w per 8.5" for PC T5 versus 18w per 24" for T8. This means the lighting intensity is greater so provides for greater light penetration with T5 (PC and HO).
Let's calculate light at the surface of this 3 gal. tank -
Surface area
30cm x 20cm = 600cm2
Light at surface
1000 lumens
So 1000 / 600 = 1.67 lumens per square cm (lpscm)
Let's compare this to my Juwel Rio 125 lit with 4 x Sylvania Activa 172 18w T8 tubes
Surface area
81cm x 35cm = 2835cm2
Light at surface
4 tubes x 1000 lumens = 4000 lumens
So 4000 / 2835 = 1.41 lumens per square cm (lpscm)
So the 12 l./3 gal. has more light at the surface. It is also considerably shallower that the Juwel (20cm versus 50cm) so its safe to assume that I should have sufficient light to grow glosso.
Of course this method is still very basic but perhaps a little more "accurate" than wpg. A good example is comparing the wpg to lpscm method for both tanks.
3 gal. = 6wpg or 1.67 lpscm
Juwel (33 gal) = 2.2wpg or 1.41 lpscm.
You can see that the wpg and lpscm results are proportionally very different. There's no way that they'll be nearly 4x light in my 3 gal. over the 33 gal. as suggested by the wpg calculations. So this further proves the point that the wpg rule cannot really be applied to small tanks.
If you do not know the lumen rating for your tubes then you can use watts, this is what many reef owners do to calculate their light intensity. This is typically measured in watts per square meter.
I hope this is of some interest to you all.
Lighting my nano - watts per gallon versus surface area lighting
The only real choice for lighting this 12 l. / 3 gal. was PC T5. To grow any demanding plants at least 5wpg is needed in a tank size like this. The smallest PC T5 available for the job is the 8.5" 18w Interpet Triplus lamp - thus giving me 6wpg and hopefully enough to grow glosso successfully. They don't produce this size tube in the Daylight Plus spectrum which is a shame as I prefer the colour rendition.
Rather than just use watts per gal. (wpg) I like to use another calculation - light per surface area. This is even more useful is you can find out the lumen rating of the lamp. The lumen is a more accurate measurement of light. Watt is a unit of power - not light.
The rating for the 18w PC T5 is 1000 lumens. Interestingly 1000 lumens is approx. the output of most 24" 18w T8 tubes.
So actual light per watt is almost the same for PC T5 and T8. The same applies for HO T5. Where T5 is superior is the concentration of light is greater due to the smaller diameter of the lamp i.e. 5/8" for T5 and 1" for T8. There is also more light per length of tube i.e. 18w per 8.5" for PC T5 versus 18w per 24" for T8. This means the lighting intensity is greater so provides for greater light penetration with T5 (PC and HO).
Let's calculate light at the surface of this 3 gal. tank -
Surface area
30cm x 20cm = 600cm2
Light at surface
1000 lumens
So 1000 / 600 = 1.67 lumens per square cm (lpscm)
Let's compare this to my Juwel Rio 125 lit with 4 x Sylvania Activa 172 18w T8 tubes
Surface area
81cm x 35cm = 2835cm2
Light at surface
4 tubes x 1000 lumens = 4000 lumens
So 4000 / 2835 = 1.41 lumens per square cm (lpscm)
So the 12 l./3 gal. has more light at the surface. It is also considerably shallower that the Juwel (20cm versus 50cm) so its safe to assume that I should have sufficient light to grow glosso.
Of course this method is still very basic but perhaps a little more "accurate" than wpg. A good example is comparing the wpg to lpscm method for both tanks.
3 gal. = 6wpg or 1.67 lpscm
Juwel (33 gal) = 2.2wpg or 1.41 lpscm.
You can see that the wpg and lpscm results are proportionally very different. There's no way that they'll be nearly 4x light in my 3 gal. over the 33 gal. as suggested by the wpg calculations. So this further proves the point that the wpg rule cannot really be applied to small tanks.
If you do not know the lumen rating for your tubes then you can use watts, this is what many reef owners do to calculate their light intensity. This is typically measured in watts per square meter.
I hope this is of some interest to you all.
OP
OP
George Farmer
ad aqua
Now for details on the substrate.
The base I have used is a thin (5-10mm) layer of John Innes Loam-Based Compost No.2. I had this spare in my shed and after reading the info on the back decided to give it a try. Diana Walstad and her low-tech followers have success with common garden soil so I figured why not?
Loam is its main ingredient and this provides a natural "reservoir" of trace elements, it also contains some organic matter that will supply nitrogen.
It also contains sphagnum moss peat (an ingredient in the new Tropica substrate). This enables the substrate to make maximum use of any nutrients in the water column.
The compost also contains additional NPK and trace elements.
My main concern is the levels of nitrates and phosphates that may leech into the water column. We know that "excess" nutrients do not cause algae but in the initial stages of a planted aquarium's life the plant growth may not be sufficient to utilise the high nutrient levels, leaving algae to utilise them instead.
However, I will plant as densely as possible with the glosso from the start and crank up the CO2 to very high levels, probably >100ppm as I will not be stocking any animals for the time being. Hopefully this will reduce any risk of potential algae.
The base I have used is a thin (5-10mm) layer of John Innes Loam-Based Compost No.2. I had this spare in my shed and after reading the info on the back decided to give it a try. Diana Walstad and her low-tech followers have success with common garden soil so I figured why not?
Loam is its main ingredient and this provides a natural "reservoir" of trace elements, it also contains some organic matter that will supply nitrogen.
It also contains sphagnum moss peat (an ingredient in the new Tropica substrate). This enables the substrate to make maximum use of any nutrients in the water column.
The compost also contains additional NPK and trace elements.
My main concern is the levels of nitrates and phosphates that may leech into the water column. We know that "excess" nutrients do not cause algae but in the initial stages of a planted aquarium's life the plant growth may not be sufficient to utilise the high nutrient levels, leaving algae to utilise them instead.
However, I will plant as densely as possible with the glosso from the start and crank up the CO2 to very high levels, probably >100ppm as I will not be stocking any animals for the time being. Hopefully this will reduce any risk of potential algae.
OP
OP
George Farmer
ad aqua
Iwagumi Basics
"Sanzon-Iwagumi" is a Japanese gardening technique based almost entirely on the arrangement of stones. This technique can be applied to good effect in the aquarium to create a pleasing Nature Aquarium style aquascape. It's worth mentioning that "Nature Aquarium" is a concept in its own right as opposed to the attempt at recreating a specific underwater biotope or scene. This is why so many Nature Aquariums appear to represent something more akin to a landscape. I expect this aquascape to look more like a landscape than an underwater scene. This is odd for some, appealing for others. Such is life.
The most basic Iwagumi technique is to use three stone or rocks. This is what I will be doing due to the small size of the aquarium.
Appropriate stone selection is vital. Here's two good links - http
/forum.aquatic-gardeners.org/viewtopic.php?t=56
http/forum.aquatic-gardeners.org/viewtopic.php?t=57
The stones are placed in a triangular formation when viewed from above. The largest stone should be in the foreground, the second off to the back-right and the smallest stone to the rear-left. Using one's sense of aesthetic balance comes in here but as a guide the ratio of left to right should be approx. 2:3.
Draw an imaginary line between the centre of the stones and they should for a triangle (not equilateral).
Here ends today's lesson!
"Sanzon-Iwagumi" is a Japanese gardening technique based almost entirely on the arrangement of stones. This technique can be applied to good effect in the aquarium to create a pleasing Nature Aquarium style aquascape. It's worth mentioning that "Nature Aquarium" is a concept in its own right as opposed to the attempt at recreating a specific underwater biotope or scene. This is why so many Nature Aquariums appear to represent something more akin to a landscape. I expect this aquascape to look more like a landscape than an underwater scene. This is odd for some, appealing for others. Such is life.
The most basic Iwagumi technique is to use three stone or rocks. This is what I will be doing due to the small size of the aquarium.
Appropriate stone selection is vital. Here's two good links - http
/forum.aquatic-gardeners.org/viewtopic.php?t=56http
/forum.aquatic-gardeners.org/viewtopic.php?t=57The stones are placed in a triangular formation when viewed from above. The largest stone should be in the foreground, the second off to the back-right and the smallest stone to the rear-left. Using one's sense of aesthetic balance comes in here but as a guide the ratio of left to right should be approx. 2:3.
Draw an imaginary line between the centre of the stones and they should for a triangle (not equilateral).
Here ends today's lesson!
OP
OP
George Farmer
ad aqua
Selection of stones collected from East Falkland Island
I'm sure these are lime free as I've tested with sulphuric acid. It's been suggested that they are granite. The main thing is that they're aquarium safe and look nice.
I soon picked out three stones that I thought worked well together. The hardest part was positioning. After about half and hour of experimenting I came up with this. I think it looks ok, the best I could come with anyway. I tried to imagine what it would look like covered in a green field of glosso.
Any comments welcome. I'm the first to admit that I'm a talentless enthusiast when it comes to aquascape design so I expect to be moving the stones about a lot more yet!
I'm sure these are lime free as I've tested with sulphuric acid. It's been suggested that they are granite. The main thing is that they're aquarium safe and look nice.
I soon picked out three stones that I thought worked well together. The hardest part was positioning. After about half and hour of experimenting I came up with this. I think it looks ok, the best I could come with anyway. I tried to imagine what it would look like covered in a green field of glosso.
Any comments welcome. I'm the first to admit that I'm a talentless enthusiast when it comes to aquascape design so I expect to be moving the stones about a lot more yet!
three-fingers
Fish Connoisseur
Graeme Edwards
Fishaholic
Hi George, nice and clear info for all to read 
Me and you appear to have the same enthusiasm for Japanese culture,philosophy and design!
Here is a good book that goes into rock aranging and the art of Zen design its called The New Zen Garden and is very imformative and insparational. An other is The Modern Japanese Garden wich i think you will also like a great deal.
To your "Sanzo-Iwagumi". From what i understand the philosophy is that one great buddah ( the biggest stone ) has two lesser buddahs ( smaller rocks ) leaning into the great buddah whilst praying. This IMO can be positioned to which ever way the rocks work best to represent this philosophy.
San - 3
Zon - tower/pillar
Iwa - Rock
Gumi - Group/Formation
Im not sure about your rock arangment. I think ( constructive ) the rocks arnt quite right. They appear to be to similar in size.
Im sounding really picky im sure
If it were me, I would move the biggest rock to the back ( right behind where it is at the moment ) and move the stone at the rear/right to the front ( in front of where it is at the mo .) and change the two other stones for slightly small ( if possible ). I think this will help you see the triadic shape from the front as well as above and increase the illusion of depth.
My pennys worth.
R,
Graeme.
Me and you appear to have the same enthusiasm for Japanese culture,philosophy and design!
Here is a good book that goes into rock aranging and the art of Zen design its called The New Zen Garden and is very imformative and insparational. An other is The Modern Japanese Garden wich i think you will also like a great deal.
To your "Sanzo-Iwagumi". From what i understand the philosophy is that one great buddah ( the biggest stone ) has two lesser buddahs ( smaller rocks ) leaning into the great buddah whilst praying. This IMO can be positioned to which ever way the rocks work best to represent this philosophy.
San - 3
Zon - tower/pillar
Iwa - Rock
Gumi - Group/Formation
Im not sure about your rock arangment. I think ( constructive
) the rocks arnt quite right. They appear to be to similar in size.Im sounding really picky im sure
If it were me, I would move the biggest rock to the back ( right behind where it is at the moment ) and move the stone at the rear/right to the front ( in front of where it is at the mo .) and change the two other stones for slightly small ( if possible ). I think this will help you see the triadic shape from the front as well as above and increase the illusion of depth.
My pennys worth.
R,
Graeme.
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