Jimbooo's Jungle Journal 3 (50g Cube 2x2x2)

[jimbooo]

okay time for the latest tank's journal a 50 gallon 2x2x2 cube.

I wasn't actually looking for another tank as I had my hands full with the existing two however when a friend calls you looking to get rid of this lot

tank and cabinet stand
fluval 304 external filter
twin ballast
2 silver dollars
1 common bristlenose
2 clown loaches
1 black phantom tetra (or black widow, cant remember)

how could I refuse

so this is the tank as it was when I got it in August 2005 (and had been that way for 3 years)

I did like the silver dollars but they were very skittish in the bare tank (not surprisingly) so at first I was going to add a few plants for cover and leave this as a low tek non planted tank.

as some of you know that didn't last long about 4 days later I got fed up with it and went shopping B)

bought a massive lump of bogwood for about £50 and a ton of black gravel, laterite, bits and bobs for a diy co2 kit (going into the fluval 304) and another twin ballast

the wood soaked for 2 weeks before I put it in the tank and added the plants

with the extra tubes I now have 2 x 18W arcadia freshwater tubes, 1 x 20W hagen sunglow and 1 x 20W hagen floraglow

total wattage 76W so 60 USG = 1.26WPG

I must admit I changed the tank way too quickly removed the entire substrate and replaced, added loads of stuff in one go and stressed the hell out of the fish.

The end result was a massive whitespot outbreak and it killed every single fish in the tank!! I still feel really bad and stupid about that.

Anyway this is how it looked after the initial planting

I have restocked the fish since (slowly!!) I now have:

1 common bristlenose
2 Juv Albino Bristlenose
2 male and 2 female guppies (plus about 70 fry at various stages)

this is now a guppy and bristlenose breeding tank (more BN's to come soon!)

no pics of the guppies I’m afraid I’ll have to wait till they grow up a bit and stop moving so fast!!

here's a pic of the tank as of last night, 3 1/2 months down the line. I am using a very fine wooden airstone at the moment from early evening till morning to keep PH levels up a bit (removes co2 from the water) as the fry are tiny and I don’t want the low PH to cause any problems.

that’s it, all up to date. I’ll do my best to keep these journals updated so you can follow their progress at each stage.

thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

 

[Rodders]

You love your riccia. Its great, I must get some in my tank!!!!!!!

 

[littleimp]

That's very good, make a nice saltwater nano that??

 

[IovaykInD]

Yea, Jimbooo is the one person on this forum that knows how to exploit riccia. He's like my idol cause I want my tank to look like any of his.

Isaac

 

[DaveW]

Gorgeous Tank, and love that piece of bog wood.

 

[jimbooo]

thanks people but i'm confused, theres no riccia in this tank.

are you looking at the Java Moss carpet in the bottom right forground?

if so it'll grow out into a grassy carpet (i hope). i'll post pics in a few weeks when it's taken off.


Isaac: me, an idol. )

 

[akudewan]

Wow, thats the first time I've seen your cube-tank jimboo, its really neat!!

 

[keane]

thanks people but i'm confused, theres no riccia in this tank.

are you looking at the Java Moss carpet in the bottom right forground?

maybe rodders was looking at your sig pic and not your cube tank??

steve

EDIT: BTW...your tanks look okay i suppose!!

 

[emo]

I'm not too into BN's but that albino is pretty damned cute

You have a very unique style jimboo, it's a pleasure to see your tanks develop like this

 

[RYO]

Like it m8, cant wait for it to grow out fully. How do ya find working on a tank that deep?

 

[jimbooo]

I'm not too into BN's but that albino is pretty damned cute

You have a very unique style jimboo, it's a pleasure to see your tanks develop like this

yeah i fell in love with them in the store and had to get them, i want more but waiting for the 70 or so guppy fry to grow out a bit before i add and more adult fish. i'm glad your enjoying the development of the tank i know i am. i'm doing 10 % water changes every other day at the moment to get the guppies up to size and couldn't resist a little fiddle with the plants last night ) i haven't got pics yet but i've pulled out 4 swords and the nasty big java fern on the right replacing it with anubias nana cuttings from my rekord 60. i've now got swords on 1/2 of the back wall (left side) with vallis the other half and coming round the corner to the right side pane. oh and i've moved the windelov up a bit onto the horizontal branch of the bogwood.

looks much better and the light doesn't get wasted on that horrible java fern.

Like it m8, cant wait for it to grow out fully. How do ya find working on a tank that deep?

a huge pain in the butt basically. lovely tank to look at but to reach the bottom i'm in up to the armpit. getting to the bottom behind the bogwood is impossable without standing on a chair so pruning the swords was a massive pain hence pulling 4 out. they looked too cramped anyway.

having the ability to grow 5 foot of vallis is pretty cool though (curled up on the surface obviously) i pulled a strand out last night that was almost as tall as me!!

 

[jimbooo]

okay, update time

i've done some rearranging in the tank. as per the post above.

nothing else to report other than moved a sailfin from the rekord 60 into here, got very beaten up by the adult BN. BN now dumped in the LFS so the sailfin can recover.

moss carpet is growing slowly but not enough to warrent a pic yet

 

[AndyTaylor]

looking good, jim....very jealous of your vals..whats the water like in that tank?

 

[jimbooo]

er wet? sorry what you after, stats?

 

[AndyTaylor]

LOL.... yeah, your stats!