mM name's Alex and this is Tank Tested. In this video I'm gonna go through a
rundown of how I kept this tank virtually maintenance-free for the last seven months.
I set up the scape live at a competition at New York's Reef-APalooza.
I'll explain the details of that competition at the end of this video.
So let's talk about this tank. I set it up in June of 2017
and in January of 2018 it's still up and running and looks pretty much the same.
I think there are four things that kept this tank low maintenance.
First, let's talk about the plants.
There are a lot of plants in this aquarium, and most of them are pretty slow growing.
My favorite are the Bucephalandra. Now buce is an extremely slow growing plant.
I would be surprised if I got more than a few leaves from each of these plants in the last seven months.
There are at least four species in this tank.
I'll be doing a whole video about Bucephalandra and how it can be used sustainably in a future video.
In the foreground you can see Marsilea hirsuta,
that's the four-leaf clover plant—and there is no way I pronounced it correctly.
There's also a carpet of dwarf hair grass and a small clump of S repins.
All three of these grow at a medium rate, but I've slowed their growth down pretty dramatically and I'll explain how in a second.
The pops of red are a variegated form of Alternanthera reineckii.
Now I am 1000% sure that is not how it's pronounced, but I'm doing my best here.
it's a relatively slow growing plant
especially before it gets fully rooted. But I have had to trim it a few times.
Then there are these speed demons of this tank— the Ludwigia and the Christmas moss.
I have to trim both every six weeks or so and that is the most maintenance that I have to do on this tank.
So why does everything grow so slowly?
Well, it mainly comes down to CO2.
I know many people use a lot of Co2 on their planted aquariums. I don't.
I start my tanks with CO2 and then I wean them off of it over the course of about a month.
This tank has had no CO2 for about five months.
The main effect of that is that everything grows released slowly
even the fast growing plants slow down dramatically when they are deprived of CO2.
It's not without consequence, there is a little bit of yellowing here and there,
especially on the dwarf hair grass. Some of the leaves don't look quite as good as they normally would.
But overall, I found a lack of co2 keeps this tank in stasis.
The third thing I use to keep this tank low maintenance is actually
just what came in the box for the aquarium.
The tank itself is a great dimension fora nano aquascape. It's a foot deep, it's 14 and a half inches across, and it's 11 inches tall.
That means light can easily penetrate to the bottom of the tank and you've got lots of space to work with.
The tank also came with this light and I really, really like it for growing plants slowly.
The light provides great coverage over the entire tank,
but it doesn't shine so brightly that I have ever had deal with algae
Now, this is not a sponsored video. But if you're thinking about getting this tank
please buy it through the affiliate links in the description of this video.
I do these videos for free, and they take quite a lot of time.
So if I've inspired you to get this tank clicking the link. It's a free way to help me out.
Now let's get back to the fourth item on my list.
The last thing that keeps this tank low maintenance is, well, everything else that's in the tank
For starters, I used a dark rock that doesn't attract algae growth
and disguises algae growth better than lighter rock.
For anyone that's wondering, the rock is petrified wood. it is a great material for small scapes.
But because it's so chunky it's hard to use in a larger scape without it feeling artificial.
You can also see that I have both cherry shrimp
and snails in the aquarium.
The snails help to control the algae growth and the shrimp scavenge and eat biofilm.
The fish you might recognize from my last video.
They are Lambchop Rasbora and this is their permanent home.
To keep the fish happy and healthy, I do regular water changes, I trim the plants
every six weeks, and that's it.
At the start of this video I mentioned that I built this scape as part of a live aquascaping competition the aquascaping
The Aquascaping event was organized by Dustin of Dustin's fishtanks.
If you want to see how this tank looked when I originally set it up
Dustin shot a great video of all ten tanks on competition day.
I'll link that here and in the description of this video.
If you liked the work I'm doing let me know, and hit subscribe
so that you can see every video I make from here on out.
Thanks for watching and have a great week!