Don's 4x2x2 rebuild

[Insipid]

WOW! I love how the tank has progressed, and its current state is fantastic. The absence of a single pixel of that damned black scale/beard algae on the anubias has me questioning everything in the cosmos!

[dcm]

Love your work my man. I am no fan of those particular fish (the bent nose gives me the hibeegibeez) but the colours looks to be superb!!

What lights are you rocking at the moment? Still with your beloved LEDs from Bunners?

No, I switched out to a Ledzeal solution back in April 2015. The reason for that was more to do with the the ability to modulate brightness and colour temperature rather than any particular growth shortcoming of the el-cheapo LED shop lights. Going from darkness to 150W of 6500K LED was also pretty harsh on the fish - after switch-on, they'd be a bit traumatised for a while.

[dcm]

WOW! I love how the tank has progressed, and its current state is fantastic. The absence of a single pixel of that damned black scale/beard algae on the anubias has me questioning everything in the cosmos!

Yeah, I wouldn't question THAT closely... There's a heap of shrimp in there that travelled with some plants out of my pond and bred like crazy. It seems they can breed faster than the Rainbows can eat them (which is of itself remarkable). They help. That and the industrial quantities of "no more blackbeard" (glut) that goes in there from time to time.

Despite this, blackbeard spores from outerspace will periodically invade but I keep it in check.

I hate BBA more than words can describe...

[Spidy]

..........I hate BBA more than words can describe...

Yeah, I know what you mean. Thankfully I'm at a stage now where my tank must be "balanced" coz it seems to be receding. Either that or the nuclear H2O2 explosion I set off in the tank a fortnight ago.

[dcm]

Here's one of the random shrimp nomming on algae. You can see some small black balls of sickly BBA around just waiting for me to run out of Glut...

shrimp by dcm, on Flickr

[dcm]

Here's some random Boesemani, a Sterbai and 1/4 of a Lacustris. The fish are years old now but they stubbornly refuse to die.

boesemani by dcm, on Flickr

[lastlineofdefence]

Those Boesemani's are beautiful. Bet they are enjoying the tank now.

[TangyPlant]

What a fantastic tank journal. Your HC is so luscious in the most recent photo compared to 6 years ago! Excellent job and keep the photos coming.

[dcm]

So, another 3.5 years down the road and this tank, along with its inhabitants, have proved remarkably stable. They are the same Rainbows. The Sterbai I’ve no idea. I’ve never bought any but there are quite a few lurking.

The HC carpet (really an MC carpet) is a little neater after I invested in some proper aquatic pruning scissors.

The colour temperature on that photo is appalling but you get the drift.

COVID-19 ate my job and in my late 50s, I find myself newly cast onto the scrap heap. Too young to retire, too old to easily find something. At least I have tank time.

I’m just wondering what to do with this… I’ve never been 100% happy with the aspect ratio of the 4x2x2. I don’t want a bigger tank but nor do I want a smaller one. I have about $1K to play with which isn’t much. What could I do that is maybe something like 60x20x18 with a stand high enough to hide the CO2 cylinder? Decisions, decisions, decisions…


tank_nov2020_1024x768 by Don Moyle, on Flickr

Any "new" solution will go over budget. I had a look at the Juwel Rio 450. It was a little higher than I'd like at 66cm (really, light penetration and maintenance is tough enough at the 60cm depth I have today) and the depth at 50cm looked like it might limit my 'scape options. If it was 60cm front to back and 50cm deep it would be a no-brainer.

A Cade 1500 is out of budget and I can't handle the weight. I don't think I could get it into the house (15mm glass as it is rimless). I'm also wary of open-top.

There's the Cade 1200 but it leaves me with the same aspect ratio but at least I could get the CO2 cylinder (Keg on legs) inside the cabinet (I think - I'd have to check this).

Just to make things triple complicated. I own another house up on the Sunshine coast that I'll probably move into in a year or two if I'm still doing nothing in Brisbane: completely different architectural style so it would need to be a very "neutral" cabinet.