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sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

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Aug 22, 2005
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I've got a 2 gallon hex tank. I've had it empty for a while, had a beta in it years ago, have used it for a QT tank before but not an ideal QT, it's really almost something I'm going to throw away. The non adjustable heater has long since been discarded, along with the "hood" that was incapable of anything other than incandescent(CFL would not fit) I'm thinking of doing something with it, give it one last shot at being useful. It has the stock UGF plate, that I know isn't great for plants. I'm thinking of putting 1 plant, maybe a ground cover plant, and maybe one invert. Thing is, I would like to do it with no light, no heater and if any filter, the stock UGF (preferably no filter) is there anything cheap and easy that will work for this? I can easily get indirect sun for 6-8 hours just having it near a window. I dont mind weekly, or even biweekly WCs, but im not willing to say long term daily WCs are a responsible hobby. Any thoughts?
 
Kannan Fodder

Kannan Fodder

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Jun 2, 2014
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LOL! I think I have the same tank.... All plastic, seamless, black plastic slip on caps for the top and bottom?

Got mine for a betta too, but it wasn't an ideal situation. I tried regular pond plants in mine - parrot feather and some unknown variety of seasonal bulb bog plant. The stock bulb was pretty crappy even to light the tank, and the plants did ok only during the warmer summer months. This was years ago....

If I set it up again, I'd probably go with just keeping snails - and I'd seriously look into better lighting for plants! Direct light from a window might work. My house has "solar screens" on all the windows, so it probably wouldn't work for me.
 
sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

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Aug 22, 2005
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yeah, probably the same one. but my caps are blue with glitter. Ive had the red glitter and the black one too. Might not be 2 gallons, I don't recall, but thats close enough. beta would be ok, but not a great tank for anything else. boring means maintenance is a chore and not a labor of love. So any cold tollerant plants I could do?
 
Kannan Fodder

Kannan Fodder

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Jun 2, 2014
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I fished some plants out of the pond for mine, and they did well as long as it got plenty of natural light - which was easy to accomplish by keeping it on the kitchen table in front of an east facing window. I know one plant I had luck with was parrot feather. The other was a bulb that spreads by underground runners, and looks like sagittaria or vallisneria when grown underwater, but also has leaves that resemble crypts when they grow above water. No idea what it is, been trying to ID it for years.

Pretty sure it's around 2g, but the bubbler made life difficult for the betta. I still have mine somewhere back at my old house. Might look into modifying it so I can cultivate plants, but because of it's plastic construction, heat is out of the question.
 
sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

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Aug 22, 2005
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Well, its not the same tank, mine is taller but less wide, so I will be limited to fewer plants. If I could find that one I wouldn't care If I could ID it because it looks great and would work perfect. Definitely a nice setup you got there. As luck would have it, a friend wants to show me his new boat. He has a huge pontoon that we do large scale camping with, usually on islands or across lakes. He needed something more economical for those trips when people needed to run to the marinas, so he got the second smaller boat that he can sidetie to the pontoon. We will be going out on the delta soon and hopefully I can get something interesting. You have any inverts? I may see if I can find anything interesting in that regards as well.
 
Kannan Fodder

Kannan Fodder

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Oh no!!! I completely forgot scale!!! The plants are in a cheapie > 1/2 gal betta keeper that divides into 2 very cramped sections! It's only about 6" long by 3" tall. It was just something I could stash plants and snails in (no fish!) so I could take them with me. It's got a lid, so it keeps my cats from pawing out the plants and dragging them all over my sister's house. I'm still trying to get my new house into a "move-in ready" state, so some of my stuff is in temp containers. That thing is sitting on top of a plastic 2 or 3lb Costco brand cookie container, which I'm using to house a small "wild" water lily.

My family used to camp at Lake Powell every summer. My dad had a 22' cabin cruiser that we'd load up and find some nice isolated spot out on the lake to set up camp for a couple weeks. He also used to take the same boat out deep sea fishing - which is something I really looked forward to. I was fascinated with sharks, so finding a 14' hammerhead was a real treat.
 
sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

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Aug 22, 2005
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Went to the river today, got some Ceratophyllum demersum (coontail) and something I'm not sure if its Elodea canadensis, Egeria densa, or Myriophyllum spicatum ( they look so similar in the plant ID pics online and all are found in the area I took them from) Then there is an emersed plant that could be a ludwigia species. I could be wrong on these, as i've not spent much time trying to ID them. I got it in the little tank, along with a small twig of driftwood I found near it all, and a few pieces of duckweed from the 10 gallon.

I also got something that is either a rootball from something, or a short aquatic grass that has browned. Put a little in and will see what happens. Still too cloudy to get any good pics.
 
sumthin fishy

sumthin fishy

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Aug 22, 2005
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So i dont think it's ludwigia. There is a type that grows arround here, but looking at more pics it doesn't look the same. Id like to ID the other one that looks like anacharis. I dont know how 3 plants of separate genus' look so simmilar. Makes it worse, the site calls them all some type of "water weed" as a common name. And Im pretty sore the brownish ball is a water grass of some kind. I hope it gets established and greens up so I can trim it down. As far as care, what do most people do with plants only, no filter? How often do you change the water? Do you dose ferts? (I would assume without fish you would need something else to provide nutrients). Sorry for the blurry pics

nano5.jpegnano6.jpegnano7.jpeg

nano5.jpeg nano6.jpeg nano7.jpeg
 
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