A couple months ago, a small octagonal tank mysteriously appeared in my garage, and I decided to do something about it.
Having kept fish, plants, and all manner of tanks for many years now, people tend to offer me their tanks and equipment after a while when they've lost interest in fish-keeping. Most of the time I get what I consider to be beginner-type equipment such as colored gravel and plastic plants. I don't want to act snobbish about it because most of us start out with that type of stuff, but sometimes I get lucky and get something cool like an industrial chiller that a colleague gave me one time. I haven't used it yet, but that's something I consider to be pretty cool (no pun intended) if I ever intend to keep some sort of cold-water species. No need for it now, but you never know..!
In any case, I was immediately attracted to the little 5-gallon as a potential hospital tank (this helps keep medication costs down if fish ever get sick) but quickly realized that I could throw some of my cuttings in there and create a pretty nice little nano tank for my office at work. I had a spare HOB power filter (a 30-year old little workhorse, once known as an Aquaclear Mini but now they are called the Aquaclear 20) set up and running anyway, so ultimately, that's what I decided to do. I washed it out and gave it a new home in my office at work.
For hardscape, I went with some nice grey seiryu stone to match the grey walls and furniture of my office. I figured it would blend into the environment and help the plants pop more. I found a vendor on Amazon with some good prices (and good reviews), so I took a chance buying 17 lbs of the stuff for $30. It seemed like a better deal than my LFS, and the reviews were pretty impressive. Man, was I glad I went for it! The rocks were beautiful! I thought I was going to have a couple of pieces left over, but it turned out to be just the right amount and in the perfect sizes for this tank.
Here is a picture of the tank when I first put in the rocks, just to get an idea of the layout.
This was the final hardscape layout I settled on. Let me know what you think!
A couple days later, I brought some cuttings from the plants in my 90-gallon. I didn't disinfect them, so I know that this is going to introduce some snails and probably some pathogens too, but I don't plan to stock this with anything for a few months, so there will not be much for them to survive upon and they will probably die off naturally. I'm not too worried.
I later ordered a small bag of extremely expensive substrate. I've never really used any fancy aquascaping substrate. I went with pea gravel from the gardening section of Walmart when I set up my 90-gallon many years ago, and I'm pretty happy with it, but I wanted to try something new, so I went with this cool, aquasoil. The 1-liter bag set me back about $10, which was remarkable for such a small amount, but it was just about enough.
Here is the final result! I placed my travel mug next to it to give you some sense of the scale. I think it looks pretty good.
This next picture is what it looks like when I first step into my office in the morning. I think it's pretty cool. My students and colleagues seem to like it too. What do you think?
I know I want to put some Cherry Shrimp or Bloody Mary Shrimp in there, maybe some other type that won't interbreed with them. I also want snails. I'm a little more apprehensive about fish though. It's not a very big tank, so not many fish would be happy there, despite the more than adequate filtration and circulation, plus it's not very warm. That limits me somewhat. I love bettas, and this would make a nice betta tank, but I want to keep shrimp, so a betta is out of the question. I've never kept gouramis but a dwarf gourami might work but I'm thinking even smaller, like maybe endlers or some other small livebearer. I already have 43 neons at home, so no neons. I want to try something different.
Let me know what you think in the comments below! Till next time! Keep those elbows wet!
