LA's 4 gallon cube

Hey guys,

So, I decided to start a journal on this tank, so that I will take pics regularly and can compare them as things go.

I have had this up just for a couple of weeks, but the tank was cycled previously when it was in the greenhouse. I had to move my 10 gallon outside because it has a leak, so I brought this in to take its place. The tank was bought from a thrift store near my house, for about $25 with 2 lights, a glass top, and some goldfish supplies. I probably spent a little too much on it, but who cares, it's $25

It measures 10x10x10 (inches), so it should hold just over 4 gallons without the substrate and wood displacing some, so I'm calling it 4 gallons. This means there is not really room for most fish, so I'm thinking of making it shrimp-only, though I do have 1 Sparkling Gourami in with 5 Malawa Shrimp and 1 small + a few baby Malaysian Trumpet Snails. I got a nice piece of Manzanita Wood from Aquarium Co-Op for the main hard decoration, and currently have Vallisneria, Water Lettuce, Duckweed, and Guppy Grass for plants. For filtration I'm just running a sponge filter in the corner of the tank, and doing pretty much daily small water changes.

Here's the tank right now:
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I just added 5 drops of Flourish for the first time, let's see how it looks in a week or so. Or, if I change anything before that, I'll update this.

Looks good. I always think cube tanks are the classiest. Yet I own none. What does that mean?...

Looking good!  

Dirt it up. Read on walstad method. Mineralize the dirt. But I think one of the fishbox members are bringing already mineralize dirt to the swap.

Well, I don't want to try dirt yet because I am having a hard enough time keeping the parameters in this tiny tank stable.

I have lost 2 shrimp in the last 2 days, and I don't really know why. It could just be poor water quality, but I have been trying to feed as little as possible to avoid water quality issues. Could the little guys have starved to death? They haven't been looking good lately either, and I read that they like softer water, but I don't have a test kit for hardness- could the crushed coral in the tank be making the water too hard for them? I have a slightly high PH, the API kit reads a 7.6 on the low range, but a 7.4 on the high range... so around there.

I think I will stop using the water conditioner that has a buffer in it, and just use my basic conditioner on this tank to keep the hardness low.

I added a compact fluorescent bulb to the LED lighting, hopefully that will give a bit more growth potential

Since I'm bothering to do this, here is a picture of it again today:

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A spike in hardness will indeed kill shrimp, but it's the change that does it, not the hardness itself. I lost several blue velvet culls when I accidentally boosted my GH in one tank to 14 dGH suddenly. Going from 4 to 10 didn't hurt them, but going from 10 to 14 apparently did. Only the larger shrimp were affected - they slowly turned white and died. None of the smaller shrimp had issues.

RCS don't mind a higher PH - most of my tanks sit around 7.8 and my RCS are thriving - both in straight tap and tap with KH and GH added via Seachem products.

I'm guessing it's an acclimation problem possibly involving GH / KH. How large were the shrimp that died?

If you're actively changing water parameters then you need to have a test kit that will cover that change. A API GH/KH test kit is $9 on Amazon - well worth the investment, in my opinion.

Yeah, once I get a job I will invest in one of those. So far I just have crushed coral to boost the PH and hardness a little, I haven't been actively changing those parameters except through water changes.

The shrimp are all about 5/8 of an inch, so probably pretty young. I know one had a decent amount of blue coloring at once point, and now he doesn't have as much.

Could doing daily water changes actually be hurting them rather than helping them? I had an issue with ammonia about a week ago in this tank, so I have been doing about 25% per day in the morning. I'm assuming this could make the hardness fluctuate enough to at least be stressful, and I didn't think about that before.

Well, it's always a learning experience, and I didn't expect this tank to begin smoothly. I expected some hiccups like this, and so far I am happy with it. I suppose in the future I will need a Gh/KH test kit, and then some simple ways to get the tap water about the same, so that when I do water changes in such a small volume, there won't be such a huge change in hardness.

It's likely the ammonia that did it - you just didn't see the effects until now.

Crushed coral alone shouldn't boost the GH enough to affect them unless you added a ton of it and it shouldn't have much of an effect on PH.

I think it was either the ammonia initially, or the fact that I keep doing frequent water changes. I have been worrying too much about this tank, and I think killing it with kindness more than a little bit. Since I have plants in there, I shouldn't need too many water changes, I think just seeing that ammonia freaked me out and sent me on a crusade to do water changes every day.

But, if I keep doing that, the tank will never balance itself. I had a conversation with Cory at the store today, and I think I will start to make this tank an exercise in doing as little as possible, to keep things stable.

I didn't do a water change today! And I didn't feed the tank today! YAY! I have at least some measure of self-control.

I got some Moneywort to float on top of this tank, to make me a little more comfortable with not doing water changes for a while. Noticed that the Val is starting to grow longer, and the duckweed is definitely spreading with the addition of the CFL. Ammonia tested 0 last night, so I think I will be able to keep myself from changing water for a few days... hahaha

Update on this tank

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This was the easiest tank ever to move when I had to relocate, all I did was take about 1/3 of the water out and set it on the floor of the truck. Interestingly the manzanita wood which has been in here for about a year is starting to fall apart. I think part of it is just rotting, but snails and shrimp have probably eaten away at it as well.

This tank is my lowest maintenence tank, all I do is change 1/2 the water about every 2 weeks and siphon off the duckweed once it blocks too much light. Other than that, I just feed some repashy shrimp soufle every day and it seems to maintain itself. The H. formosa are really reproducing now, and I think I will have to relocate some of them/use them for angelfish food soon. I think my pair of angels will like the little ones...