My New "Kio Kim" Picking Gold (Ingots) Glass Tank Aquascape

Update 4 Mar Sat 2017: Rummy Nose prefers dark soil/substrate.

Update 12:12pm 8 August Tues: Just buy Japanese Shrimp soil. That soil is specially made to clear up the water & best of all, stablizie the pH every time you change the aquarium water. The most perfect soil. Smaller bags are more affordable for smaller tanks. Don't need much soil. Mine is 6 ft (60cm) tank & just a small bag is enough to cover the bottom. My Rummy Noses have been very red-nosed & happy since then.  

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28 Jan Sat 5:17pm

I call this my "Kio Kim" tank.  Pick Gold Tank.

See the 7 crystal gold ingots along the path? As you walk along my "aquascape" path, there's gold to pick. This is a good fortune tank. Plus water & fish. What could be more perfect for Chinese new year (CNY)?

After so long since last year, I finally bought a crystal clear glass aquascape tank. Not ADA, but these days such tanks with less green (called super clear glass) can be bought cheaply.

Mine is only $38. The price marked as $40, but the discounted price written near it is $38.

2 ft (60cm exactly) x 20cm wide x 27cm high. Perfect. Excellent workmanship. Whoever who did this is very good. Silicon glue no smear & measurements accurate. 0.5cm thickness all around.

Slim & long = less soil + less water = less costly + easier to make design changes.

Previous plastic tank also 2 ft but too wide, too deep = more soil + more water = more money.

The below video was taken on 21 Jan. I got the tank a few days before. At first,  I just filled it with water & put the blue crystal chips on the left side only. Then I introduced the guppies & 1 Rummy Nose for testing.  I was guessing the Rummy Nose might not like it (because it's too open with no hiding places, stressful.).

True enough, the Rummy Nose panicked to see it's own reflection & would only stay on the side covered at the bottom with the blue crystals.  For days, it remained like that, unable to get used to this super clear glass tank.

The initial idea was to avoid laying sand or soil altogether because I'm fed up of soil that disintegrates & becomes dirty with bacteria, worms & parasites. The previous soil substrate was very expensive per bag (Gex brand from Japan) & still disintegrated after 2 years. The bigger the tank, the more soil needs to be laid out.   

So this time, I wanted to keep things soil-less & easy to clean. The substrate will just be crystal chips. Tiger's Eye chips + Blue-veined stone chips (both shipped in by air). Quite cheap $1.80 for 250g per bag (around $3 with shipping).  This tank only needed 2 bags of blue-veined chips & 2 bags of Tiger's Eye chips.

Later when I was buying the small tub of lab-grown Gratiola ($10), I also bought a bag of the white pebbles (only $2).

With the panicking Rummy Nose, I thought covering up the bottom of the tank will be better (look more natural & it can't see its own reflection anymore). 

I only set it up on this date of the video. Took hours to finally set this up.  I got rid of the old, scratched plastic tank after transferring the remainder 10 of the Rummy Noses & 1 guppy here.

There were also 10 baby guppies that I saw in the old tank, but when I transferred a few into this new tank, 2 were eaten by adult guppies & when I collected all of them into a bowl from the old tank & this tank, there were only 8. Oddly, hours later when I checked again, there were only 7 in the bowl.  I kept them in a bowl of water (Tetra AquaSafe added) with some of the short plants you see here (Gratiola) & waited till they grew a little bigger.

You can see the water is murky. I blamed the filter media that was just 2 large cheap stacks for $5 & $3.30 that promised to keep the water clear but didn't.  I have been unable to get JBL filter wool (that I was using) from Pet Lovers that stopped selling at Vivocity.

The transparent filter costs just $7 (Crab Aqua brand) & it's for Nanotank. But I wanted this because it's small, unobtrusive & transparent to go with my glass look.  The filter sponge that was provided: I removed it & put in the filter media I bought that I cut to fit.  Later I tried out the large pores sponge that came with the filter & it was even worse (no filtration at all) than the filter media that I bought.

The best part about this filter is that it's transparent & because it's for Nanotank, the nozzle is small enough to leave alone without a sponge to prevent shrimp & those baby guppies from being sucked in. The sucking power is strong (I can see debris being sucked in) but outflow is soft so the fishes won't be disturbed. It's also silent. Not a well-known brand. 

The lighting is a super slim design that I ordered cheaper (than buying similar design in Singapore) & shipped by air last year. This type of super slim design sells very expensively in Singapore.

I wanted to use it for the old, plastic tank out of desperation for trying to make my red plants grow (unsuccessfully).  Again, the old tank was too deep, requiring strong lighting for red plants. After trying it out once, I kept this lighting set, hoping one day to use it again when I can afford to buy a aquascape-type glass tank.

Note that my camera is poor at taking close-up shots & lighting. By the time I was finished doing up this tank, it was already late evening. 6:15pm.




1 week later... 

Today, here's another video below. I spent hours yesterday (27 Friday) fixing this tank. Yesterday was CNY Eve.

I hurried to Clementi all for the sake of my 1 Rummy Nose that was still very pale after so many days. Had to make the tank look natural with soil so that it would stop being stressed out. My crystal-chips-&-glass only idea wasn't working out. With goldfish, it would work, but not with Rummy Noses.

On 26 Thurs, I saw Polyart selling ANS special soil that can "crystal-clear" the water but didn't buy. So, on 27 Friday, I rushed there to buy it. $5.50 for 1 kg (small bag).

Was worried the fish shops weren't open on CNY Eve but they all were @ Clementi. Was there early at about 12 pm or so. Quite many customers, all Chinese men + 1 Malay man in his mosque outfit buying filter media (clay rings & stone rings).  Surprising to see a Malay man & holding 2 packets of filter media (& thinking).

I've been to this shop so many times & this is the first time I see a Malay person.

Aquarium stuff are expensive. All the small things add up. Not just the fishes. The soil alone can cost above $30 for 1 big bag depending size of your tank. Aquatic plants are also expensive @ $1.50 each for the common type. Hang-on filter alone, cheapest I got from this shop was $7 & it broke down after 1 week. Branded ones are $13.50 & above.

Indian man, I only saw once, dressed in office shirt & pants towards evening (he tiredly lugged back his canister after CO2 refill from the shop, meaning he has money to set up an aquascape tank at home. He looked like a working professional who is tired but has money after a hard day's work at the office.).

I bought 1 thick & quite large shrimp log ($8) that I split into 2 to create the "doorway" look. Shrimp logs can help stabilize pH to a more natural level. As it was quite a thick piece, I used hammer & metal spatula to do it & lastly separated them with my hands (& got cut on my finger doing it).

The 2 large pieces are purposely placed a distance apart so that when you look from the front, they appear to be "together" like on the same level.  Visual illusion technique (hahaha...).  I got the idea from Labyrinth movie. The walls looked like on the same plane but when the camera shifted, it showed that 2 walls were overlapping & there's actually a gap in between that can be walked through.

Also bought my JBL filter wool only $4 (I called on CNY Eve to check & the shop said they had it).

And bought another Tetra fish food ("Energy"). The can of heat-treated blood worms I bought earlier didn't work. The guppies looked at it in my fingers that was holding out 1 worm but bypassed. Guess it's tasteless after being heat-treated & too grossly large. The damn can didn't show how large the worms were. That's a wasted $2.50. Made by a Singapore company. From this experience, it confirms that Ang-Moh products are better even though they cost more. I only buy Tetra brand Germany for fish food. For water, I buy Tetra AquaSafe & Tetra plant nutrients.

The above tank video had problems:

1) Murky water that wouldn't clear up.
2) 1 Rummy Nose was pale for days since being introduced into the above tank. Pale face, pale tail. They are only like this when sleeping. I worried that it might die.

I figured the murky water was because of lousy filter media & lack of soil to absorb the fine floating particles. The soil will also stabilize & adjust the pH to a natural level.

As mentioned above, my camera is poor at taking close-up shots & lighting. The lighting is actually very bright. The crystal chips shine in the light & the water is crystal clear when viewed from the front. Oddly, it's still murky when viewed from the sides.

The transparent filter (Crab Aqua brand) that I liked so much, has spoilt. There goes $7. I had actually preferred a well-known brand filter like Shiruba but none are transparent like this Nanotank one.  Shiruba brand, so far I have experience with 2 filters & the brand is reliable, hard-working & long-lasting, but needs improvement with the design.

After I started adding in the soil, the transparent filter started making odd choking noises. But when I opened & checked, nothing was jammed. The motor still kept being noisy like it had something stuck inside. Bro said the motor box couldn't be opened because once open, it wouldn't be water-tight anymore (risk of electrocution).

As there is a small hole at the rotating propellers, I guessed some soil particle/s might have jammed inside. Bro said it's poor quality motor. Just buy a new one.

Unfortunately, it's CNY already & the shops are closed.  I still have my old filter & it's big & grey-black (Shiruba brand). Temporarily, I'll use it. I avoid using this because it's too big & weighs on the glass side. And anyway, the water is still murky when viewed from the sides even though I have now got the JBL filter wool inside.

See that small plant in front? The spear leaves on the left side? @ 1:23 into the 1st video. That plant cost me $5. Couldn't read the scientific name scribble on the bag when I bought it.  En... something Vietnam. There was a bigger one that wasn't Vietnam, with pinkish base & that cost $25 which I couldn't afford to buy. I think it sold out (I don't recall seeing it there on 27 Fri yesterday when I went back looking for other plants.).

I need to hide the wiring behind the tank but don't know how. The filter.... transparent hang-ons are no brand. Shiruba brand hang-ons are grey-black. Most likely, I will be getting a smaller filter whether Shiruba or another no brand transparent one.

That single Rummy Nose now looking better.  And all the Rummy Noses are red & look fine.

In the first video below, there's a smacking sound. That's the sound of a crazy India man downstairs smacking his cricket bat against a ball that he hooked up to the walking space roof. He did it for 1.5 to 2 hrs.

In the 2nd video, you can hear the calls of the Black-naped Orioles in the treetops outside the balcony.

After getting the stuff from Clementi on CNY Eve 27 Jan, I hurried home at around 1.30-2pm. Spent the rest of the hours doing this tank until around 6pm. These below videos were taken today Sat 28 Jan.

The baby guppies are all inside this tank now. Can't see them anymore. Don't know if alive in hiding or eaten.