# New 5.5g NPT!!!



## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

This is my first NPT. I rescued this cute little plakat two weeks ago and decided that he needed his own 5.5 gallon tank once he was feeling better (which he is), and thought I would try my hand at a NPT. I bought the Marina 5 kit off Amazon (just got it in the mail today, in one piece!) and replaced the bulb with a 6500K CFL from Walmart - I found it in the aquatics section and it says it uses 10 watts, so I hope that's enough for my plants. The Marina S10 filter that came with the kit is really nice but seems to have a lot of current so I am going to make a baffle when I get my hands on a plastic bottle (hopefully by tomorrow). I used Miracle Grow Organic Potting Mix capped with Petco black sand. Plants: cabomba caroliniana, hornwort (floating), anacharis narrow leaf, giant hygro, water wisteria, some little crypt I found (not sure what species), amazon sword (bleheri), anubais on driftwood, bacopa caroliniana. I'm hoping to get some other floaters soon. Also thinking about adding a rock or something to the left side of the tank to even out the driftwood on the right..hmmm. Oh, I got some free MTS at Petsmart and bought 4 ghosties to put in there too. August is (impatiently) waiting to be released into his tank! 
PICTURES:


























Excuse all the bubbles, I literally just set this thing up like a half hour ago!


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## mattoboy (Feb 4, 2012)

Wow, that looks awesome for a first! Gives me hope!

Beautiful boy too!


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Thanks! I'm excited about it, hope it fills in nicely. 

I just let August go and he's loving it! He's flaring at the shrimp and at me and swimming all around and just seems really really happy right now and therefore I'm happy!


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## jjposko (Jan 3, 2013)

Nice tank and setup. Really looks good. I love the black sand...going to have to try that in my next tank.


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Thanks! I am loving the black sand too! I'm definitely partial to black substrate after using eco-complete in my 29 gallon. It really makes the colors of the plants and fish pop. My ghosties are really easy to see on it too.


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## twolovers101 (Sep 17, 2012)

It looks great  and very pretty boy you've got there <3
I think I have the sam CFL bulb and it's been working out fantastic for me, my banana plant has around 7 leaves now I think? (it dominates the tank)


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Oh awesome! I'm so glad to hear that, I was a bit nervous about it, lol. I have some other CFL bulbs that are more light bulb (round) shaped that are also 6500K but don't know if those would fit in my hood so hearing that the one I bought will work is excellent. I will say that my plants have definitely perked up today - most of them had been floating in other tanks before I set this one up so they were twisted weird to get to the light. Now I'm waiting for my crypt to melt....lol I trimmed the roots before planting and am kind of regretting that now. The crypts I have in my other tank are totally melted, it's kind of disappointing when that happens. 

By the way, your banana plant is ridiculous (in a good way)! I have one in my 29 gallon which is doing well - has sprouted two leaves since I got it - but the leaves are so small compared to yours! It must be because it has so much further to travel to get to the surface/light.


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## Destinystar (May 26, 2012)

Beautiful great work on the tank love it !!!


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

Hey have you been testing the tank water? Some NPTs, like when I set mine up, have period where the plants aren't actively growing so there is excess everything in the water, including ammonia. Mine went up to 4 ppm, which is lethal, so test 1 a day at the same time for ammonia, you can do nitrates, but ammonia is a much bigger killer. If it starts to increase get him out of the water until it returns to normal. One way to help this is if you add a bit of your filter media from your bigger tank. That will have some bacteria and they will convert ammonia to nitrate if there is a need.

These tanks always look okay at the start, but after, they turn it great tanks. The one in my picture is an NPT as well.


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Thanks Perseusmom! 


I do have some extra filter media from my other tanks, so I will definitely add some. I haven't tested the water yet since I just set it up yesterday, but I will tonight for sure, thanks for the heads up!

I'm actually pretty impressed with how it looks right now. I know OFL's tanks always look amazing right away, but for my first time I was expecting a muddy mess, lol. Your tank is beautiful too


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

OFL has been at it for a long time and also here plants are grown in her conditions and since they don't change to often, she can easily swap plants out into different tanks without melt and adjusting to the new tank conditions. That is usually when you get the spike. Cycled media should help.

My tank looked awful when I first set it up, you learn as the tank progresses and you change it accordingly. Sometimes you end up with success sometimes it is failure, though usually you can turn the fail around it just takes work.


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## twolovers101 (Sep 17, 2012)

carbonxxkidd said:


> Oh awesome! I'm so glad to hear that, I was a bit nervous about it, lol. I have some other CFL bulbs that are more light bulb (round) shaped that are also 6500K but don't know if those would fit in my hood so hearing that the one I bought will work is excellent. I will say that my plants have definitely perked up today - most of them had been floating in other tanks before I set this one up so they were twisted weird to get to the light. Now I'm waiting for my crypt to melt....lol I trimmed the roots before planting and am kind of regretting that now. The crypts I have in my other tank are totally melted, it's kind of disappointing when that happens.
> 
> By the way, your banana plant is ridiculous (in a good way)! I have one in my 29 gallon which is doing well - has sprouted two leaves since I got it - but the leaves are so small compared to yours! It must be because it has so much further to travel to get to the surface/light.


Haha! Thank you, the largest leaf is roughly 3 inches across or more, my betta has taken to sleeping on the leaves that are closest to the surface xD

I have no idea why it's so large, I'm just in love with it. Melt is normal, I've had the hardest time with my water wisteria :/


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

I've been learning a lot about taking care of live plants in aquariums since I set my 29g up a month ago. I know what you mean about it looking crappy at first and then starting to look better! My 29g is finally at a point where my eyes don't automatically focus on the sad, melted crypts anymore, lol. Pretty much everything else is thriving though, so I have hope. 

Melt is normal but so sad, lol. I bought a potted wisteria plant at Petco for my 29g and was very excited because it already had roots and so I thought it might do better than my other stem plants. Well, the roots melted off! I freaked out, lol. I ended up just trimming the melt off and replanted the stems and now my wisteria is going crazy. I bought another small wisteria plant for this NPT and immediately cut the roots and part of the stem off (they were a bit tall anyway) and I can definitely tell they've perked up since planting. I'm almost wondering if the plants I've bought at Petco have a better chance because they are already in water similar to mine in hardness etc? 

My banana plant has leaves that are like an inch across, lol. It's doing well but is mostly really tall stems with little leaves...I can't even really see it in the photos I've taken of my tank but it's there...


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Here's a couple pics I took yesterday.


















I figured out how to turn the flow wayyyy down on my filter so everyone is happy now. August really must love glass surfing though because that's pretty much all he does. He'll stop to eat and then just keeps going...he must really love all the extra room!


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

August in his tank

I took a video of August in his tank. Is it normal for bettas to glass surf like this? He literally hasn't stopped since I put him in there (except to eat). The ghost shrimp even join in! I did a 20% water change today which did not affect their behavior at all and water params are normal. I'm hoping he is just seeing his reflection and he'll learn to ignore it soon...


Also, does anyone know anything about anubais? I bought a piece of driftwood with anubais attached at Petco. One of the leaves is turning yellow and is a bit torn and another leaf has a hole in it...should I remove those or leave them?


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## twolovers101 (Sep 17, 2012)

My PK, Shosta, glass surfed for a long time, like upwards of a month or so, only recently has he stopped and just begun enjoying the other space in his tank (it's hard to catch him doing this though, because every time I walk into the room he surfs the front glass trying to get my attention and feed him lol) 

I think it's because they were in those little cups for such a long time and then finally have all this space to "run" around in and use their muscles and they're just so excited about it that they don't really realize that there's more to it xD (if that makes sense at all) 

I don't know much about anubias... mine have all melted and died on me... it's weird, the plants that are supposed to me low maintenance die on me, and the harder ones live it up I guess I'm just backwards...


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Maybe it's just a PK thing? Haha, I do agree with you though, I think they really love having the extra swimming room. I have noticed that August doesn't glass surf as much with the lights off, so I'm really thinking it's because he sees his reflection. Unfortunately I have to keep the lights on a timer for the plants so hopefully he'll just get used to it soon. Nice to know it took yours a little while before he calmed down.  I know my CT and HMDT both do it when I'm in the kitchen by their tank, but I catch them "hunting" quite often too, so I'm not as worried about them. I guess as long as August keeps looking healthy I won't worry too much!


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Thought I should update this thread - babystarz was kind enough to hook me up with a bunch of floating plants and other things last week. Here are a couple updated photos:
This one was taken 1/25:









And this was taken today - holy cow do those floating plants multiply fast!:










August is really starting to fill in - his pectorals are getting nice and long! He still flares at himself constantly, but doesn't glass surf as much as he used to. One of my ghost shrimp has a belly full of eggs now too, which is pretty cool. I think this is starting to become my favorite tank, I love NPTs so much more now! August loves his jungle, too.


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## babystarz (Aug 3, 2012)

carbonxxkidd said:


> Thought I should update this thread - babystarz was kind enough to hook me up with a bunch of floating plants and other things last week. Here are a couple updated photos:
> This one was taken 1/25:
> 
> 
> ...


XD Now you know I wasn't kidding when I said I'm throwing away cupfuls of duckweed every week! It's nice that the floaters spread quickly though, they use up the ammonia so efficiently. Just have to keep them from blocking too much light for the other plants, it's a balancing act!

I would go ahead and remove the anubias leaves that aren't doing well. They should pop right off at the base where they connect to the rhizome - chances are the plant has stopped feeding the leaves already anyway. If you continue to have issues with the anubias, play around with dosing iron and or potassium and see if that helps. My java ferns are being like that and I'm hoping the iron supplement I ordered takes care of things. I will let you know if what I bought works.


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## carbonxxkidd (Oct 30, 2012)

Yeah, I haven't gotten any ammonia readings at all on this tank yet, which is amazing! I really like the floaters, I actually saw one of my shrimp hanging out in the frogbit roots yesterday! 

Thanks for the tip with the anubais, I haven't been able to figure out what to do with it so it's just been slowly getting worse, lol. The one leaf in the back is definitely dying, but the one in the front that has the hole in it is just a little yellow and otherwise looks okay. I'll probably remove both though, because the rest of the plant just looks so nice and they're ruining it, haha. I actually just bought some potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus supplements for my other tank, didn't even think about iron though...I do have Flourish complete though and I think that has iron. I'm trying to avoid using ferts in this tank, but if other stuff starts to look bad then I will try them. Definitely let me know if it helps your java ferns!


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