Water Enthusiast - Part 2
Since we talked last - I got a couple TINY plants. The Java Moss is 3”x3” and the Anubias Nana Petite is 1.5” roughly. Small little guys! These were purchased from the amazing Aquarium Co-op.
But this is all going in a small (nano) tank! so they’ll fit right in! Next to arrive on my doorstep was a box of rocks! Not to be confused with “a bag of rocks” - for those of you that know THAT story involving a small bag of rocks in the Las Vegas Airport that the security person said resembled organic explosives. Good times.
This is Dragon Stone! and as its name would suggest, it looks AMAZING! Even better after I got all the muck scrubbed out of them. From Buca Plant. Yes - I bought rock from a plant store ;)
After draining the water into a bucket (so we can put it back into the tank and not restart the cycling from the beginning.
We piled up gravel in the back left corner to create so height variation. then capped it with black sand.
Here is the part where I forgot to take pictures - skip to before adding water!
The plants are super glued to the rocks. I love it!
This is my tanks impersonation of Pandora (from Avatar, not the box). SUPER cloudy. IT will settle / get filtered out overnight.
The next morning! Almost looks like the tank sprung a leak (did not happen) and all the water drained out! I’m very please with how this has turned out on the first go. Huge shout out to my 15yo for her design skills. She shifted just about every rock approximately 2-3mm and told me looked better. Which is EXACTLY what web designers have done to me for my entire technical career. I don’t understand.
What I learned
Superglue works great for live plants
Superglue sets SUPER fast in water
It’s very easy to glue 3 fingers together thinking the glue isn’t anywhere near your fingers, but the water makes it difficult to see what has glue and what is just regular wet
It takes roughly an entire evening absentmindedly picking at 3 fingers to get all (most of) the glue off
Make sure you know where your siphon hose is before telling the 15 yo that we’re setting up the tank
When you can’t find the siphon hose, use a pitcher
A 5 gallon tank holds EXACTLY 5 gallons of water - you will need another bucket
Make sure the counter top has a hole that will fit your power cables before setting up the entire tank - or else you’ll have to figure out how to drill a discrete hole the next day RIGHT NEXT TO A GLASS TANK WITH EXACTLY 5 GALLONS OF WATER IN IT
Projects that got added to my list during this project
Redo the banisters and stairs
Build a water parameter IoT device
Refinish a Bombay dresser to use as a bathroom vanity
