Why I Use a HUGE Filter on This Tiny Aquarium

This tiny aquarium over here is by far the most popular tank on my channel and it just so happens to be practically no maintenance. Now it's also one of the more controversial tanks on my channel because I run a very big oversized filter on it and I get a lot of crap for that but that's what helps me keep it pristine and low maintenance. So in this video I thought I'd do my old school style just kind of sitting in front of the tank and talking you through how I make this low to no maintenance tank work and how I keep it pristine and kind of how it's evolved over the years. So let's go back in time to when I first set this up which was actually in my old San Diego apartment and I initially just set it up as a hard scape only, you know, just a few epiphytes here and there, very minimalistic scape but, you know, very quickly I realized I think I need something more and it kind of evolved over time. Now let's start by talking about the fern, okay? The fern is the eye catcher, get a ton of questions about it, how do I make it work, what kind of fern? So I'm gonna answer all those questions. So as far as I know, this is a lemon button fern and I just bought it at Trader Joe's and I had a hypothesis that I could probably make it work because I did live in the Pacific Northwest for two years and even in the Northeast where I'm from, there's a ton of ferns and ferns are epiphytic plants, right? So, you know, they can grow on rocks in moist areas, they grow on trees, you know, they attach to things with these little fronds that come out of their roots. So I thought, okay, probably don't wanna get the feet totally wet, but like, what if I just attached it to some of the rock, wedged it on some of the wood? And it was a slow process, like in the beginning, it didn't grow much, little bit of die off, but then like once it was established, it just took off and I actually have to trim it every once in a while. So yeah, lemon button fern, super easy to do, just don't submerge the roots or the rhizome of the fern itself, just kind of have like those little fronds, you know, kind of attached to some rock or some wood, you could glue it, I just wedged it and you know, it'll be super happy as long as it, you know, has decent humidity in your home. So that's a little bit about the fern, the rest of the plants in here are just a mix of really tiny Bucephalandra species. So when I set this up, obviously wanted the sense of scale, the UNS 5S is only a 2.5 gallon tank, so I chose tiny species of Buce and my favorite nano species of Buce that I recommend for anybody who wants tiny foreground details or are setting something up in a tiny tank like this, you got your Lamindale Purple Mini and then you also have your Ketagang Mini, those two are gonna look great, provide that shine that some Buce species are known for and just look really, really beautiful in a nanoscape. As for the substrate, I have a nice mix of the UNS Contrascend Mojave, which is sort of a warmer desert hue and then I have some of the Contrascend Monterey, which is a really nice mixed gravel that has like a whitish natural look with some different colors mixed in. Really enjoy those combos, but honestly, any Contrascend gravel is gonna look good with any of the sands, I find. And those two details together, you know, they're great at establishing a sense of scale. If I just had the sand, you know, it wouldn't work the same, right? Scale is all about building relationships. So every new element you have, in this case, the gravel, the sand, the hardscape, the plants, those are all different relationships that build out the greater sense of scale. And as for fish, I have a small shoal of strawberry resboras in here. They're super active, they feed regularly, they're not shy, but they do hang out in the back sometimes, especially late at night. They seem to really enjoy this tank. Of course, in a tank of this size, you're always gonna wanna think, okay, is it humane to even have fish in there in the first place? I would really not put anything larger than a chili resbora. Chili resbora is so small. So, you know, to me, it's like having, you know, tiny school of schooling fish in like a 20-gallon tank, you know, if you scale it down to their size. So they, you know, kinda enjoy having me around. They know when it's feeding time. So super-duper happy in this tank. But of course, I would never really put anything larger in here. So yeah, love these guys. Okay, let's talk about the tech that powers this bad boy, as well as keeps it relatively maintenance-free. So as for the light, I'm using a pretty powerful Chihiros light that I have way dimmed down. So I could actually completely control it from the Chihiros app. And I even have it dimmed down a little bit further for this video. I often do that to balance out the light on myself and the tank in the background. It's just like a little bit of a filming pro tip for you guys. But I usually run each of these channels around 15, 16%. And the cool thing is you can customize each channel. So if you want more of a green hue, you know, you bring that green channel up. If you want more red, more blue, you can adjust those channels accordingly. So powerhouse of a light. I have it suspended quite high. And even then I'm only running it at about 15% intensity. So that's kind of my style. I buy big, powerful lights, you know, that I could always grow into, but I often dim them down and try and run my tanks at the lowest light to keep the plants happy and minimize maintenance and of course algae. So in terms of filtration, okay, here's the controversy. I run a big filter on this tank, relatively speaking, of course. It's the smallest of the UNS Delta filters, the Delta 30. So that's an external canister filter that I have jam-packed with bio-media. So the cool thing is this large external canister filter combined with these beautiful Aquaria lily pipes creates amazing laminar flow and circulation and turnover rate. So I'm constantly preaching, hey, if you can make it happen, get a large external canister filter, filter out, reduce the flow if you have to. And you know, I'm gonna be honest, I do get a ton, a ton of pushback on that. Usually TikTok with hobbyists who aren't quite aquascapers, more plant-to-tank hobbyists. And you know, look, I'm not here to argue with you. What I am here to do is present my style of aquascaping, which is all about maintaining a pristine high-tech look. And you know, I just can't have algae. I just can't have struggling plants. And these large external canister filters help us do that. And all my colleagues who are big in the aquascaping who are artists that I really admire, they do the same thing. So I'm not here to challenge your viewpoints, just here to offer an approach that seems to work really consistently for us high-tech aquascapers. And the most important thing that the large external canister filter affords me is it basically makes this tank maintenance-free. If I had a really underpowered filter on here, you know, detritus, waste, debris, it would accumulate and I would constantly have to siphon the sand and clean things out. But the reality is with that high turnover rate, I just don't really have to maintain this tank at all. So I do, of course, once in a while, like these pipes eventually, you know, maybe after a couple months, yeah, they'll get some green algae on them. They'll get some detritus. So I do bleach the pipes. And I would say once every quarter, I'll do like a little bit of a deep cleaning on here where I'll replace some of the sand. But honestly, I could not do that and it would still probably look 80% good. I just like to keep it around, you know, 85 to 100%. So I'll do that maintenance. But, you know, average week, I'm just topping this bad boy off, which for me, you know, I have seven aquariums. I need to have some that are low maintenance, right? I can't be doing deep maintenance on every single one. So that's where it's important to just, you know, have some that kind of take care of themselves. In terms of CO2, I'm not running CO2. This tank, you know, it has low light rheophytic plants. It's got the fern. Fern has infinite atmospheric CO2. So I never ran CO2 on this tank in the first place. Don't ever intend to, and everybody's doing great. If I did run it, you know, the boost would probably grow quite a bit. I'd be able to propagate it. But I don't know, it's already so dense and full. That's kind of been the goal of my space lately is like, okay, what tanks can I not run on CO2? And they'll still look incredible. Because again, when you have a YouTube channel, you're a content creator, or even just living with multiple tanks, you don't want to be doing maintenance all the time. I don't want to be refilling CO2 cylinders all the time. It's a pain in the butt. I don't have a car. I have to take it on the bus with me. So every tank that I can keep looking amazing without CO2, that's the goal for me. So I wanted to do a proper deep dive on this tank and kind of talk through the frequently asked questions, because I am thinking about finally resetting this after two and a half years and doing something different. I feel like I've never quite done a great job with emergent out of water growth. So I'm thinking about like doing some research, trying to do that properly. But honestly, this tiny shallow tank is one of my favorite UNS footprints. Again, it's the UNS 5S. So it's just a really fun aquarium to work in. So I'd love to hear from you. Ask me anything about this aquarium, how I keep it maintenance free, how I designed it. You know, I'm here to answer those questions down below in the comments. And also let me know, what would you recommend for a rescape if I were to approach something like that this upcoming quarter? What plants would you use? Do you have any suggestions for great plants that grow immersed, maybe even flowering plants? I don't know. I want to do something really beautiful and high impact. And this is kind of there, but I feel like I could do better. Thank you so much for watching. If you're willing and able to become a channel member, it directly supports the production of these videos, as well as the expensive films and skits and comedy things I've been making on the channel. So let me know how you like those. Thanks for watching, and I'll catch you guys and gals next time. Bye-bye.