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Frosty's 10 Gallon Setup

76K views 243 replies 53 participants last post by  FrostyNYC 
#1 · (Edited)
Specs:
Tank: 10 Gallon All-Glass
Lighting: 40 Watt USA Satellite 6500k/10000k
Substrate: Eco-Complete
Hardscape: Zebra rock
Ferts/Dosing: EI w/dry ferts plus Flourish and Excel, but while emersed just misting with diluted Miracle-Gro and Flourish Excel
Filtration: Toms Mini-Canister (later changed over to an Aquaclear HOB)

Flora: HC & HM
Fauna: None so far

Set up this tank on February 25, 2008, so it's been a little under a month since I put it together. I planted an HC lawn in the front, and purchased some HM to use as sort of a "backup" if the HC failed, which I suspected it might. I planted HM to the front right and also in the background. I intend to plant heavily with stem plants in the two back corners once I fill this thing up with water, with HM acting as a midground and HC as a foreground. I planned to grow these two emersed for about 8 weeks, at which point I hoped to fill the tank.

Here's some pics. I'm running into a little problem, which I'll discuss in my next post.

Pic 1: Tank as of 3.9.08 (2 Weeks after startup)


Pic 2: Overhead shot as of 3.9.08 (2 Weeks after startup) (Added a little more HM to front-right and middle)


Pic 3: Overhead shot as of 2.25.08 (Date of Startup)
 
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#129 ·
Well, my Aquasoil Amazonia came in. I picked up 9 litres. Rescape will happen in a few days. I'm going to RAOK my red rubin swordplant (its in like every photo in this journal), it has about 20 leaves. If anyone wants it for the cost of shipping, let me know, otherwise I'll post on the SnS in a few days when I pull it out.

Anywho, here's my 2.5 gallon shrimp tank which sits right next to my 10 gallon. Im going to be transferring the shrimp and these plants back into the 10 gallon after its re-cycled (i.e. after the AS ammonia leaching is done). And yes, I'm finally finally going to paint a black background on my 10 gallon, cause I know seeing through tanks generally sucks.



 
#130 ·
Whoah. Your 10 gallon is so much better than mine. I really like those rocks. I was looking for some just like that. I updated my journal. Check it out. By the way, I like the floating plants. I wanted to get some salvinia or duckweed. That's what's great about Florida. You can just go grab the plants out of a pond and put them in alum or bleach them. We got hornwort, salvinia, duckweed, parrot's feather, some kind of anacharis, and pheonix moss right in the pond in the park.
 
#134 ·
How ironic! I just gave away my puffer to a member on here this evening.

Why, you ask? Cause I broke down my tank tonight. Gulp. Here's the new version, with Aquasoil Amazonia substrate now. Im not done. I just got sick of scaping, and its almost 1am, and I have work in the morning. New plants for me are the Microsword and the Ranunculus (two nodes right by the rocks). There's marsilea minuta in the foreground. Behind the rocks are needle-leaf java fern, and some fast growing stem plants to help me avert algae. I normally use snails, but with some fine driftwood, I dont want them eating it and destroying it. Excuse the blurry photos. I know they suck. Also, the glass is covered with little bubbles from being filled two hours ago.

The idea is for the right side to be totally full of plants. I know it looks really weird right now, cause of the empty space, but it'll fill in. I'm also going to put something over in the back left corner, but I don't know what yet. Frankly, Im just excited to try AS. I had switched from eco (great substrate) to flourite black (attractive but about as useful as plain gravel to grow plants apparently). So lets see if AS can beat eco complete.




Edit: I just realized the branch turned strangely when I filled the tank. I'll fix it.
 
#135 ·
Where did you get that wood? The mopani wood pieces at my local Petco are too big for a 10 gallon tank in my opinion. All of my local pet stores have a crappy selection of aquarium plants and decor. I am not buying driftwood online. I was thinking of taking some dead wood from outside and putting it in my tank like that after I remove the bark and boil it. I bet the micro sword will look great! Mine is spreading a bit. I always have to bury the runners, since they always float around while the parent plant is rooted.
 
#137 ·
I was talking about both rocks. My teacher has a really nice granite rock in her desk, and I'm gonna ask her if I can have it. I don't know why the heck she has a granite rock in her desk, but it would be perfect in my aquarium. I'm gonna put some salvinia in my tank next time I go to the park.
 
#140 ·
Update today, and for anyone considering switching to AS... Ammonia measured 5ppm today. Yikes. I've done two 50% water changes in the last 3 days. I know I should be doing 100% changes. I was having problems with my python (stupid plastic sink adapter got stripped) and my bucket broke (dropped it when it was full of my old flourite and it cracked). But I'll keep up with the water changes nonetheless.

Other than that, my stems plants are sending down new roots. No growth yet, but its only been a couple days, and I don't expect miracles until the plants are adjusted. THEN I expect miracles.
 
#141 ·
The impulse buys are killing me. I just got some strange stem plant (I'll post pics on Tuesday-ish) that I can't identify. And I almost bought some long-finned cherry barbs but fortunately they were overpriced at $4 each. Whew!

I'm thinking of not putting the endlers back in this tank. Since the cherry shrimp are being really lame and 100 eggs = 5 surviving shrimp, I think Im just going to dump the cherries in the 10 gallon when its done cycling, keep a trio of endlers in my 2.5 gallon and get some new fish to put in the 10 gallon. I'd really prefer to keep my 10 gallon sort of empty, and the endlers just being overwhelming in their numbers really fast. Its hard to see plants, with a black mass of fish swarming at you hoping to get fed. Plus, I want something with colorful females. And although I love how variable the male endlers are, the females are really pretty boring.

So what fish to get? Id prefer an egg-layer that I could attempting breeding down the line. I love furcata rainbows and clown killies, and both are captively bred, so they're potentially on the list. Hm. I don't like community tanks, so it's gotta be something that's really interesting on its own.
 
#142 ·
clown Killies! or you can do the aphyosemion australe golds which are a nice gold color with hints of red. I'm going to try and get some of the clown killies from Franks wish I had another tank to do the australe golds tho.
 
#143 ·
Qckwzrd,
Has Frank sent you any pics of the clown killies he actually has? The photo on his website is a stock photo used on several websites. I'm curious as to what his actually look like. My concerns about clown killies are two-fold:

1. They're mainly top dwellers, and would leave most of the rest of my tank kind of empty and boring.

2. Since I'd like to breed them and maintain them in a colony, I wouldnt be able to keep shrimp, since I don't want any eggs eaten, and I do love my shrimp.

Something for me to think about.
 
#144 ·
Good points. They arent as active as your endlers but they do get busy lol youtube Pseudepiplathys annulatus I found some cool videos of them. I'm suppose to meet up with Frank Sunday to pick up the killifish, I'll post pics once they settle in. I may be sending you a pm about your endlers :)
 
#147 ·
This is five days after the previous photo I posted. Regarding the aquasoil: I'm sold. Gangbusters growth from the get go, on the stems at least. Suuuuure there's enough ammonia in my tank to kill anything with a pulse. But my plants are happy. :)

I've got some collectoritis going on here fyi. I think I'm going to get rid of the hygros (one stem each of hygro and bold) and I think I'm going to lose the microsword in favor of blyxa. I'm also sort of wishing I had given HC a shot instead of the Marsilea minuta. Oh well. I can always swap things out and around in the future.

Also, before anyone says anything, I already moved the CO2 reactor to the far right where its hidden. I'll be losing the HOB intake after I switch to canister, which will happen eventually.

 
#153 ·
I think there's a lot of elitism when it comes to hardcore fishkeeping, gardening, and most hobbies in general. We all know that we can grow anacharis, so we try to challenge ourselves with something more difficult. I agree though. I like anacharis. The only thing I dislike about it is how messy it can look. Sort of like this mystery plant of mine. It's a space filler, and a curiosity for me. I'll see how it grows it to see if I want to keep it.

So far, the guesses for what my mystery plant is:
Lagarosiphon major
Egeria najas
Hydrilla verticillata
 
#157 ·
frosty +1 on the killies i dont have the clown variantion but i Love my lampeyes and they stay in the mid to upper section maybe you could mix clowns and lampeyes together (plants on bottom, lampeys in mid, clowns in the upper............)that way you will always be able to see your plants!!! and what happened with your endlers?
 
#158 · (Edited)
Nazspeed,
My endlers are in a 5 gallon holding tank because my 10 gallon is still cycling after switching to Aquasoil. The tank cycled after 10 days or so, but then stupid me unplugged the filter during a water change and forgot to plug it back in for two days. I tested the water again after I realized what I had done, and I was back to 4 ppm of ammonia. Sigh. Im now hovering around 0.5 ppm but that's still too risky for me to put any livestock in the tank.

Updates: I pulled out the mystery noxious weed. It grew over 6 inches in a week, but the growth was sort of weedy-looking and all over the place. If I had a bigger tank, I could see using it, since it's branching like crazy, but I dunno right now. So I threw that plant in with the endlers in their holding tank.

I picked up a bunch of plants from Kotoeloncat today and put them in. I had gotten frustrated waiting for the microsword to grow in, and I stuck a bunch of blyxa in the back. Maybe TOO MUCH blyxa, but I didnt expect Koto to give me quite so much. There's also a bunch of random stems in there right now.

Plants in here right now, and my preliminary opinions:

Asian ambula - One of the fastest growers I've ever had in any of my tanks. And its pretty, to boot.
Hygro sp. 'Bold' - Super slow grower in my tank. But probably my favorite stem in here. I wish it grew faster. It's covered up by the blyxa now :(
Ludwigua brevipes - I have one stem of this. It's grown a little bit and it's branching heavily at nearly every node near the substrate. I like it.
Myrio Matto - Love it. What an easy plant! And the leaves are so feathery against the black background. This plant has grown about half inch a day. It's already easy doubled in size.
Rotala verticillaris - One stem. It's growing sooo slowly but its rooted now and it's branching and splitting. Looks good.
Rotala mini type 2 - Just got this one, so not quite sure what I think yet.
Rotala mini type 1 - See above.
Marsilea minuta - I'm really disappointed in this one. My entire foreground is M.minuta, and it's barely grown at all. Im going to give this a month and see what happens.
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis - Frustrating much? It melted almost completely because what I purchased what grown emersed. It's growing sooooo slowly now. I'm not sure I'm patient enough for this one.
Java fern 'needleleaf' - Great plant. I've had this since before this rescape. It tends to look a little messy when it starts getting plantlets on it though. But really significantly nicer than the normal java fern imho.
Hemigraphis traian - Got one stem as a bonus. Leaves a little too large for my tank, but WOW talk about purple!!! I know why people hunt this plant down now.

 
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