Rodney's 10 gallon (NOT amazon)

[rodney]

Hello and Welcome to my first aquarium journal, "Almost Amazon"

The only part Not Amazon are some of the plants due to the fact that I sort of want to work with what I have already got, but that may change But anyway, I am still a noob to planted aquariums so any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Specs and equipment:
*10 gallon glass aquarium
*20lb way over-priced bag of eco complete
*Pimped out Wisper filter with almost every part in it switched out with aquaclear parts.
*Current USA Satellite 20" 40 Watt W/ Lunar lamp (Hasn't arrived in the mail yet)

Dosing:
*1ml Seachem iron per day (subject to change)
*1ml Seachem flourish excel per day(subjest to change) (also hasn't arrived)

Plants:
need to get a few Id'ed and also awaiting a shipment

Future fish:
lemon tetras-?
Ornate tetras-?
Amazon glass shrimp( if I can find em')
cory cats-6

Placement of the aquarium:


My computer didn't want to upload anymore pictures after that so I will see if I can get it working....More picture to come and I expect my equipment to arrive on Monday so we'll see how that goes.
Feedback on my stocking options and on any other potential problems appreciated!

Thanks
-Rodney

[James From Cali]

Originally Posted by rodney

lemon tetras-?
Ornate tetras-?
Amazon glass shrimp( if I can find em')
cory cats-6

I would go for one or the other on tetras, preferably the Lemons or if you can find the Von Rio Tetras, and get about 6 or 7 of them.

Other names for the Amazon Glass Shrimp are American freshwater glass shrimp, American freshwater ghost Shrimp, American freshwater grass shrimp. So Ghost Shrimp should be readily available.

What kind of Corydoras cats are they? If they are the albino/bronze/peppered/shwartzii(spelling?) I would only get 3 maybe 4.

[hughitt1]

I second the notion for going with one or the other tetra. There are a lot of plants that are really cheap for amazon tanks so you could easily make it all amazon without spending too much. Do you plan to add any driftwood?

[jaidexl]

azgardens.com has a cool little ghosty called Brazilian Yellow-Belly Grass Shrimp
(Palaemon pantanal) for $2.30 a peice. It's basically a ghost shrimp with some yellow on it. I entertained the idea of getting some but my angelfish will gobble them up. 12 ghosties for a dollar at the lfs seems like a better deal to me.

[Roc]

Ghost shimp rarely live very long in tanks that aren't brackish

[rodney]

I was refering to these

http://www.petshrimp.com/amazonglassshrimp.html

[rodney]

Thanks you all for all of the help! I have decided to try to go with the Lemon tetras as my first choice but am willing to go for the flame tetras if the lemons aren't available. I went to my lfs (petsmart unfortunately) to check out their selection and was pleased to see they had a few flame tetras. I was going to get them then and there but decided to plan a trip up to St.Louis this Friday to see if I can find some Lemon tetras. I do have a bit of algea growing on my swords and was wondering If there are any Amazon algea eaters? But anyway I got my computer to work so here is an update:

Filled with eco:


Add driftwood:


Plant clippings:


Planted!:




The stuborn driftwood as refused to sink as you can see, so I will give it another week or two before I silicone anything
And yes, I am aware the pictures are huge!

Comments welcome!!!

[CherylH]

You might want to raise your swords slightly. The crown should be above the substrate.

It makes me nuts when I have to use rocks to hold wood down until it sinks. I have a vision and then it floats. At least it usually doesn't take too long to get waterlogged. That piece has nice character.

[hughitt1]

I do have a bit of algea growing on my swords and was wondering If there are any Amazon algea eaters?

Otos (Otocinculus Affinis) and Ancistrus sp. are both great algae-eaters for amazon tanks. The ancistrus can get up to 5-6'' though which is too big really for a 10g. The otos are really nice and are diurnal too so you will see them more than the noctural ancistrus catfish. For a 10-gallon I would go with a single oto, definitely no more than two. They won't eat up all kinds of algae but it will help.

Other possible algae fixes.. Have you started dosing excel? How many hours are the lights on a day?

[dufus]

ok, what up with the female betta?
not too amazon.

i woudl go w/ottos for agae.

[rodney]

Originally Posted by CherylH

You might want to raise your swords slightly. The crown should be above the substrate.

It makes me nuts when I have to use rocks to hold wood down until it sinks. I have a vision and then it floats. At least it usually doesn't take too long to get waterlogged. That piece has nice character.

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to lift them up a piece. I fell the same way about the driftwood. I have planned where everything should go and i can't stand it when I have to wait for wood to sink before I can begin putting my ideas together.

Originally Posted by hughitt1

Otos (Otocinculus Affinis) and Ancistrus sp. are both great algae-eaters for amazon tanks. The ancistrus can get up to 5-6'' though which is too big really for a 10g. The otos are really nice and are diurnal too so you will see them more than the noctural ancistrus catfish. For a 10-gallon I would go with a single oto, definitely no more than two. They won't eat up all kinds of algae but it will help.

Other possible algae fixes.. Have you started dosing excel? How many hours are the lights on a day?

Thanks for all the great help you have given me. I have seen Otocinculus Affinis at my lfs before, so they should be available often.

No, I haven't started dosing excel yet because it hasn't come in the mail. I however do dose flourish Iron but don't think that is a problem.

The algea didn't appear in my 10 gallon, It was already growing on the plants from my 20 gallon. The algea is sort of brownish and it grows as tiny dots.


And about the lights, They havn't come in the mail yet either, but I am wondering how long you would have the lights on? I usually just keep them on from around 11:00am-ish to 9:00pm.

Originally Posted by dufus

ok, what up with the female betta?
not too amazon.

i woudl go w/ottos for agae.

The female betta is just there to help me get along in the cycling process.

[hughitt1]

The algea didn't appear in my 10 gallon, It was already growing on the plants from my 20 gallon. The algea is sort of brownish and it grows as tiny dots.


And about the lights, They havn't come in the mail yet either, but I am wondering how long you would have the lights on? I usually just keep them on from around 11:00am-ish to 9:00pm.

That is fine for lighting- once you start getting near 11-12 hours a day, you are more likely to run into algae problems (although that's not to say you won't still have algae even with less light per day).

Can you upload pictures of the algae? If it has not spread too much, the easiest thing to do for now would just be to gently rub it off with your fingers (ideally right before doing a water change). An oto should help, as would either co2 / excel. Take the time now though to remove algae (manually) as much as you can. Eventually wants your plants settle in and fill out, algae problems should be less dramatic (I would point out however that the idea that plants can starve algae is still debated on these forums... heavy planting early on has generally been has seemed to lead to less algae problems at least for me though).

[rodney]

I did the best I could to scrub the algea off but there is still a small amount that I couldn't remove. You can see the algea on the 5th picture on my amazon swords. Thanks again for the help

I will update again as soon as my shipment arrives.

EDIT: I was wondering If I could fit a cockatoo cichlid in my tank?

[jaidexl]

The brown spots sound like green spot algae. I had no luck getting that off my sword leaves without destroying them in the process. I just clipped them off once they were unbearable to look at and let new growth come in. That sword doesn't look like it's acclimated to submersed growth yet, but when it does it will look different and grow like a maniac, maybe then you won't have to worry too much about green spot. I don't know what got rid of mine but it happened after upping CO2 and various ferts, basically the plants took control of the matter.

10gl for a SA cichlid seems a little small to me personally. I would want mine in at least a 30gl with a little harem of girls around him.

[rodney]

Thanks for the info on the algea. I will start dosing some flourish excel and begin diy c02 and see how that goes.

I figured that a 10gallon wasn't going to be enough room for a cockatoo but wanted to get some guidence from other members of the forum to be sure.