Sol's 10g Hex - First tank

[Solstice]

Hey guys. Thanks for all the help around here. There's still a little tweaking a lot of growing out to do on my 10g hex, but it's coming along. The hex format is a PITA, but I had it lying around and my 90g isn't plant compatible due to its current residents. It's been fun and maybe someday I'll be able to plant the 90g. There's no way my gf would've let me get a third tank, so this had to be it.

The inhabitants are 10 neon tetras, 3 oto cats and 10 RCS.

As for plants I have java fern, cabomba furcata, rotala, bacopa monnieri, hairgrass, some naja grass clippings that may or may not stay, and one unidentified hitchhiker that came in with the java fern I got from the LFS.

Here are a few pics.

Full tank:
I plan on replacing the java fern in the top right corner with some java moss when it arrives.


Oto Cat:


RCS:


Thanks for looking!

[eklikewhoa]

nice set up! the RCS is super red.

ime the rotala will grow really tall so maybe putting it behind the driftwood would look better, like a background plant. i would line them up in the back and when it grows out it will cover all the equip you have back there.

[Solstice]

Thanks eklikewhoa!

This is my first tank, so I'm not too sure how all of the different plants are going to grow in and what's going to work best in my water.

Unfortunately, the driftwood doesn't stand on its own, so it's leaning against the glass in the back which makes it hard to plant behind. I was hoping the cabomba would fill in and I could move the heater over next to where the CO2 diffuser is now to hide it a little more. I guess we'll see whether the cabomba or the rotala grows faster and whichever one does will wind up in the back hopfully hiding all of that.

I currently have a 42w compact flouro light hanging over the tank and it's only 3500k so the tank has a little tinge of yellow to it, but I have a 5500k bulb on order so that ought to brighten things up a bit.

I'm dosing EI too

[eklikewhoa]

im running a 6700k bulb over my tank i think its a nice color lighting up the tank.

[Solstice]

Yeah, I'd like to get a 6700k bulb, but it's hard to find the spiral compact flourescents that are rated that high. I'm considering buying a 2x18w PC hood from Catalina, but I think I'm going to give it a month or so and see how the plants grow with this bulb, mostly because people told me it wouldn't work well.

The only thing that's really shown significant signs of growth so far is the najas grass. The cabomba is growing in height, but not really filling out, which is probably a sign that it's not getting enough light and it's stretching to get to more. The rotala and bacopa were clippings with no roots and I just added them 2 days ago, so I'm expecting it to take a little time for them to root and start growing.

[Aquamanx]

I just bought 2 of the spiral Flouros from Walmart with a K of 6500. Looks really nice! They were pretty inexpensive also!

Keep looking, you'll find them! I found mine in the lighting department, although they do have screw-in flouros in the fish section, only they don't sy the K rating, if they do I didn't see them... LOL!

[Solstice]

Cool! What wattage were the ones you got?

[Solstice]

2 cool things happened today.

I saw my 4th RCS "berry up". She was stowing the eggs under her swimmerets while I watched. Very cool. All 4 of my females are berried right now.

I also saw my plants pearling for the first time.

The amount of growth I've gotten is pretty amazing. Looking at the pic above, the bacopa, rotala and cabomba (especially the cabomba) have really taken off. Unfortunately I'm battling some pretty nasty BBA right now, but I can't wait until that's gone to post some more pics.

[Solstice]

Update. Things have grown a whole lot. 3 of the RCS have hatched their babies this week and although they're all still tiny, they're not hard to spot in the java moss because there are just so many of them. I would guess that there are easily 50 babies running around in there.

It's hard to believe comparing the current tank pics to the first ones in this thread that the plants have grown this much in less than a month. Here's a pic:



I finally beat back the BBA with Excel. The only casualty was some of the hairgrass but it's starting to grow back and is sending out a lot of runners.

I've also added Malaysian Trumpet Snails, Spixi Snails and Ramshorn snails in the last few weeks (snail collectoritis??? ). A single black neon will join the tank soon just to clear out my 3gal at work for some Crystal Red Shrimp that will get here on Tuesday.

The tank is starting to look a little overgrown. I'm considering taking the rotala on the right out and moving it to my 90gal with the Oscar and Convict. I don't expect it to grow, but the few cuttings I've put in there are at least surviving with no CO2 and no fertilizer. If I do so, I'll move the Bacopa infront of the Cabomba over to the right side to open things up a little bit, but that will also require trimming a lot of above-ground roots out of the Cabomba to keep it looking nice. May be a good project for the weekend....

[Solstice]

BTW, does anybody know what this plant is? I have no idea where it came from.

[AlGee]

l. aromatica?

[danepatrick]

you know, for a hex, you've pulled it off very well. i really like your scape. i love the way the leaves on the b. caroliniana look so symetrical. the front though, would look so much more awesome if it were completely hair grass. i would break that clump up, and plant tiny pieces about 1/2" apart and let that baby spread!

[fresh_lynny]

Originally Posted by AlGee

l. aromatica?

yep definitely...a hijacking Limnophila aromatica

[Solstice]

Originally Posted by danepatrick

you know, for a hex, you've pulled it off very well. i really like your scape. i love the way the leaves on the b. caroliniana look so symetrical. the front though, would look so much more awesome if it were completely hair grass. i would break that clump up, and plant tiny pieces about 1/2" apart and let that baby spread!

Thank you, sir. I had no idea how to plant the hairgrass and just stuffed it into the Eco Complete. I am planning my big maintenance day on this tank tomorrow and will break it up then. Thanks for the tip.

I've decided to pull about 80% of the rotala out and move it to the other tank. My Oscar doesn't tolerate the plants, but he's cleared everything (plastic plants, rocks and even SAND!!!) out of "his side" of the tank, so I've got the entier other side to play with. He rarely cruises over there, and when he does it's usually just to grab a pellet from the feeding hole. I'm going to leave the other 20% of the rotala where it is an move the bacopa infront of it.

I've already taken out one of the java ferns which I now realize was almost invisible in this shot - it's behind the cabomba about 1/2 way up the tank. Haven't had much luck with it or the other java fern towards the bottom. They just keep sending off plantlets which I'm tired of looking at. Just about every leaf has plantlets sprouting out of it. I think I'll leave the bottom fern there for now as it wasn't as bad as the other one.

I'll post another pic tomorrow after the rescape.

And thanks AlGee and fresh for the ID of the l.aromatica. I kinda like it although it's still small. I think I'll let it grow there for awhile

[Solstice]

Here's a pic after Sunday's trim. I'm almost back to where I started when the tank was first planted, haha. I've also included a pic of my reddest cherry shrimp. If you look really closely or click through to the full size version of the pic, you can see a couple dozen of her babies in the moss behind her.


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