First post: First Tank 10 gal

1363 Views 12 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Ltraine, May 14, 2014

Ltraine

Discussion Starter · Apr 30, 2014

I saw this section of this website and thought it might be fun to keep track of my tank in a place where people who actually enjoy this hobby can see it and comment (unlike instagram, haha). well here it is: i have two tanks, a 1gal lightly planted tank with a betta named Atlas and nerite snail. (pic soon)

and a 10 gal with 2 blue dwarf gouramis, some green neon tetras 4 golden mountain fish (i think thats what they're called) and 3 ghost Shrimp: this tank was originally a betta community tank with some cories and no gouramis but a huge outbreak of cyanobacteria and my ignorance as to what it was led to a massive die off and i'm currently rebuilding. here is what the tank looked like before my rebuild/revamp:

and here's the tank currently:

I have flourite as my substrate, several crypts, some java moss i just planted as well as an amazon sword, amazon microsword, some java ferns, rotala indica, and a few anubias. there's also some straggling dwarf hairgrass from when i thought i could get a carpet over a large substrate like flourite (wishful thinking i've found, unless someone has some secret for it

) i'm running two spiral CFL's giving me just under 3 watt's/gallon (2.6) and i dose with Flourish.

any advice on this tank would be awesome i want to do a DIY CO2 system this summer when i move into a more stable living situation (in dorms right now), but i tried to do it and didnt have much luck with it last semester. =/

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Ltraine

Discussion Starter · #2 · May 1, 2014

So i've been having a hard time getting my Rotala Indica to stay rooted in my substrate

it stays for like 3 days then floats up too the top of the tank seemingly on its own even with no fish swimming through them. does anyone have any planting tips on getting them too stay rooted?

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lauraleellbp

· #3 · May 1, 2014

Have you tried using tweezers to grab it at the base and pull it well down into your substrate?

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Hilde

· #4 · May 1, 2014

Ltraine said:
So i've been having a hard time getting my Rotala Indica to stay rooted in my substrate . does anyone have any planting tips on getting them too stay rooted?

You could use plant weights.

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Ltraine

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 1, 2014

@lauraleell i have tried literally everything in terms of burying them, i'm worried i might not have enough substrate in that part of my tank but it seems as deep as the rest of my tank (i havent actually measured though)

@hilde is that alright? i've always removed the weights because i thought they would damage the plants in the long run.

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Ltraine

Discussion Starter · #6 · May 2, 2014 (Edited)

so a quick update on how the tank is doing, i began dosing excel on top of my flourish this week and i just switched to 6500k CFL's bringing my emission spectrum to the full range of beneficial wavelengths. also bringing me up to exactly 3 watts/gallon. i'm hoping to get some otos for my tank soon there's a really good sale for em at petsmart (my LFS is just too expensive sometimes unfortunately, as much as i love em). also i've given up on getting the rotala to root right now, i just dont have the patience to figure it out on top of finals and other crap. so they're just floating in the tank right now.

in other news i'm moving into a house this summer and if things turn out to be a long term arrangement (Which it most likely is), i'm looking at starting a 40gal heavily planted Apistogramma community tank with maybe a breeding tank as well! i'm super excited about that haha

. any advice on a good tank size for both the community tank and the breeding environment would be much appreciated while i'm in the planning phase.

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Ltraine

Discussion Starter · #7 · May 6, 2014

so this isnt related to my 10 gal, but i bought a 40 gal long tank a few days ago at a yardsale for $25

. i'm planning on making it an Apisto Tank this summer with the aquascape being themed after albuquerque's landscape. here's a mock up i did for it:

Albuquerque is bordered by the sandia mountain range on the east and three dormant volcanoes on the west with a Bosque (spanish for river forest) surrounding the rio grande river running in between them. so for the hardscape i was planning on finding black lava rock out by the volcanoes for one territory of the tank then rock from the sandias for the other side then put a driftwood "tree" in the middle then surround all these places with various plants with a Dwarf Hairgrass carpet in the center. then i'd use play sand on the side with the volcanoe because its more dessert out that way then plants. hopefully this isnt too much going on and wont make the tank seem cluttered because i think it would make a really unique symbolic tank.

i'll start a tank journal for that one once i get out of the planning stages and start putting hardscape down

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lauraleellbp

· #8 · May 6, 2014

Gratz on the score, and big plans!

With the other tank- you probably need to back down on your lighting until after you get CO2 going.

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Hilde

· #9 · May 6, 2014

Congrats on the score!! Seems like you've been bitten by the aqua bug and now are and addict as I am.

The tree looks to be in the middle. It would be better to be more towards the right. Thirds rule that photographers use here. Rah-bop's example

Oh, by the weigh the weights don't damage the plants. I get 2 for 1 plants at a Pet Supermarket and they have weights.

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lauraleellbp

· #10 · May 6, 2014

Any time I've used plant weights, the stem has rotted underneath them.

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umarnasir335

· #11 · May 6, 2014

Yeah, plant weights are a big no-no. They'll make your stems weak and brittle, which will definitely affect growth.

Congrats on the 40 gallon score btw

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mistuhmarc

· #12 · May 6, 2014

If the plants keep floating back up, they're not rooting very well after being planted. Try to use tweezers to plant them deep into the substrate. I've also found that deeper substrates makes it easier to plant plants.

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Ltraine

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 14, 2014

so i havent done an update in a while due to finals but here's whats happened:
i purchased a micro co2 unit off amazon to get pressurized co2 in the tank (i think it was made by fluval?) it got mixed reviews but i figured it was cheap enough to at least give it a try. i hated the diffuser that came with it so i just ran the tubing into the intake of my filter and let the impeller do the rest.

i'm not sure how many bubbles/min i should be setting it to for my tank or really what that even means but i have it set as low as possible for now so i dont alter the pH too dramatically.

i'll get pics up and stuff soon i'm kinda busy with moving out of my dorm (transporting the tank should be interesting....)

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