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My First Planted Tank. 10 Gallon

1011 Views 8 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  Kristian, 
B
Hello! This is my first post here. Finally taking the plung into planted tanks. I have a 10 Gallon tank that I want to make into a planted tank for my bedroom. I plan to start with Water Wisteria and eventually a Christmas Moss Carpet. These seem to be beginner friendly. Just until I learn more about aquarium plants.

My 10 Gallon currently has:
Plain black gravel
2x 10 watt Coralife ColorMax Bulbs
Aqueon 10 Gallon HOB

I plan to upgrade to:
Eco Complete Substrate
2x 20 watt Coralife ColorMax Bulbs
Flourish Excel

I wanted to know what you all think about this planned upgrade.

Should I purchase Eco Complete or should I look into a different substrate? No Dirt.

Since I'll have 40 Watts of light (4WPG) will Flourish Excel be enough to keep algae away?

Should I stick with the ColorMax Bulbs or should I go with regular 6500K?

Is there anything I'm missing or I should keep in mind as far as nutrients or equipment?
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T
Par, not watts
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lauraleellbp
WPG is still a decent guideline when dealing with CFL bulbs.

You could stick with 2x10 watts and grow the plants you've listed. Just run your DIY CO2 with that and you should see good growth from your plants.

I wouldn't bother switching out your substrate, either- neither the water wisteria nor moss are particular about substrates.
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THE V
Everything else is fine for a low-tech beginner tank but stick with the 10w lights. High light over a small tank without CO2 is a mess. Dosing with excel is a good idea at the beginning to get the plants growing.

Any 5000-6500k bulb will work you don't need ti stick with a brand
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T
I have a somewhat similar setup, especialy in that I am also a total newb in the planted tank world.

The biggest differnce between your setup and mine is that I have one 23watt 6500K CFL and one 23watt 5000K CFL. I'm playing with the lighting's height above the waterline...

I choose a few different plants: Anubias, Anacharis, Dwarf Baby Tears, and a Water Fern. I plan to see which ones like my "habitat" and which ones don't. Those that like it, stay. Those that don't, meet Mr. Turtle. I'll want to keep up with how your Water Wisteria does...

When I got some brown algae growing LauraLee suggested I get some Nerite snails. They are relly cool to watch and they eat algae all day long :) so I haven't yet messed with Excel.

One other thing that I think is pretty fun (simple minds easily pleased) some say essential is a water test kit, so you can wach the various/import chemicals in your tank.

Have fun!

I'll keep checking back in to see how your's is doing...

Todd
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B
I have 6 or 7 10g tanks that I run as fairly low light planted tanks with between 13 and 25watt cfl lighting. One even runs with a 14w t8 fixture. I find there are lots of plants that will grow in that light. I don't add any co2 nor do I use excel on these tanks. What I do find is that they benefit from small dosing of fertilization on a regular basis.
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B
BruceF said:
I have 6 or 7 10g tanks that I run as fairly low light planted tanks with between 13 and 25watt cfl lighting. One even runs with a 14w t8 fixture. I find there are lots of plants that will grow in that light. I don't add any co2 nor do I use excel on these tanks. What I do find is that they benefit from small dosing of fertilization on a regular basis.
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What type of ferts do you use?
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B
trujhs Cool! I'll surely be in touch. Do you have any pics?


S/N The reason I want the 2x 20 watt lighting set up is because I want to eventually grow mid to high light plants. I was told I can get away with a high tech set up and use Excel instead of DIY co2 in my 10 gallon. Is this true?
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Kristian
I would just suggest adding some root tabs, api root tabs have worked wonders in all of my tanks.
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