# 10g tank. Comments please! <56k warning> 5.28.06 New Pics!



## h20 plant (Dec 21, 2005)

I would say you might need some red plants


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

What red plants do you recommend? I would want something low tech and readily available. I have either 2wpg or 4wpg. I dont remember... Either the bulbs were both 10 watts or 20 watts.


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## uncskainch (Feb 22, 2005)

Some of the reddish brown crypts will grow well even if you have low light. (I grew them in my tank -- SLOWLY -- with less than 1 WPG for almost a year before upgrading my lighting to 2.5 wpg.) And they are pretty readily available -- my LFS has them often, and I've seen crypts at Petsmart from time to time.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

well i did the smartest thing i could do, and looked at the labeling on the bulb. It says 6,500k and 15w... so thats 3wpg. Ok I will try to get Cryptocoryne beckettii, which says its easy to take care of, and light levels can be low or high. Also might try the other brown ones. Do you know if any of the crypts could be sold on those "grow your own bulb" things?


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## nddonegan (Apr 11, 2006)

The plants look good, but I really don't like the rock pile. If it were my tank I would remove it.

I'm not crazy about your substrate either, so I would get something short growing up front and center - it looks like you just added the willow moss.. maybe a few more discs? Or more dwarf sag.

Just my personal opinions... other than that I think it looks great!


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## yoink (Apr 21, 2005)

The tank looks great. It could use a trim, but the jungle look is nice too. You should try to sink that airstone so the bubbles have more time to disolve.


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## Livebearer101 (Feb 7, 2006)

Id certainly want to neaten it up abit. Nice plants but try to trim and/or replant also to get a nice bushy, neat but not artificial aquascape. Id certainly cut everything back and put a bit of driftwood in there. Then put all the plants behind the driftwood and try a moss carpet or somethnig in front of the wood - i the foreground. Good luck!

Edit - Oh, and i dont know if it's me, but shouldnt he have at least some nitrate levels to combat ammonia?


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

well thanks everyone. I have trimmed the wisteria yesterday and replanted it all... I have a gut feeling that wisteria is kinda too big for a 10 gallon tank, or maybe i can throw away some, and rescape a lot of things. 

O yah and i dont like the gravel either nddonegan. I will try to buy more if i get more money, and prob something with fert in it. And what do you mean by the rock pile? you mean the flat rocks with wisteria on it? If so, I was planning to let the willow moss grow and get that cool shape, and then once i get more gravel, make a good rockscape out of it, but theres not much room... O yah and what do u mean by discs?

and about the nitrate level. theres a really small tint of pink in the test strip. I cant read 5 or 10 on mine. I can only read 0 or 20 so i said 0 beacuse it was a lot closer color to 0. i would say about 5 is my ppm.

I would also love a driftwood in there... but low budget you see. I might visit some kind of stream looking for some, but most bodies of water are pretty far from me, and being 14 I can't drive myself. 

Also, I've kept the dwarf sags in there for 3 months about now, and none of them are propogating. Any tips?


Edit: O i know what the rockpile you were talking about is. That was a plastic(?) decoration that i bought almost since i started fish keeping. I will probably get rid of it.

2nd Edit: Yah and i put the airstone below the intake so most of the bubbles go to filter, otherwise most that escape r really small.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Ok im tired of edits, so im just gonna post another one.

Ok about the red plants. I will try to get some cryptocoryne becketii. On this website it says its easy to take care of, and stays red. Anyone have experience with this plant?


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

WELL

I changed a lot of things. First of all, I took out all the wisteria, cut the roots that were not underground, but on the nodes. Then i threw ones that look more like the emersed wisteria than the submersed wisteria. The water is a little cloudy due to the roots uprooted which caused lots of mini debris to cloud the tank.











Where do you think i can put the red plant? Right now I am considering Becketti (seems that it can turn green. Anyone know how to keep it red?) or some other brown-red crypt.

I left more room on the foreground, so maybe i can get a dwarf sag grass effect. I might consider glosso, but is 30 watts good enough in a 10 gallon?
I also planted the floating anacharis.(one is still floating...) and yes that is a scratch on the tank.


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## oceanaqua (Nov 24, 2005)

For red plants, I would just go with a simple ludwigia, hygro 'rosenvig', tiger lily and rotala rountifolia(rotala indica in fish stores). Dwarf sags would work as a foreground nicely. I wouldnt recommend glosso though, I wouldn't grow them in gravel size that big. Try to have a deeper substrate as well as smaller grain, from the looks of it its only 2" deep.

Btw..if you are short on cash, try to sale your trimming on swap and shop


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## Livebearer101 (Feb 7, 2006)

Looks alot better but i agree that wisteria will eventually have to be replaced, its still way too big for the tank and puts everything out of scale. Driftwood isnt that expensive so you should look into it. My dwarf sags were propagating either but then when i rescaped, i moved them to a more spacious place that gets more light. They now propagate like mad. Good luck


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Well I am planning to trade my hornwort and wisteria clippings for some other clippings, preferably red plants. So wish me luck on the trade... I have no idea on how to package plants and where I can go to ship them...


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Ok someone is giving me free clippings free shipping. So i will be planning to use my budget on some of Seachem's fluorite. Is it alright if i just mix it together with my existing substrate?


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## JonMulzer (Apr 6, 2003)

I probably would not mix it if I were you. At least not with what you have now. The gravel you have now would ruin the look of the Fluorite, no offense.  One bag would probably be plenty anyway. Two inches of substrate is plenty for a 10 gallon.


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## h20 plant (Dec 21, 2005)

I suggest the mixing because it might be cheeper if he can find half a bag or so but if not then yea 1 bag works fine. The only down side is that it is $20 There is also another type of soil that is cheeper and has a ph buffer in it but I dont remember the name it looks like little clay balls and that is $10. Or you can stick to the rock and grow a crypts jungle.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

ok I guess i will stick to the plain gravel i have. If i do ever come across a gravel that has similar color to mine, and has fertilizer in it, I will buy it and mix it. I wanted to create a rockscape out of the slates of rock with willow moss on it. Still growing though.

And IF i would only want fluorite, Do i have to replace ALL my existing gravel. Meaning I will ruin the biological filter, uproot all my plants and risking crypt melt?


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

There are lots of aquascapers that mix Flourite and regular gravel like you have and it looks good. I am one of them. I mixed a 50% gravel/Flourite mix for a 40 gal. It is done for economic reasons. Plants still get full benefit from the mix.

I would use some small chuncks of petrified wood instead of the slate. The petrified wood looks alot better than slate


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## oceanaqua (Nov 24, 2005)

One thing I notice is that plants also benefit from a thin layer of peat on the bottom. Just my suggestion.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

I'm going to be planning to bye some substrate with fert, and decided to go with black eco-complete. I live in San Diego. Where should I go to to buy Eco-complete. Does anywhere have it? Aquatic Warehouse, Pet Kingdom or Fountains is my choice. Also the everyday petsmart or petco of course.

Edit: and where else for driftwood?


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

Just my opinion on Eco-Complete. I don't like it as well as Flourite. Used both, flourite in my 40 gal and Eco-Complete in my 8 gal. I like the way both look but it seems like Flourite is a better product. Why not try the black type of Flourite if you want to have a black substrate. I will on my next tank.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Ok no substrate or new plants yet, BUT!

I think my anubias is starting to FLOWER!!! not sure though... At least I hope it's flowering



What kind of things should I do to keep it flowering. Take the anubias outside out of water, but still in humidity???? I will search for things, but other people's experience may be helpful. It would be AWESOME if I could get seeds!


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

:angryfire holy SH**. :angryfire Fluorite makes lots of and lots of cloudiness.

Ok this is what i did. Took maybe a third of the flourite, that was in the bag. Put it in a bucket, and rinsed with a hose. I've heard somehwere that you dont' want it crystal clear, because then all the nutrients will be gone, so I let it be a little cloudy. I took out all the plants, and fish. Then took out maybe 50% of the water out and put it in a jug. Then i added the flourite. Now I can't see sh**. I started planting the wisteria as if I was blindfolded. So I planted most of it, and ran out of room... so I let everything else float except the sag and the one crypt.. then i put the fish in. well any suggestions to make everything more clear? Such as a better filter floss? Diatom? not sure what diatom filters are, but I know they get diatoms which are TINY I think.

here's a picture...


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

good luck... its nice to see another person my age on the board,... but now i cant say im the youngest.... maybe youngest active member tho:icon_mrgr 

as for the flourite. its REEALLY dirty! like REALLY DIRTY 

water changes will help alot. the whole biological filtering thing with removing substriaght... plants have alot of good stuff on them. also if you dont clean out your bio media in your filter that will help

you can also get a bag of filter floss and pretty much on the hour turn off the filter empty it, rinse the floss. and once the floss gets impossible to rinse out throw it away and repeat... that will help.

so good luck on your adventure... ive had fun on mine...

i started with a 10g and i also have a 55g if you where wondering what i keep tankwise lol...

money is always a problem.,... selling plants and fish is a great way to get money tho..

-=- fish newb -=-


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Hey cool person of my age. yay. Well the water cleared up A LOT MORE. I can see all the way to the other side! lol. But still it's cloudy, kind of like a bacteria bloom, but its the flourite. All the sevris is now on my moss, leaves, everything solid. Also, I noticed I want more flourite in there. Didn't use the whole bag so I'll do it today. This time rinsing it A LOT and in smaller quantities.


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

sandiegoryu said:


> Hey cool person of my age. yay. Well the water cleared up A LOT MORE. I can see all the way to the other side! lol. But still it's cloudy, kind of like a bacteria bloom, but its the flourite. All the sevris is now on my moss, leaves, everything solid. Also, I noticed I want more flourite in there. Didn't use the whole bag so I'll do it today. This time rinsing it A LOT and in smaller quantities.



yeah for me i figured ah wut ever ill see how bad it is... i put the whole bag in without washing.... OMG it was like looking at a piece of brown cardboard

but i didnt have anything in it so i took it all out and washed it for an hour... then it finally wasnt bad.. a little murky but it all settled...

when you do water changes make sure to get the "dust" that will settle out... or every time you do something in there for the next few monthss it will go crazy.

-=- fish newb -=-


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

Well it's the .rd day since the flourite, and it REALLY clear now, well at least compared to day one. And the anubias flower, I dont think that was a flower. It opened up and it looks like a leaf... does anubias sometimes do this to taunt you? I don't see that happening in other new leaves..



I put the slates of rock that had the willow moss on it underneath the gravel, so that only the moss shows up... kinda weird but better than just letting the slates sit there. I'm planning to get rid of the slates, and make a moss wall, with willow moss... Might be kind of weird. Also I plan on getting HC for a foreground. Unless my sagittaria finds the flourite nice and starts making a carpet! Might turn out to be too tall for a 10 gallon. If that happens I'll put the sag in the middle ground area and the HC on the foreground. Also, if i have money left I would like to get some shrimps, preferably cherry shrimps, because they eat hair algae and they reproduce a lot. My white clouds will prob eat the babies but they some might survive the filter.

Anyone have any HC they will be willing to give me. I will pay shipping! Not now though I dont have any money, but will at the end of the week.

O yah and the free plant package not here yet. CANT WAIT.


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

At least someone warned you about florite. When I first found some, I had no idea that it had so much dust, so I did what I do with regular gravel and just dumped it in. Oh My GOSH!! Instant mud puddle. At that point everyone was like, oh yeah. You need to rinse this stuff. Followed by "it'll settle out". After a week, I could sorta see the background, and hints of equipment.

I went out and got a cheap whisper internal filter and a remnant of white sheeting type fabric, which I cut in pieces big enough to fit around the bio bag. I changed these pieces of fabric at least once a day for another week.

Then I bought another bag :icon_lol:


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

Read the instructions on the bag I thought it says to rinse the stuff. The best way is to place it in a large bucket and stick the garden hose into the substrate all the way to the bottom of the bucket. turn on the water and just let it over flow for a while. then move the hose around to stir up the substrate and let the water overflow once again. Do this several times. Then just let the water overflow until you get clear water.

Once it is rinsed outside then carefully place it into the aquarium. place a bowl on top of the substate. Gently fill the tank by placing the water into the bowl. This will prevent the substrate from becoming stirred up and causing a dust bowl effect.

Following these simple instructions with any clay-based substrate will give you clear water alot quicker.


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## Ryzilla (Oct 29, 2005)

best way to rince flourite is dump 1/8 of the bag into a 5 gallon bucket. Go outside or in a utility tub and run water over the graval at a medium force while holding the bucket at a 45 degree angles. Water will constantley flow in while there is a constant flow out. I like to prop the bucket at 45 degrees so I can get my hands in there and really stir up the flourite. I dont like to rinse all the way though. I Like it to be a lil cloudy.


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

OK thank you all you guys for giving me tips on cleaning flourite and stuff. Well my tank is pretty much crystal clear now. And btw, how do you change the title of the thread? 

Also I will be planning to get cherry shrimp, and a new nano. the red sea nano kit at petco. Anyone have any experience on the red sea nano kit? If I am succesful at breeding, I plan to use it to house any babies I can catch and any plant clippings I don't need. Also no heater. Cherry shrimp babies will be fine right?


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

and no package of crypts and others yet. I HOPE it comes later today or tomorrow...


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

im not formilliar with the exact product you are talking about. as for a heater.... your in CA so you dont really need it im guessing as long as your house's temp is around 70-75 

you can change the topic title by clicking on your first post. and hitting the edit botton. then you see the message you typed and you can change it. where it says "go advanced" hit that botton. that lets you change the title and many other things.

good luck with the shrimp, ive had good experience with shrimp in the past and am planning on making a little "propagation" buisness with some diffrent kinds of shrimp. just be sure of two things no big hungry mouths and no copper... any type for that matter. take no chances.

good luck keep on researching more more more.!!

- fish newb -


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## TINNGG (Mar 9, 2005)

aquaphish said:


> Read the instructions on the bag I thought it says to rinse the stuff.


All gravel says to rinse first to remove dust. Over the course of 20-some years and several 100s of pounds of gravel, I never ran into this mythical dust - until florite. Complacency would be a good description, although in all fairness, I did attempt to rinse it because it did look dusty. Didn't help much. I suspect though that a big part of the problem was adding it to a tank that already had water in it. I didn't make the same mistake with my daughter's tank (but then she decided she didn't want to fool with plants - $40 worth of florite, just sitting there. Could have gotten her the pink stuff a lot cheaper)


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## sandiegoryu (Feb 15, 2006)

*Update*

Ok I have a question. And an update... I guess. Nothing really changed as for aquascape. Well I got the cherry shrimp I've always wanted!! Thanks Turbomkt! One even has eggs after about 2 days of them being in my tank! My dad now lets me use his camera! Better pictures yay. Shrimp pictures are way too hard to take. My dad's camera is a SLR Canon 5D. All I need is a filter for about 30 bucks and I may be able to get some serious macro shots! The saggitaria propagates really well right now. Also thanks to a RAOK, I got some glossostigma! thanks Jeep8rus, or maybe it was Jeff. Forgot who already... sorry. Well the other RAOK was of MTS and a few ramshorn, which I have kept in my little 1gal tank for clippings. No filter, only light, plants, and dechlorinated water. No maintenace on this tank what so ever. I was scared the MTS would uproot my newly planted gloss. As soon as I recognize the glosso multiplying, I will add the MTS. I think I covered everything new that happened so far. The ramshorn although are in my 10 gallon.

I had some BBA, but now its gone. I simply stopped dosing too much Seachem's Flourish and started regularly dosing Flourish Excel, and the BBA was dying, and the cherries ate the dead BBA!

I will get rid of the wisteria. Anyone want them? All are pretty much touching the top of my tank right now, and are rooted. They will be healthy and algae free thanks to the cherries and some excel! No guarantee on snail free though. I will try to get rid of them. I will also be willing to trade for some stem plants. Need ones that would not be too big (as in width) for a 10 gallon. Wisteria is way too big. 

The free plant package is not here yet... Sadly Johnmulzer will not respond to my pm's, and I think he may just be busy or sick. He told me he was sick and that was a purpose of delay, and nothing else after that... O well I gave on it a long time ago anyway.

I would also like to thank Mike, (turbomkt) for all the kindness he has given me and the shrimp. Thank you!

Here are some pictures. Hope you like them!



Oops I almost forgot about the question!! Will a red crypt such as wendetti become too large for my 10 gallon as a midground plant? If so, is there another crypt out there that would be red and be a nice midground plant for a 10 gallon?

Edit: Oops I did a repeat on one of the pictures. Took it out.


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## Burks (May 21, 2006)

Your tank is looking great. Much better than mine and I'm 6 years older. 

Just goes to show you that in this hobby, age means nothing.


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## chenaus (May 21, 2006)

i like the little fishies in the tank


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