# 10 Gal planted dirted work tank



## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I decided to start a new tank that I can bring to work and have at my desk. I've been talking about bringing in fish for a while and my co-workers that sit near me liked the idea, so I decided to go ahead and do it... I was going to a few months ago, but when I changed my 55 gal tank substrate from the old stones to eco-complete I ended up crashing the tank, and my plan was to populate the work tank with fry from my home tank. So my plans were put on hold for a while...

My home tank is finally starting to get the population of molly/guppy fry up, as well as I have 20-30 cory cat fry that I've hatched out that I'm waiting for them to get a bit bigger to turn loose in my tank... so my breeding stock is getting up where it needs to be to be able to start my work tank, so I went and bought another 10 gallon tank yesterday.

I decided that since it is a work tank it will be a pain in the butt to do regular water changes, so I want to do a planted tank again... but I'm still not sold on the benefits of the eco-complete in my tank at home... my plants are growing now that I upgraded my lights, but I wanted to try something different with this tank... 

I set the tank up last night and put a gallon of water in it, then decided to use some miracle-grow potting soil that I had at the house to make a 1 1/2 - 2" thick bottom layer, which I then covered with about 12-13lbs of small gravel that I had left over at home from a previous tank to hold the potting soil in place.

I'll let the tank cycle for a few weeks (or move my filter floss from my 55 over to it) before I bring it to work (that way by the time I set it up at work I can put fish in it, so people don't pick on me for having an empty fish tank at my desk, and I can have it all set up before any management realizes it - I barely ever see my boss, so I think I can get away with keeping the tank at my desk, but there's only one way to find out!).

I had a nice piece of driftwood that I cut a little shorter so it would fit in the 10 gallon tank as a center piece that gives it some dimension... then I'll add some low light low tech plants over the next few weeks before I bring it to work.

I'm currently planning on using my stock hood from my other 10 gallon tank that I've removed now that I upgraded my lights on my SW tank, so right now I have two spiral CFL 50/50 10000K/actinic bulbs in the hood right now. These are only 13W bulbs, so I will probably upgrade them to something a little stronger - but I want to stick with the stock hood to help keep stuff out of the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions on bulbs that will fit a stock hood like the CFL bulbs that would work good for a 10 gal planted tank?

Any suggestions on plants I could keep that wouldn't need a lot of maintenance? In my tank at home I have DHG which seems to be doing OK, but hasn't spread any yet, plus dwarf baby tears (HC), water wisteria, java fern, a couple of other unimpressive plants and a lot of algae! 

Any tips on using potting soil / gravel combination? Am I doomed? Will the miracle-grow cause a problem for the fish in the water?

Looking forward to advice / help! Will post some pics as soon as I can!


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## maux (Sep 26, 2013)

I don't have anything revolutionary to add as far as plants. Amazon sword and nana are pretty widely recommended low light plants. A ludwigia repens might be good and grow up into the water column along with the amazon sword.

I have heard of people using miracle-grow with shrimp which I would generally suppose means it would be safe for fish. My only thought would be that 3" - 3.5" of substrate is a bit much. How much do you have total after the gravel is in there?


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

its probably only about 3" total, but I figured the potting soil might compress some with the gravel on top of it... 

Do I need to wait until my tank cycles to add plants? Plants will consume ammonia won't they? So it should be safe to plant it now...? I didn't test last night, but I want to wait until I see ammonia in the tank, then I was going to move my filter floss from my other tank over there to hopefully help speed up the cycle, but wanted to make sure I saw ammonia first so I would know when it was safe to put fish in it...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

Here is a pic of the tank. Nothing spectacular yet, other than my driftwood that I put in the tank. I'm not 100% set on how the driftwood sits yet, I might have to cut the limb going towards the top a little shorter to be able to rotated it so that limb is in the front right bottom of the tank... the way it is here it has a lot of the front of the tank blocked.

I put in my second order with Planted Aquariums Central to pick up some plants for this tank as well as a couple more for my 55 planted tank. I was mostly trying to stick with low light plants because my plan is to use the stock hood with two spiral CFL 13 or 14w bulbs in it based on some reading I've been doing with these two bulbs horizontally mounted in the hood it should be adequate for low light plants without kicking me in to higher lighting...

I ordered Vallisneria Spiralis, Dwarf Onion Plant, Hygrophila corymbosa, Eleocharis parvula (dwarf hairgrass), Cryptocoryne undulate, and also CABOMBA PALAEFORMIS that will go in my 55 gal to add a little different color.

I'm debating how to aquascape the tank to make it look good with these plants... I have DHG in my 55 that hasn't been spreading much, I broke what I had purchased previously apart in to small chunks and planted them a few inches apart hoping they will spread to fill in, but so far no real noticeable growth there. Should I do the same with this tank, split them in to small chunks and try spreading them across the front of the tank to start a lawn? The Val and dwarf onion plant will of course be at the back, but I don't know how big do they get / will they reproduce to fill in if I leave space, or should I put both plants somewhat close together to make a taller planted area of the tank in the back left / center?

Then with the crypt and the hygrophila I'm thinking on the LH and RH mid space of the tanks (and of course plant the DHG last so I can fill in the front after I figure out how much space the others take)...

Any suggestions? I want a really lush tank that fills in with lots of plants and will most likely just move some guppies/mollies/corys from my home tank to work, with maybe some amanos if I can find them, otherwise will probably just add some ghost shrimp since I haven't been able to find anything local other than ghost shrimp... 

I'm open to dosing flourish / excel if I need to, but don't want CO2 and don't want a lot of maintenance for water changes / trimmings.

Looking forward to any advice I can get...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I've been looking at some nice scapes and realized I'm just BLAH, so I've been trying to rethink this to add a little more dimension to the tank. I think I'm going to get rid of the driftwood that I have in the tank currently, will drain the tank and remove the gravel, then use the potting soil to build up a little more of an aquascape, then put the gravel back on top again to hold the potting soil in place. I've sketched up my thoughts in the attached pic. 

To start I'll have the soil start taller in the back then slant down to the front, and I'll also do the same from the back left corner towards the center of the tank to give it a bigger hill in the back. I'm going to use a smaller piece of driftwood and a couple rocks as the center pieces then fill in my plants around them... I'm thinking the vals / onions will be in the back RH corner since they are taller they should hopefully help hide the filter pipe and heater in that corner. I'm debating about building a little box around the filter inlet to keep plants from getting sucked back to the filter inlet, I have a few scrap pieces of Plexiglas from a different project that I could silicone in place, keeping it up off the bottom so it will still suck water below and above, but keep a barrier to keep plants away. 

The other plants like the crypto and hygro I think I'll plant on the hill in the LH side of the tank, then the DHG will be planted in the front of the tank and leave a little stone walkway going through the middle of it (once it eventually fills in)...

Will DHG spread faster if I plant individual stems slightly apart from each other, or in larger bunches? I really want the DHG to fill in but doubt I have enough to cover much area with the order that I placed yesterday... maybe I'll keep it all to the left front and place another order for something else that will make a carpet for the RH front... idk I need help!


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## dasmall1 (Oct 14, 2013)

The lighting is going to be pretty tough for the dwarf hairgrass, but not impossible! It is going to grow very slowly under the lights. Like at a very frustrating pace. You might consider planting them in bunches near your stem plants and getting some dwarf sag to do more of the groundcover in the front. That will also give you a little more depth. Dwarf hairgrass is rather tall to be right up front.

Also, if you're looking to do fewer trimmings, check out some anubias species for your wood.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I rearranged my tank a little bit. I took the gravel out then put a couple of rocks down in the back then put the dirt over them to build a little bigger hills in the back. Then put the gravel back on... I changed the driftwood out to a little smaller piece, but its still not my favorite look yet, this piece ended up being bigger than I thought it was so takes up more room than I was thinking... I've got it tied to the rocks right now because it is dry so floats, once it sinks I will probably take the rocks back out because they seem to take up a lot of room, not a lot of room left now for plants... there is a little hill in the back left corner, that I think will still be good to plant something like the cryptos on. 

I can use the DHG to help fill in some more on my 55 if you don't think it will work in here... I'll look in to the dwarf sag instead.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

woohoo I have ammonia! =) I turned back to old faithful though and tossed a piece of frozen shrimp in to kick off the cycle... 

I also decided that I didn't like the looks of the 2nd piece of driftwood either, so I've removed the driftwood and going to try and go for more of an iwagami look. I pulled some rocks from the river a while ago that I decided to use instead... this makes it look less cluttered. Then I put some red gravel down between the rocks so it kind of looks like a road and will try to plant all around and up to the road... I like the looks of this a lot better, but hoping it will look even better once I get my plants in a few days =)

I might put the DHG that I bought in to my 55 gal and pull the HC out of the 55 and put it in the 10 gal instead to have a lower carpet plant... then go with 2x23W CFL's instead to give the HC enough light...

I'll post pics of the update once the water clears, I stirred it up a bit and also a bit cloudy I think from the bacteria bloom kicking in... so once the dirt clears up I'll update pics of the new setup...


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## PeterN1986 (Jun 15, 2011)

Nice desk tank! I have my Mini-M on my desk too at work, the journal is in my sig detailing everything from Day 1. You may find some inspiration there. I also used MGOPS and capped it with eco complete. My shrimp population is thriving right now.

Water changes are not too bad, having a gallon jug and 1/4" tubing is handy. What filter will you be using?


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I forget what brand name the filter is, I just went and picked up the package starter kit that had the filter and heater included with the kit - its one of the small ones, I think probably like a whisper pf10 HOB... not sure what that's rated at, I'd assume its in the 100gph ballpark but can't find anything on it... if its rated lower than that I can swap it with the one I use for my SW tank because all I use it for on the SW tank is polishing the water after water changes... I know the one on that tank is rated at 110gph...

here is an updated picture... I think this looks a lot less cluttered, and once its planted I think it'll look nicer than having the driftwood block half the tank...

my plan is to do minimal water changes/maintenance... maybe suck out some detritus every once in a while if it looks dirty, but I think it'll actually look cleaner than my 55 at home because the 55 with eco-complete seems like there is more detritus sitting on top of the eco-complete (actually considering adding something else on top of the eco-complete to cap it), with the gravel and potting soil I think the detritus will get down out of sight easier to convert to plant food.

I have RO water at work (city tap water is terrible) so I'll just top off with RO water that is left over every day that I don't drink since currently I dump it every morning to get fresh cold water again for each day... should not be an issue (I know many people caution against using RO water since the minerals are all removed, but I use RO/DI in my 55 at home and everything has been OK... eventually I may pick up some equilibrium or something to add minerals back in, but right now its not needed)


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

awesome find today! I had looked at Wal-Mart for spiral CFL bulbs but the closest I had found to 6700K light that I was aiming for was I think 5000K or 5500K, so I hadn't bought any... today I stopped at Meijer (for those not from the Michigan/Ohio/Indiana, maybe a couple other nearby states region - another large store chain, not quite as big as Wal-mart, but still pretty popular around here) on my way home and went to check on lights. They have 6500K bulbs available and they were on sale 75% off, apparently due to some consumers energy deal going on right now... so I picked up (2) 13W bulbs for $0.99 each, I picked up (2) 18W bulbs for $1.24 each, and I picked up (2) 23W bulbs for $1.24 each... so I will work my way up from the (2) 10W 50/50 10000K/actinics that I have in there now up to the 23W if need be... I did see on here where someone was using (2) 23W spirals horizontally mounted on a 10gal and growing HC carpet very nicely without CO2... so will work my way up to that slowly so I hopefully don't cause an algae outbreak... =)

Now the next thing I need to do is work on my reflectors for the hood of the tank... I think I have seen replacement stick on material that you can use to cover your exterior mirrors with on cars... I don't think it was very expensive so I might buy that and have mirror quality reflectors...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

well as of today I've hit 4.0ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm nitrite. Going to leave the shrimp in one more day then take it out and watch my levels start heading the other way... 

I should hopefully have my plants that I ordered either tomorrow or Friday, so then it will be time to start planting the tank. I'm really excited for this tank... even though I have the big tank that I've been mostly unimpressed with my plants so far, I look forward to getting this tank planted and see how it grows... 

I'm debating on cory cats being moved in there, I thought some of the fry I might move in, but my other cory cats have shredded my HC in my 55 gal, so I might not put cories in the tank... might go with a Chinese algae eater and a snail or two (good ones, not hitchhikers hopefully), and see if I can get someone on here to sell me some amanos maybe... I've never seen amanos locally so will probably have to get them online. 

Then the other fish still thinking I'm going to stick with my guppy/molly fry for this tank now that they are starting to repopulate my 55... nothing fancy for fish, but really excited to try and get the carpet growing without having any bottom feeders that will tear the plants up in the tank...


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## annyann (Aug 31, 2013)

Your off to a really cool start on your desk top tank! I'll be tagging along to see your progress. :hihi:
Was this the tank you were thinking of changing the light guard on?


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

yes annyann this is the one I was talking about... after taking it apart and cleaning the light guard its not nearly as bad - it just had major salt creep from being on my 10 gal reef tank prior... so I cleaned it up and it looks OK now. I ended up lining the inside of the hood with aluminum foil, used silicone to glue it in place, hoping the silicone bonds to the plastic hood and the aluminum foil and holds it good, at least my initial thoughts are it seems to hold pretty good but we'll see once it dries and then has condensation on it for a bit... at least I've got a pretty much full tank size reflector...

I decided I needed to do this instead of just smaller reflectors in the hood because once I cleaned the light guard and went to put it back on with the 23W bulbs I realized the 23W bulbs are too wide to fit under the light guard and put it back together, so I dropped down to the 18W bulbs which still are a tight fit (will have to remove the light guard in order to replace the bulbs!), but at least the lights fit even though the bulbs are touching the aluminum foil and the plastic light guard... hopefully they don't run too warm and melt anything... so with a full hood reflector I should hopefully still be able to grow HC. 

I moved a few HC plants that I had in my 55 in to the 10 gal, I'm still waiting for my other plants that were supposed to be delivered today... getting a little upset they aren't here yet! I'm going to meet my wife for dinner and a movie shortly and wanted to get my plants planted before I left... tomorrow we're headed away first thing in the morning for probably most of the weekend, so might be a late night planting if they actually show up today...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I got my plants on Saturday, tossed them in the tank Saturday night then planted them sunday morning. I made a royal mess in my tank while planting them... really wish I had waited until after planted to add the gravel, especially my red gravel because I made a mess of it and have red all over now instead of a nice neat path like I had originally... so now I'm considering capping it with sand to make it look a little better and kind of regretting using the gravel all together now since it is so hard to pull back, plant then put back in place without making a mess of the dirt... idk I guess its a learning experience... I am almost tempted to pull it all out and start over again, but my wife is already upset that I spend too much time working on my tanks so probably wouldn't be a good thing to start over again...


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## Asu1776 (Mar 5, 2013)

Yeah, I avoided the "path" design because I knew with my tendency to rescape, that I would simply just mix all the colors of gravel. I think people generally use sand as a the cap over dirty, maybe because the finer particles hold the dirt down better. Show us a picture of your tank when you have time to rescape. If it helps, I did a drawing/ blueprint of my tank before I rescaped to make sure I knew what I was doing.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

this is just my second tank that I've tried planting, first one all I did was stick plants in, nothing fancy, this one I'm trying to make look a bit better but its trashed now... gonna run to the LFS to find some dark sand tonight then will redo the red path... will post a pic tonight of what it looks like, meant to take one this morning but forgot =|


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

here is how the tank looks now, after planting... its still kind of a mess... I ran to petsmart and picked up some black Tahitian moon sand (I think that's what it was called anyway) that I'm going to cap over the gravel to hopefully make it look better... I only bought 5lbs though, so I'm hoping it will be enough to cap it to make it look better because I didn't want to buy 20lbs of it...

I'll siphon it out when I get home tomorrow and cap the sand without much / any water in it and then refill it and hopefully it will look a lot better when I'm done...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

Here is an updated picture after I added the Tahitian moon sand... I like the looks of it a lot better now, I think I'm good to go now unless I have to redo things as plants start to grow... otherwise I'm happy with the look for now... I think it looks a lot sharper with the black sand and red gravel road (almost a country song... red dirt road... red rock road...)


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

Yay! I moved my tank to work this past weekend (Sunday 10/27/13), it has been receiving quite a bit of attention this week with just the plants in it... I've been testing my water the last couple of days and finally hit 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite! It's ready to go! Taking tomorrow off, but will plan on starting to stock it next week... 

I'm still debating about what I want to stock it with. I have my guppies, mollies reproducing like crazy in my 55, but I don't know if I want to keep going with them or stock something different... I only have 4 or 5 adult guppies and 2 adult mollies in the 55, the rest are so small they don't really have any color to them yet (except some of the guppies I can tell are from my one female guppy with a gray body and blue tail, those babies stuck out since day 1 with their blue tails)... 

I don't have any algae eaters at home (but might have to add some again...) thinking I will try and find some amano shrimp maybe... but my local stores don't stock shrimp (other than ghost shrimp, which are still a cool addition to the tank, just not very useful for algae). I already have some algae growth in the work tank, so will add something to start cleaning up... I have had terrible luck with plecos, I did have a Chinese algae eater that lasted a long time until my tank crashed, might get another one of those, but they get so ugly when they get bigger... idk! Maybe I'll head to the LFS tomorrow and see what catches my eye...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

took the day off today, went to 3 different LFS to see what was going on... last stop was at Petsmart, they had really good prices on a bunch of their fish... so I bought a dozen neon tetras and took 6 of them to work and gave a co-worker directions to float the fish for 30 minutes then dump them in... so hopefully she managed that without a problem.. the other 6 I brought home to add more color to my 55 at home... also added some ghost shrimp to the 55.


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## annyann (Aug 31, 2013)

rininger85 said:


> took the day off today, went to 3 different LFS to see what was going on... last stop was at Petsmart, they had really good prices on a bunch of their fish... so I bought a dozen neon tetras and took 6 of them to work and gave a co-worker directions to float the fish for 30 minutes then dump them in... so hopefully she managed that without a problem.. the other 6 I brought home to add more color to my 55 at home... also added some ghost shrimp to the 55.


That sounds cool, are you still going to put some of your fry in?


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

annyann said:


> That sounds cool, are you still going to put some of your fry in?


I plan on it, just waiting until they get bigger so I can tell what's what... my tank is overrun by fry of three or four different colors, can't tell guppies from mollies yet (except for 2 older fry that are getting the big molly body on them already), but I want to see what colors I get when they grow out before I bring them to work.

Also kind of debating about other fish instead of the guppies/mollies... I like my guppies and mollies, but I am considering something else just to have something different at work than at home... since I don't want to put something in at home that will eat my fry... I was thinking about maybe adding a betta, but with so many fry at home I think the betta would eat them... so maybe I'll put a betta in the work tank and not worry if it eats any fry that are born (after my initial fry grow big enough to not be eaten)


Just an update on the tank this morning, I came in this morning and all 6 neons are good and active so must have gone OK acclimating temp/dumping them in, then my co-worker who did it tells me she went and bought her son a 2.5 gallon tank over the weekend and bought him 3 neons and a snail for it too... woo hoo! I got someone else hooked on fish =) 

unfortunately, she claims she has had fish in the past so she isn't listening to my advice... before I brought my tank to work she was asking what was taking so long and I told her I was cycling the tank at home before bringing it to work... she told me she always just dumped her fish in the tank without cycling it and never had problems... so this morning I asked what kind of filter came with the tank she had and offered to let her take my dirty filter home to help cycle her sons tank and she tells me she doesn't need it... tried to explain the nitrogen cycle and she looked at me cross eyed... tried explaining to her that just dumping fish in isn't going to immediately create ammonia, that there has to be something in the tank to decompose to create ammonia, so while they might be OK now, once you've fed them for a few days and they've pooped for a few days there will be ammonia and it will kill the fish... she tells me "they'll be OK, I put the conditioner stuff in and their fine"... tried to explain that the conditioner is just to remove chlorine, not to cycle a tank... she tells me its OK that she has had fish tanks for a long time when she was younger... poor kid is going to be heart broken when his fish die because she won't listen to me, but guess I can say "told ya so!" when it happens...


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## annyann (Aug 31, 2013)

rininger85 said:


> I plan on it, just waiting until they get bigger so I can tell what's what... my tank is overrun by fry of three or four different colors, can't tell guppies from mollies yet (except for 2 older fry that are getting the big molly body on them already), but I want to see what colors I get when they grow out before I bring them to work.
> 
> Also kind of debating about other fish instead of the guppies/mollies... I like my guppies and mollies, but I am considering something else just to have something different at work than at home... since I don't want to put something in at home that will eat my fry... I was thinking about maybe adding a betta, but with so many fry at home I think the betta would eat them... so maybe I'll put a betta in the work tank and not worry if it eats any fry that are born (after my initial fry grow big enough to not be eaten)
> 
> ...


LOL! It is frusterating when you have the info people need and they wont take it. Oh well, you tried. I would'nt think of it again. Sounds like she wants to do it her way.
Oh boy!! A Betta would be awsome in your work tank, of course there my favorite fish 
It wont take to long till your fry get big I guess. You can pick out your best colors for keeps huh? That's a good way to get some fish you really love.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

haven't updated here in a while. The last picture was on 10/22, so in this update the first picture is 11/4, then 12/3, and then 12/10 just to show some of the growth. The DHG is really spreading and filling in nicely. The Hygrophila corymbosa is growing really nicely too, in the 11/4 picture you can see it was tall and all stem, then the top broke off so I planted it, and you can see just in the last week how much it has grown, plus I have two more pieces now that broke off that I planted this morning. My HC looks much healthier than it did initially when I took it out of my 55 and put it in here, it does seem to have a little growth as well, albeit very slow growth...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

also, I added 6 neon tetras to the tank you can see in the 11/4 picture, a few weeks later I added a betta and a gold algae eater. Sadly something must have been wrong with one of the tetras, it was acting really funny one day then the next day I came in and saw half its body by where the betta was resting... then a few days later the betta died. I put about a dozen ghost shrimp in and have had a few of those die off in the last couple weeks. Last week I brought in 10 guppy fry from my 55 and 1 molly fry that were all born in my tank at home, and they all seem to be doing well so far. I'll probably go get some more ghost shrimp for both this tank and my home tank because they seem to be really good scavengers...


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## 1987 (Jan 27, 2007)

Looks like you are getting some good growth!


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I can't believe how fast things are growing now... I lifted the lid and my dwarf onion plants that I just trimmed down to the water line last week is already back to the top of my hood, and the three broken pieces of Hygrophila corymbosa that I planted in the middle of the tank have basically doubled in size just this week I think... and two of them just got planted there 2 days ago! I'll try to remember to take another picture tomorrow, I'm just amazed at how quickly they are growing right now! Either my T5HO lights on my 55 at home aren't strong enough for the depth of the tank or its time to replace bulbs or something... my plants at home aren't growing nearly as fast as the plants at work...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

against my better judgment I decided to add snails to my work tank to help clean up in between my cleanings... so this morning I brought in 6 MTS, 2 pond, and 1 ramshorn snails from my 55 gal tank at home. First thing I notice the MTS are staging a coup... either that or I caught a wild orgy first thing after being placed in their new tank...

I noticed that I have undeniable growth from my HC now. In the picture I put the box around the original HC that I planted, you can see the HC above that its starting to spread nicely. Slower than my DHG but at least its growing! Proof that you don't need high tech CO2 set ups to grow HC! I'm doing it with a 13W and 18W spiral CFL bulb and Flourish excel and a dirty tank...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

ignore the algae in the HC... I need to clean that up, its been that way for a long time but hasn't spread so I've left it alone... now that I took a close up picture of it, its going to bother me and force me to try and manually remove it.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

one more pic just to show the growth over the past week...


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## annyann (Aug 31, 2013)

Hey it's looking great! Really starting to see some growth on those plants.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

this is my favorite of my two planted tanks... I'm getting ready to break down my 55 gal FW planted tank because I want to upgrade my 10 gal SW reef tank, so I bought a 40B that I'm going to downgrade the 55 to a 40B and then upgrade my 10 gal reef to 40B. I'm limited on space because I only have 72.5" where my tanks sit, so two 40B's will be perfect! Going to change to miracle grow capped with eco-complete I think for the new 40B planted tank... hopefully that will give me similar growth to what I've got in this work tank.


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## annyann (Aug 31, 2013)

rininger85 said:


> this is my favorite of my two planted tanks... I'm getting ready to break down my 55 gal FW planted tank because I want to upgrade my 10 gal SW reef tank, so I bought a 40B that I'm going to downgrade the 55 to a 40B and then upgrade my 10 gal reef to 40B. I'm limited on space because I only have 72.5" where my tanks sit, so two 40B's will be perfect! Going to change to miracle grow capped with eco-complete I think for the new 40B planted tank... hopefully that will give me similar growth to what I've got in this work tank.


That's gonna be really cool! You need to send me a link to your new builds so I can follow. My tanks are coming a long, I need to up date some time or another. 
I do have guppy fry right now. I know you have had success with your fry, about how long does it take for guppies to start showing their colors?
Are you going to keep this 10 gallon work tank going?


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

sorry I haven't been on here in a few months. My work tank is still going strong! Here are a couple of pictures. The entire tank is growing really nicely, but my DHG is filling in like crazy.. the crypt undulata is getting huge, the hygro caromba (sp?) I've been trimming stems the last couple of weeks to take home and plant in my home tank to help fill it in since the work tank is getting so thick... even my dwarf baby tears are growing and filling in pretty nicely (with only flourish excel for CO2, and using (1) 23W and (1) 18W spiral CFL bulbs in the stock hood (with aluminum foil glued inside to help reflect light down).

You've probably started seeing some color on your guppy fry by now if everything is still going good... but it does take them a few months in my tanks to get color. The fry that I brought to my work tank from home ended up being one nice red male and then several females (still debating on one of my yellow cobras that now has a nice splash of red too if it is male or female, doesn't let me look very easily...) but they have all matured to the point now that they have about 7 little fry that have been born from the fry I brought from home now... 

I brought one molly fry from home and I absolutely love the molly in my work tank. It seems to be sooooo smart. The tank has 7 or 8 guppies (plus 7 guppy fry now), 1 molly, 5 neon tetras and 1 orange algae eater and out of all of them the molly seems to be the smartest! They all go crazy when I am near the tank (except the algae eater, he is shy and hides under the crypt undulata most of the day and only comes out after lights out usually). If I feed them flakes they all go crazy at the surface, but I toss in an algae wafer and they all go crazy at the surface except the molly, the molly almost instantly knows where the algae wafer is at on the bottom and is the first one there eating EVERY time... the rest of them (guppies/neons) don't realize the algae wafer is even there until particles start floating up from the molly picking at it... so the molly is definitely my favorite, I keep thinking I need to bring another molly from home so it has a friend, but it seems pretty content hanging out and bossing the guppies around too...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

heres a teaser for my 40B's since I had mentioned them before... I ran in to some problems with my 2 40B build... I knew I had 72.5" of clearance in this space where my tanks are, so I built my stand and went and bought the two 40B's, then realized I had forgot about the trim on the tanks... so I had my freshwater 40B set up and got everything planted and transferred all of my fish back in to it, then I went to put the salt water 40B next to it and it wouldn't fit... and I tried to force it and ended up cracking the glass on my FW 40B that had all my fish in it... so I had to quickly move everything back in to the other empty tank, ran and bought a third 40B tank and painted the back then made some modifications to the wall to allow the tanks to sit side by side and tried it again... that time everything went OK.

the picture with the stand is old just to show the stand / tanks side by side... the FW tank was really cloudy still because when I had to move everything over after cracking the first 40B my miracle grow potting soil and eco-complete was mixed together... I couldn't find more eco-complete so I bought Flourite for that tank instead... I thought I rinsed it pretty good but it still made a huge mess when I flooded the tank... but things are finally settling in and getting roots growing good so plants are finally starting to respond. This picture of the FW 40B was on 3/4, since then the dwarf lily plant and the sword have both reached the surface of the water, the DHG has started to spread but still really thin, and I've added some of the hygro from my work tank (although it cant be seen because I wasn't thinking the dwarf lily would get so big so its planted mid tank, blocking the plants behind it now that it reached the surface...

Also one for my 40B reef tank since I don't have build threads for either of these tanks on here...


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

I've also recently set up a 5 gallon QT tank for new incoming FW fish because I added some raspboras to my tank at home and they brought something with them that wiped out half of my other fish... so starting to QT everything before they go in my tanks. Also still have my 10 gal SW tank set up that I am thinking about making a stand alone refugium to grow pods to feed my tank or maybe try getting some seahorses... both of those tanks are in the 40B stand under my SW tank.


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

Nice tank... I like it a lot.
I would have definitely thought that those two bulbs would be way too much light on a tank that size. Usually the maximum I've heard recommended for a non-CO2 tank would be two 9 watt bulbs. I guess you are dosing Excel though. 

I plan to someday set up a 10 gallon as per Sudeep Mandal's webpage... google it if you haven't seen it already. A good summary of a method that works. Perhaps a bit more low tech than your tank. Shrimp and otos perhaps...

I like your fish choices in your tank as well. This is a good journal on a workplace tank. Keep posting pics. Regards.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

jart said:


> Nice tank... I like it a lot.
> I would have definitely thought that those two bulbs would be way too much light on a tank that size. Usually the maximum I've heard recommended for a non-CO2 tank would be two 9 watt bulbs. I guess you are dosing Excel though.


from what I've read on lighting I think its due to the orientation of the bulb, if you mount it in a vertical fixture pointing down you get much more efficient lighting than mounting horizontal where most of the light is pointing towards the side of the tank rather than down. Plus the reflectors, I glued tinfoil on the inside of my hood as my reflector, so might not be the most efficient reflector, but better than a black hood... 

I think the excel + light level is overdriving the plants growth pretty well because there is virtually no algae (except for just small film algae on the glass, but it can go a month without cleaning and still be OK, I did just finally pick up a mag float to leave at work so I'm cleaning it more often now, but it doesn't really need it...) 

I have some of the HC that broke off and has been floating on the surface that reproduces extremely fast. I have to clean the floaters off weekly or it completely covers the surface of my water and blocks off light to the rest of the plants, but I figure with skimming off the floaters every week it might help keep the tank cleaner too as I'm removing plant mass that has to be removing nitrates/phosphates from the water.


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## rininger85 (Jun 30, 2013)

haven't posted here in a while... my work tank is still going strong... I just changed it up a bit the last week or so, it had been overrun with guppies so I gave all of the females and all of the babies away and only kept a few males, then I moved all of my raspboras from home to work, and still have neons at work too, plus I moved my albino cory cats to work, and bought a betta. Plants are still looking pretty good, although I just had to replace a bulb and having algae issues on the side of the tank where the new bulb is now (and it's only a 13W CFL bulb that I replaced! apparently they still have a pretty big loss of power as they age). 

I took all of my mollies and the remaining cory cats from my home tank and gave them to my aunt, then I just gave away all of the guppies I had at home. I'm breaking down my FW 40B planted tank. We are buying a house (closing this coming week!) and when I do that I'm planning on upgraded to a 240 gallon saltwater tank, so since it's going to be EXPENSIVE I decided to consolidate and just focus on that one tank (eventually I'll probably do a small FW planted tank on the 10 gallon scale for at home once I get the SW tank set up, but that will be some time next year since I don't plan on starting the 240 gal SW tank until January.


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