Setting up 10 gallon - a few qs

[schmee]

Hi

i'm setting up my first tank - a 10 gallon. i have finished fishless cycling, have the temp and pH as needed and have decided on what to stock it with (please let me know your opinions): one male betta, 3 amano shrimp & 4 african dwarf frogs. i'll be letting the shrimp and frogs get settled before the betta comes into the picture and hopefully keeping the frogs well fed in the hope that nobody eats or attacks eachother. i know it might be a bit hit or miss.

i'm also not sure i have enough places for them all to hide and am a bit worried about that. As it stands, the tank has two tunnel things, one of which has java ferns lodged in it, and an anubias nana which is attached to a rock. The plants are very sparse at the moment, they've only been there around 6 weeks. i'm hoping the ferns will thicken out somehow...but i'm not sure. i feel there should be more plants but i don't know what and where...any obvious suggestions?

Also a little worried about the light as it's an inbuilt type jobby and very bright. i don't think the plants like so much light, i'm wondering if you can change the voltage/change the intensity of light somehow??

 

[maxima423]

i aint sure about ADF's that much

what i can tell you is that shrimp need a pretty established tank and it depends on the bettas personality if he wants to eat the shrimp or not

more plants is always good for shrimp to hide around =]

the plants you have dont need that much light, they are low level lighting plants ^_^ whats your watts?

and welcome to AA

 

[JohnPaul]

1 amano shrimp is more than plenty for a 10g aquarium, in terms of algae control. In general bettas do okay with (adult) amano shrimp but that is not a guarantee; the last betta I had would attack the amano nonstop and I had to transfer the shrimp to a new tank or else it would have been toast.

4 ADF's strikes me as a lot, but I've never kept them so maybe that stocking level is okay. AFAIK they aren't "schooling"-type creatures so perhaps it might be best to begin with only 1 or 2.

 

[schmee]

Thanks for your help. i have decided to put in another couple of plants which i think will help. i know they are low light plants, that's my problem as my light seems very bright. i don't know wattage, to be honest, i can't even open the part where the bulb is as i can't work it out.
i hope they will all be ok with each other. i am waiting a while before getting the betta in the hope that the others will be able to stand their ground and betta won't think the shrimp are food. i will remove them if they get harassed.
The light is the only thing really bugging me. The tank is a Viaaqua 380 which has an inbuilt fluorescent light in the hood.

 

[JohnPaul]

The light is the only thing really bugging me. The tank is a Viaaqua 380 which has an inbuilt fluorescent light in the hood.

Well I just did a little poking around on the internet, and it appears that the built-in light is only a 10 watt fluorescent. 10 watts of light over a 10 gallon tank is only 1 WPG...that is at the very low, low end of "low light." I have a hard time thinking that is even close to being too bright, especially if you have live plants that you are trying to grow.

Remember that most of these species (both fish and plants) are tropical...they are used to the intensity of sunlight at the equator.

 

[DragonFish71]

Ok, after checking some google on your tank. It looks like the hood will take regular 2 pin bulbs. Go to any hardware store, Walmart or Target and get you a 6500k Daylight bulb. You need to know the length of the bulb you have now, it could be either a 12 inch or 13 inch. I'm not sure what wattage the new bulb will be, or what spectrum bulb you have now, but if you get a 6500k, you'll at least be in the ball park for low light plants like anubias, and the javas.

 

[mommytron]

Ok, after checking some google on your tank. It looks like the hood will take regular 2 pin bulbs. Go to any hardware store, Walmart or Target and get you a 6500k Daylight bulb. You need to know the length of the bulb you have now, it could be either a 12 inch or 13 inch. I'm not sure what wattage the new bulb will be, or what spectrum bulb you have now, but if you get a 6500k, you'll at least be in the ball park for low light plants like anubias, and the javas.

if it is a standard 10g tank/hood, the bulb should be 18 inches and 15w. i found a daylight 6500k bulb at walmart for about $5. i use it on my 20g planted tank. plants are doing fine! it'd be perfect for a low-tech 10g planted tank.

 

[DragonFish71]

if it is a standard 10g tank/hood, the bulb should be 18 inches and 15w. i found a daylight 6500k bulb at walmart for about $5. i use it on my 20g planted tank. plants are doing fine! it'd be perfect for a low-tech 10g planted tank.

From what I saw on google it's one of those all in one units and the replacement bulbs are 12 or 13 inches ,not a standard 10g size.

 

[JohnPaul]

if it is a standard 10g tank/hood...

It's not a standard 10 gallon. The Viaaqua 380 is taller and thinner (left-right) than a standard 10 gallon, and takes either 12" or 13" bulbs according to the manufacturer.

 

[schmee]

Do you really think it's not light enough? It certainly doesn't seem dark. i think it's an 11w the bulb i have now, from having a search. It's pretty short. The thing is i still have no idea how to open the part with the bulb to replace it.

i'm also already worried about my anubias nana. The leaves are curling and some are discoloured or dying. i thought this was from too much light. Is it possible that it is too little light? Or another reason. i don't feed the plants or anything. Could this be the problem?

i'm worried about everything now. i'm aware it's not a great tank but i hope to make it work. The filter is a trickle filter 400l/hr (105g/hr). Is this sufficient for my 10g tank?

 

[JohnPaul]

Do you really think it's not light enough? It certainly doesn't seem dark. i think it's an 11w the bulb i have now, from having a search. It's pretty short. The thing is i still have no idea how to open the part with the bulb to replace it.

i'm also already worried about my anubias nana. The leaves are curling and some are discoloured or dying. i thought this was from too much light. Is it possible that it is too little light? Or another reason. i don't feed the plants or anything. Could this be the problem?

i'm worried about everything now. i'm aware it's not a great tank but i hope to make it work. The filter is a trickle filter 400l/hr (105g/hr). Is this sufficient for my 10g tank?

Okay, first of all...TAKE A DEEP BREATH. Relax. Inhale. Exhale. There's no reason to panic. <--- Don't be like that.

First of all, your filtration is fine. 105 gph means you are turning over the water 10x per hour, which is about double of what is normally considered "enough." So you are fine there. When first adding critters to a newly cycled tank, always best to add them slowly and wait a week or two before adding your next things. That gives the filter time to build up a bacteria load appropriate to the amount of wildlife you have in the tank.

As for the light, there is a difference between how bright the light looks (to the human eye) and how much wattage (energy) the light actually delivers. What matters for growing plants is how much wattage the light is producing. (To use a household example, have you ever used those screw-in spiral compact flourescent light bulbs to replace your old fashioned "regular" light bulbs? A spiral CF might be a 15W bulb but it produces the "equivalent light"--to the human eye--of a 60W bulb. So a lamp in your living room, if it used to have a 60W regular bulb in it, you would replace it with a 15W spiral CF and it would produce the same amount of light in terms of reading, etc. But in an aquarium setting, a 15W spiral CF does not produce 60W' worth of light for your plants...it only produces 15W.)

If your light is 11W, then you are at 1.1 wpg (watts-per-gallon), which should be sufficient for growing low-light plants like anubias. One thing is for certain, whatever problem your plants are having, it is NOT because they are getting "too much light."

Nor should the plants be hurting due to too little light, unless the bulb in the hood does not put out light in the proper spectrum. In order to grow plants, you need light in the 5500K - 10,000K Kelvin range. The "K" value should be printed somewhere on the bulb--if you can figure out how to get access to it. Which you might as well do, because flourescent bulbs need to be replaced about once per year, so sooner or later you're going to have to get that hood open to get at the bulb. Try the manufacturer's website or contact their customer service if you need to.

Leaves could be suffering from nutrient deficiency right now, mostly because (if you are fishless cycling) there is absolutely NOTHING in the tank. I think simply getting some wildlife in there--whether it is a couple of the frogs, or the betta, or whatever, will help your plants. With live plants, things like fish poop will break down and release nutrients into the substrate and into the water column. If the plants are still looking bad a month or two after you have some critters in there, then it might be time to look at possibly needing to fertilize. But before you worry about "artificial" fertilizer, work on getting some natural fertilizer in there.

Part of having live plants in your tank (which is always a good thing, IMO) is learning that not all will be successful. Some will thrive, some will die (even when it seems your tank conditions are such that they "should" do well), and some will sort of not really die but not really thrive either, just kinda stay the same lol. So there is always some trial & error involved. So if a plant or two (or three or ten) dies on you, no biggie, just try something else. It's all part of the fun of having an aquarium.

 

[schmee]

Thanks so much, that's fab.
For now i'm going to keep the lighting as it is as it seems to be sufficient for the low light plants i'm growing. The first critters are coming tomorrow, maybe everything will work itself out then. To be fair, the plants are still alive and don't really look bad at all, i was probably panicking over nothing. The anubias is sending out roots (it's on a rock) and has new leaves, so that can't be bad. The ferns are a bit nibbled though, i'm blaming the pond snail who came with them. The little white wormy things which were all over the anubias before have disappeared. It's all looking good. Just have to see how it goes when the critters go into their new home.