Bill's 10 Gallon Cool Water Tank

[Billbug68]

Hey all! Well, since my 12 long is in hiatus right now, I needed something cheap and fun to keep me busy. I had originally came up on a free 20 gallon that I cleaned up and promised my son it would be his. Well, once I got it all clean and stuck it in his room, it just looked too big, so I decided to pick up a new 10 gallon instead. I hope to make this a nice little budget friendly build, using mostly materials I already have on hand. The tank will be unheated with a small school of White Cloud Mountain Minnows. Maybe some shrimp down the road if someone can recommend some that can withstand cooler temps. Well lets get in to the dets!

Equipment:

Tank - Standard 10 gallon AGA
Filtration - Aquaclear 30
Heater - None
Lighting - Standard hood/light combo with spiral CFLs

Hardscape:

• Found stone (free!!!)
• Play sand (stolen from my 12L)
• ADA Aquasoil Amazonia (already had a bag)

Planned Flora:

• Dwarf Hairgrass (background)
• Marsilea Minuta (foreground accent)

Planned Fauna:

• White Cloud Mountain Minnows
• Cool water shrimp, Maybe???

So the plan is to carpet the back of the tank (the back third of the tank has the aquasoil capped with sand) behind the stones with the DHG and use the marsilea minuta in random places up front. I'm gonna try to do this without co2, just excel, so we'll see how it goes...

Alright, well I thinks thats all I have for now, I still need to get a hood/light combo for the tank, so right now I'm just using my Ray2 to work on the tank. Here's a pic of the hardscape!

 

[Sillyfishies]

Following along. Should look amazing. I'm pretty sure CRS are fairly cool water arent they?

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Bill, buddy... really nice stone placement! U got skills!

I probably would have saved all the precious AS for the 12 and 20g. You could have used cheap organic miracle grow capped with sand in this one.

Dude...don't know about shrimp but a Dwarf Mexican Orange Cray (CPO) would be perfect!

http://www.petshrimp.com/articles/cpatzcuarensis.php

Anyways... good start so far. Following

 

[Billbug68]

Following along. Should look amazing. I'm pretty sure CRS are fairly cool water arent they?

Thank you! I'll start researching the shrimp. If anything I might just throw some Amanos in there, they're pretty dang hardy.

Bill, buddy... really nice stone placement! U got skills!

I probably would have saved all the precious AS for the 12 and 20g. You could have used cheap organic miracle grow capped with sand in this one.

Dude...don't know about shrimp but a Dwarf Mexican Orange Cray (CPO) would be perfect!

http://www.petshrimp.com/articles/cpatzcuarensis.php

Anyways... good start so far. Following

Thanks dude! I barely used any of the aquasoil, so no worries. I'd kind of wanna stick with shrimp, at heart I'd really like this to stay in the realm of an Asian stream biotope-ish tank.

 

[Billbug68]

So, from a little light reading, it seems CRS, CBS, or tiger shrimp have the lowest temp ranges, tigers seem to have the lowest, planet inverts suggests 59-81 degrees. I'm thinking either CBS or tigers would be cool. I'll probably wait until after winter, or at least until I can get an idea of just how cool the tank gets.

 

[Sillyfishies]

So, from a little light reading, it seems CRS, CBS, or tiger shrimp have the lowest temp ranges, tigers seem to have the lowest, planet inverts suggests 59-81 degrees. I'm thinking either CBS or tigers would be cool. I'll probably wait until after winter, or at least until I can get an idea of just how cool the tank gets.

They NEED a low TDS and a pH of 6.5. After that they're cake and breed like rabbits.

 

[Billbug68]

They NEED a low TDS and a pH of 6.5. After that they're cake and breed like rabbits.

Yeah, I know that much. I'll have to start messing with an RO mix until I get it right. I'm in no hurry to get the shrimp ATM. I still need to throw some bio-media in the filter from my established tank and get the hood before my stepson gets home from his dads house on Sunday. He's gonna be super excited. White clouds are pretty cheap and petsmart keeps them in stock, so I'm happy about that!

 

[Billbug68]

Picked up the light hood today and some 13w 6500k CFLs... The tank heats up a little more than expected with the hood on, it got up to 76 today with the lights on for a few hours. Down the road I may retrofit the hood with some LEDs, or build a screen top and get a decent fixture for it. For now I'm gonna have to figure out how to keep the tank a little cooler... Especially when summer comes around... The only solution I have at the moment, is the LED retrofit and/or running a siesta period to cut down on the heat build up.

Here's some updated pics with the new hood and his cool little boys room...

 

[Jkeating8]

Drilling some holes in the hood should help with ventilation and keep temps down a little.

 

[Billbug68]

Drilling some holes in the hood should help with ventilation and keep temps down a little.

Thanks, Joey. Someone also suggested this to me on SCAPE... I may have to consider it. I just don't want the hood to end up look janky...

 

[Jkeating8]

Thanks, Joey. Someone also suggested this to me on SCAPE... I may have to consider it. I just don't want the hood to end up look janky...

Of
Course not. I think if you put them in the back they wouldn't be too noticeable.

 

[Billbug68]

Of
Course not. I think if you put them in the back they wouldn't be too noticeable.

Cool, there are some holes above where the bulbs are, but I'll make some more in the back. And are we talkin a bunch of small holes or a few large ones?

 

[Jkeating8]

Cool, there are some holes above where the bulbs are, but I'll make some more in the back. And are we talkin a bunch of small holes or a few large ones?

hmmm. I'm not sure. My original though was a smaller ones to make sure the WCMM don't get out.

 

[Billbug68]

hmmm. I'm not sure. My original though was a smaller ones to make sure the WCMM don't get out.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well.

 

[bud29]

They NEED a low TDS and a pH of 6.5. After that they're cake and breed like rabbits.

Not necessarily. Tigers actually like harder water compared to other caridina, they prefer a TDS of around 200 and a ph of 7. CRS do like their water a bit softer, about 180 TDS and a ph of 6.8. Nothing very extreme, however. Tigers would probably be best for a cool water tank - many people keep them in the 68-72 range.

 

[Billbug68]

Not necessarily. Tigers actually like harder water compared to other caridina, they prefer a TDS of around 200 and a ph of 7. CRS do like their water a bit softer, about 180 TDS and a ph of 6.8. Nothing very extreme, however. Tigers would probably be best for a cool water tank - many people keep them in the 68-72 range.

Yeah, I really think I'm gonna go with tigers when it's time.

So I took some bio rings out of my canister for the 12L and put them in the aquaclear today. Picked up 5 WCMM's and did a quick 50% water change before acclimating them. They're surprisingly beautiful and very active, I especially like when they flair their fins. I'll probably pick up 3 more next weekend. I'm fairly surprised these seem to be under used in the hobby. They're a little larger than I expected, but still a great choice for this tank. Their colors go great with the hardscape, and they should really pop once I get around to planting this thing.

 

[Sillyfishies]

What's the planned flora?

 

[Billbug68]

What's the planned flora?

I was thinking dwarf hairgrass carpet for the background behind the rocks, with patches of marsilea minuta in front of the rocks. Possible a few crypt parvas up front as well. Hopefully really simple and natural looking...

I'm liking the hardscape so much, I'm seriously considering not even planting it...

 

[Sillyfishies]

I was thinking dwarf hairgrass carpet for the background behind the rocks, with patches of marsilea minuta in front of the rocks. Possible a few crypt parvas up front as well. Hopefully really simple and natural looking...

I'm liking the hardscape so much, I'm seriously considering not even planting it...

Well if you do plant it, tell me how 2 13w CFLs work out!

 

[Billbug68]

Well if you do plant it, tell me how 2 13w CFLs work out!

I've used them before but they were mounted vertically with cone style reflectors in desk lamps. It's pretty much, IMO, the perfect amount of light for a 10g. Not too much that it requires co2 so excel suffices, but it's not too little to the point where if you did use co2 the light would extremely limit growth. I ran my first tank both ways and was happy with the growth I saw at the time.