new 10 gal

[agwats]

hey i got a new 10 gal tank and wanted to put it in my kids room. I like live plants but have never done more than 3 or 4 but i want this to be something cool for him to look at and i wanted to put a day/night hood on it so the "moon" light would work as a night light. I was planning on doing live bearers, something active that wont just hide in the plants or sit still all day but haven't decided on the type. Just looking for input on lighting, substrate, and stocking suggestions (plants and fish).

thanks for any help you can give

 

[mus]

Substrate - for subtstrate you can use sand or gravel or a little of both, I prefer pea gravel it appears natural to me and is not as messy as sand. sand or grave whichever you prefer I would advise you to wash it thoroughly before you put it in, also with sand you will more than likely need to let it settle for a day or two for the cloudlyness to settle before you can add any fish. Be warned sand can be messy if you need to access your tank objects regularly, but it is a great home for good bacteria.

Plants - low light plants such as java fern, java moss, and anubias variations are beautiful plants, anacharis and hornwort are another two fast growing undemading plants which will also help reduce excess nutrients. You could also attach java fern or anubias to drift/bog wood which looks great.

Fish - Livebearers are lovely fish and will breed often, chose from (guppies, platies, mollies, endlers + swordtails etc) You may want to buy a betta (siamese fighting fish) which are spectacular looking fish but I wouldnt reccomend keep it with guppies and sticktly only keep one male betta. Also dwarf gouramis + honey gouramis are lovely fish which you may want to keep, again i wouldnt reccomend it with a betta they may fight. There are 'dwarf' types of many fish which will be appropiate for your 10 gal.

You probably know about the cycle but here a link just in case

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

Hope this helps.

 

[EndlersEatGuppies]

Substrate - IMO PFS (Pool Filter Sand) will make it look very natural. And it's naturally cleaner!

Plant's - How many watt's, K (Kelvins), and Lumens r u running???

Fish - You can get 2 schools of tetras. Like 1 school of Serape Tetras

and i school of Neon Tetras

 

[arangarajan93]

Stock your tank with guppies, platies and swordtails.

 

[BigJim]

I'd stay away from livebearers in a 10g unless you stick to a group of male guppies or one sex of platies. Swordtails and mollies get too big for a 10g and pairs of livebearers will quickly overpopulate your tank. Neons and other small tetras or rasboras will work though. They're brightly colored and usually pretty active.

As for substrate, go with what you like, as long as the grains aren't too large. Gravel with stones larger than about 5-8mm make it difficult for your plants to root. I'm partial to sand since it's really cheap at Home Depot.

What you can plant in the tank really depends on your lighting. If you can, get a hood with incandescent sockets and put a pair of 13W CFL bulbs in it. That will be plenty of light for low-light plants to flourish. I'm growing a jungle of crypts, anubias, and java ferns in my 29g under a pair of 18W CFLs. One of my C. Crispulata has grown more than a foot in just a couple months in this tank. I dose Flourish about once a week.

 

[agwats]

Thanks for all the help! This site definitely helps with planning! I think im going to go with java ferns and other low light plants that are rather easy care. The firms take care of the mid hight plants but I need ideas for short and tall plants that would have similar light requirements. And preferably some that flower. And sand seems like the way to go. No hood or filter or anything yet so anythings a possibility. Some one brought up wood and I was wondering I've used drift and bog wood is one better than the other?

 

[EndlersEatGuppies]

Green Cabomba is an AWESOME plant and it flowers!

Mine is flowering like crazy. I must have at-least 20 bulbs.

 

[agwats]

As far as fish go I was thinking of moving a school of tetras from my 20, getting a school of neons and some cleaner shrimp. If I use a 20gal filter that shouldn't be too much of a bio load should it

 

[agwats]

Green Cabomba is an AWESOME plant and it flowers! Mine is flowering like crazy. I must have at-least 20 bulbs.

Sweet! I'll definitely look into that.

 

[EndlersEatGuppies]

IMO no u will be fine.

 

[agwats]

Sweet im going to start collecting hardware. Any suggestions on hoods/bulbs. A day and night hood is a must since I plan on the tank also functioning as a night light

 

[agwats]

would a 100GPM filter be ok or should i go for a 150? was thinking bio wheel

 

[pantherspawn]

Thanks for all the help! This site definitely helps with planning! I think im going to go with java ferns and other low light plants that are rather easy care. The firms take care of the mid hight plants but I need ideas for short and tall plants that would have similar light requirements. And preferably some that flower. And sand seems like the way to go. No hood or filter or anything yet so anythings a possibility. Some one brought up wood and I was wondering I've used drift and bog wood is one better than the other?

Red an green Tiger lotus' flower and have beautiful red/ gold leaves and they don't need a huge amount of light. I've got one in my medium light tank and one in a low light tank with only the stock led lighting and both are growing well.

 

[agwats]

Red an green Tiger lotus' flower and have beautiful red/ gold leaves and they don't need a huge amount of light. I've got one in my medium light tank and one in a low light tank with only the stock led lighting and both are growing well.

I've scraped the idea of a 24hr day/night hood for cost effectiveness. I checked these out online and they do look really cool... decisions decisions

 

[agwats]

Im going to start a thred showing the new 10 as i build it and the changes to the 20 as we go! let me know what you think!

also i still need ideas for short plants for the 10...

 

[pantherspawn]

They sell the marineland led day/night complete setups in most PETCO/petsmart. In 10 and 20 gallon sizes price range is about 60 bucks. I have a few. Use one as a quarantine tank and one for a puffer. They come with the Bio wheel filter

 

[agwats]

I started a new thread to track my progress and ask questions along the way. I decided to go with the 30 now and set up the 10 later. The thread is called starting my 30 and i'll put picks on it as it progresses