Evolution of a Ugly Tank UPDATE 4-3-07

[JDogg]

ok i have had this 10 gallon tank up and running for a while now... it has been low light (15 watts T. it is basically my clippings tank, and it has also housed a male Apistogramma cacatuoides i was hoping to sell off, but looks like i might just trade him in at my LFS. i have 3 more males and 1 female in my 75 gallon. this tank i am planing to make a home for a pair of Apistogramma agassizii and put some effort into really scaping it up good. here are some pictures...

this was the tank a few months ago.


and this is what that tank looks like now...

nothing much to look at it right now...

this tank is located in the "reading nook" of my home office with book shelves all around it and a comfy arm chair right in front of it. i want it to really be something nice to look at when i am reading.

i will probabaly keep the piece of malaysian driftwood. there is also a small terra cotta pot that i MIGHT keep as a spawning cave for the apistos...thoughts?

yes i plant to turn the background black and i will probabaly replace the substrate with eco-compleat.

as far as plants right now it has some clippings of Stargrass, wysteria and hygro ceylon.

thoughts and suggestions welcome i will update this with more pictures as i go along

[Purrbox]

I would recommend picking up some plants that do well in low light. Anubias Nana, Anubias Nana 'Petite', smaller crypts, java ferns, mosses. With your current lighting it'll be much easier to get a fuller, more lush look with these types of plants.

[Sicklid]

uh-oh... Looks like you may have to get another tank to be your "clippings tank" soon :P

[JDogg]

Originally Posted by Purrbox

I would recommend picking up some plants that do well in low light. Anubias Nana, Anubias Nana 'Petite', smaller crypts, java ferns, mosses. With your current lighting it'll be much easier to get a fuller, more lush look with these types of plants.

i am upgrading the lighting... SEE THIS THREAD...

[Purrbox]

With the upgraded lighting, that should either make your current plant selection look very nice or grow out of control making it very hard to see the fish. Some of the the low light plants that I suggested earlier would still be good choices since they tend to grow more slowly and would add some nice contrast to your current selection of plants.

Probably the best bet is to upgrade your lighting and anything else that you need to upgrade at the same time and see how it goes for a few weeks. This will make it a lot easier to see how the current plants are going to behave and look under the new lights, which in turn will make it much easier deciding what steps you want to take next.

Unless of course you want to start over from scratch once you upgrade the lighting and try all new plants. Then you could just research what plants you like that will fit well in the size tank with your new lighting and work on developig a scape from there.

[JDogg]

Originally Posted by Purrbox

With the upgraded lighting, that should either make your current plant selection look very nice or grow out of control making it very hard to see the fish. Some of the the low light plants that I suggested earlier would still be good choices since they tend to grow more slowly and would add some nice contrast to your current selection of plants.

Probably the best bet is to upgrade your lighting and anything else that you need to upgrade at the same time and see how it goes for a few weeks. This will make it a lot easier to see how the current plants are going to behave and look under the new lights, which in turn will make it much easier deciding what steps you want to take next.

Unless of course you want to start over from scratch once you upgrade the lighting and try all new plants. Then you could just research what plants you like that will fit well in the size tank with your new lighting and work on developig a scape from there.

yea i plan to upgrade all at once.

on a side note how many 2L bottles of DIY Co2 would you guess i would need for this tank? i will probabaly use a "bubble ladder" for diffusion that i have laying around.

this tank is really going to be a mish mash of stuff i have laying around...

[ryan]

i have 2 2l bottles on my 10 gallon

[Purrbox]

When I was still using DIY CO2 on my 10 gallon, I had two 1 liter bottles with and inline diffuser. Since you are going to be using passive diffusion instead of powered diffusion, you'll probably need either a pair of 1.5 liter bottles or a pair of 2 liter bottles. This will also partially depend on the CO2 mix that you use. A more powerful short lived reaction would require less volume that a less powerful longer lasting reaction.

[JDogg]

ok well just an update:

picked up a bag of eco-compleat, glass-top and a black background yesterday. i have been running extra-bio media in my HOB filter all week, so i am not to worried about re-cycling after i change out the substrate.

i will start to put stuff together tomorrow and will take/post pictures along the way.

as far as plants i have 3 young swords (2 oriental and 1 rubin) i will put this in the tank to grow out and then move them to my 75 when they get too big. the orientals i have had for over a year and once they lost there emersed growth have not gotten over 3 inches tall (maybe this is normal )

i think i will also plant it with some stargrass clippings and some Hygrophila polysperma v. Ceylon clippings..this should make me pretty heavily planted from day one if my calculations are right.. we will see...

[Glenc]

I used 2- 2 liter bottles on my ten with 1 hagen ladder. I used a powerfull mix in my bottles(more yeast,3/4 teaspoon as opposed to 1/4 yeast to 2 cups sugar ) that produced like crazy for two weeks and died out. It was over kill, almost gassed the fish. I ended up using 2-1 liter bottles with the same yeast-sugar ratio and it was perfect, changed the bottles out once a week, got good, high consistent C02 levels. Boy, am i glad I don't have to do that anymore, got to love pressurized!