Doing my first planted tank

[notenoughtanks]

It's a 10 gallon tank ,



Substrate is floura max & nat geo sand .. Driftwood is a pice of Manopi might do some small stones on other side ..


Want to do some sort of carpeting plants in foreground and some taller ones in back .. As for fish/shrimp/snails no idea what to do lol

Don't really want to do CO2 but I will if I have to , as for light it's a Aqueon Full Spec 15w T8


Ideas ??

 

[icydeath]

Uhh I would stock lightly for sure. So maybe some amanos and nerites. Or a colony of red cherry shrimps.

For your light, get a floramax bulb instead of full spectrum. You could use liquid CO2 but you probably won't need it depending on what you plant.

For the back I would get some anubias and maybe anacharis or plants like that. The front could have crypts or the like. Check out Dustin's Fishtanks on youtube and his site, it would be a good place to see what plants you like.

Hope I helped, feel free to ask questions.

 

[notenoughtanks]

Yea for stock I was thinking just shrimp/snail I have other big tanks for fish ... Thanks for info ... I'll check his page out ... My LFS only carries ghost shrimp .. Who would be best for online ordering ?? Most plants I can get from LFS ... Filtration I have aqueon 10 gal but I may change it up for shrimp ...

 

[Fishfur]

If you want carpeting plants, most of them are a bit of a pain to grow. Most of them do best with C02, though you can use so called liquid carbon, which is glutaraldehyde, brand names Excel or API carbon boost, and also available in more concentrated form as Metricide 14. If you try that, toss the little bottle it comes with, it's some kind of activator that turns it into an industrial cleaner. You use about half as much Metricide, due to the strength.

You need fertilizers too, either make your own from the basic chemicals or you can get commercial ones, usually liquid, Flourish is one brand name, there are many others. More costly, but simple.

Because it's a small tank you cannot keep a great many fish in it, though it does depend on the size of the fish. If you get Nano size fish you can keep quite a few more than if you get larger ones. You could have quite a lot of shrimp in 10G.. hundreds of the Neos like Cherries, which come in a number of colours other than red or white. Some of the newer colours are pretty expensive, but basic cherries are usually not very costly.

Even Ghost shrimp could do nicely with some numbers.. two or three dozen. You might even get some of their larvae surviving to grow up, especially if you don't have fish.

 

[notenoughtanks]

Kool thanks , I'm going to roll with the shrimp idea .. I like the RCS .. Should I change to a bubbler/sponge filter for shrimp ??

 

[icydeath]

If you do use CO2 and a sponge filter, try to get one that has a powerhead attachment. This way you aren't diffusing it all back into the air lol

Carpeting plants are a PITA as said. Uhh.. Live aquaria is pretty good for buying online. Not sure if they have amanos though. You should check petco or petsmart from time to time. The petco's in cali (Folsom and Davis) both will misidentify amanos as ghost shrimp occasionally and last time I went in I saw like 5 cherry shrimps.

Are you sure there aren't any other LFS in your area or that you would be willing to drive to?

 

[Fishfur]

Shrimp like sponge filters, because they become a good food source for them after a bit of time. You can also put a sponge intake cover on the intake of any filter, and it will serve much the same purpose, but have to be cleaned more often. You just squeeze it out well in old tank water to clean, same as any sponge.

 

[notenoughtanks]

There are a few others but from past exp they are shotty lol ... I have a hand full of power heads laying around lol .. I can do a DIY co2 was just trying to do a " low tech " lol but I guess I'll go all out lol

 

[Fishfur]

Whatever floats your boat . You can hook up a power head to a sponge filter too, if you wish to do that. Pulls more water through than air does, so they're a bit more efficient but then, need to be cleaned a bit more often.

 

[Fresh2o]

You can try the classified section in this forum. There are several members that sell RCS and other color variants for a lot less than an LFS or online vendors. I've purchased shrimp from a few sellers in NC which is only one state away from me.


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