Figgy’s Playland

Hey guys,

Here is the journey of my Walstad tank. It’s changed a lot in the last 3 weeks. Still learning how to care for freshwater plants and learning what will work with my water parameters.
Thank you for everyone who has commented on my posts along the way. I appreciate all the guidance!

Hope you enjoy the pictures and can see the changes. I’m super excited. I did a ‘makeover’ on some of the aquascaping yesterday, and I found lots of growth that I hadn’t noticed previously. Very fun to watch the emersed plants turn into the submersed forms.

Inhabitants:
Male koi betta - Figfetti (Figgy)
2 otocinclus
2 nerite snails

10 gallon
Hygger HG-957 LED light
Heater
Base = gravel, aquasoil, root tabs, sand cap
Driftwood
Black Gravel (added day 24)
Dragon stone (added day 24)

Plants in tank as of 2/11
Floaters - Frogbit, red root floaters, some duckweed and 1 stem of pennywort
Ludwigia palustris
Amazon sword (Echinodorus Bleheri)
Dwarf sagittaria
Java Fern
Anubias nana
Vallisneria
Mermaid weed (only 1 stem)
Anacharis
Some sort of moss
Marble queen radical sword
Ozelot sword
Hygrophila “Kompakt” (added 2/11)
Water Sprite (added 2/11)
Bronze Wendtii (added 2/11)

3 other plants in the tank, I do not know what they are. I’ll post another reply after this, with those 3 plants, to see if anyone could name them for me.

Plants that have been removed:
Monte Carlo (melted/died) - will find a better carpet plant, without needing CO2
Lobelia cardinalis (melted/died) - really sad about this one
Hornwort (did not enjoy the look)

Tank currently has a small HOB filter, only a sponge and some media to build beneficial bacteria. It will be removed once the tank is stable enough. The media will be used to help start up a larger tank later this year.

Thanks again and enjoy!

These are the 3 plants that I’m not sure what they are called. First plant, between the 3 stones. Second and third plants each have 2 photos.

Finally did the first trim! Super exciting to see such growth. For my first planted tank, I am pretty happy with the growth and look.
I plugged in the stem plant trimmings to fill in areas in the back. And I put some on the side because I planned to use those in the new 30gal. But now I kinda like them there
Here’s a before and after.

That is really lovely!
Beautiful betta, and he is in betta heaven!

Fray said:

That is really lovely!
Beautiful betta, and he is in betta heaven!

Click to expand...

Thank you! He seems really happy. We love watching him wiggle his way through the plants.

It’s been 2 months since my last update, so I thought I would post some pics. The tank has had 1 water change in that time, about 25%, while doing some plant trimmings. No ferts added. Filter is only bio rings, and it’s flowing at a drip speed. I think I want to take it off, but I want to use it to cycle another tank, so I may leave it on until that time.

I’ve added 3 CPD’s. And 3 amano shrimp.
Figgy loves his tank. He comes to us when we stare into the tank. My 8 year old feeds just him, once a day, about 4 pellets. We sometimes skip a day here or there. The bioload is quite low. But I’m constantly removing frogbit and red root floaters.

Here are some pictures of the tank. I do feel like it’s a bit overgrown, but I think they all like it this way. Everyone seems happy. And here are some pictures of how large the frogbit get. I don’t know why they get this large. They are 4 times the size of my frogbit in my 30 gal.