Tank no.2: 10g planted

So I’ve mentioned in a couple of other threads that hubby wanted to get a little 10g tank, he wants this for a Male Betta and some shrimp.

To be honest.. him talking about it and actually going ahead with it, I didn’t expect it would happen. Not so soon anyway!
But this afternoon he dragged me out to our LFS, chose his tank and then spent ages playing about with rocks, looking at plants and substrate, deciding how he’s going to scape it.

I’ve made it clear to him that this will be his tank and he has to maintain it. We’ll see how long that lasts. I get the feeling it’s going to be like getting puppy for your kid on the agreement that they will feed it and walk it and clean up its poop… I know it will soon be my job haha.

Anyway we got home and he got straight to work getting it set up. It’s an Aqua Nano 35 - 10 gallon. It’s the mini version of the 30 gallon we have.
I actually took pride in showing him how to plant his plant’s correctly using my aquascaping tools!
Just need to wait for it to cycle now, we’re hoping the plants will grow and spread nicely too.

My first Betta was in a 10G it’s the perfect size for them. Be great to see that plant assortment grow in over the next few weeks as well .One piece of advice I would give when selecting a Betta is if they are in a tank with other fish at the store, watch their behaviour. When I got my Betta I watched her interact with the baby Panchax and saw no issues within 10 mins, while the Betta next door didn’t like the company of other fish too much. I never had any aggression from my Betta towards the shrimp or other fish in that tank for the 2 and a bit years I had her

A couple more pics, side views

MattW3344 said:

My first Betta was in a 10G it’s the perfect size for them. Be great to see that plant assortment grow in over the next few weeks as well .One piece of advice I would give when selecting a Betta is if they are in a tank with other fish at the store, watch their behaviour. When I got my Betta I watched her interact with the baby Panchax and saw no issues within 10 mins, while the Betta next door didn’t like the company of other fish too much. I never had any aggression from my Betta towards the shrimp or other fish in that tank for the 2 and a bit years I had her

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Yeah we did a bit of research and decided 10g would be best, apparently you can keep them in a 5g but in my opinion that would be too small, especially trying to aquascape with such little room.

Good tip when selecting the Betta, thank you I will take that on board. What other fish did you have with your female? Can you keep other fish with Males?

Sparx said:

Yeah we did a bit of research and decided 10g would be best, apparently you can keep them in a 5g but in my opinion that would be too small, especially trying to aquascape with such little room.

Good tip when selecting the Betta, thank you I will take that on board. What other fish did you have with your female? Can you keep other fish with Males?

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Yea you could do a 5G but I just see that as more maintenance since its a smaller water volume. You can create some amazing scapes in nano tanks though
5.5G cube

I had a small group of ember tetras, amano shrimp, a nerite snail, Ottocinclus, and then a group of sawbwa. I haven't kept males but I have heard they can get more aggressive than females towards tank mates. I'd just watch the behavior of the fish, to be honest. They are very personable fish bettas. My betta used to watch football with me as the tank was next to my desk

MattW3344 said:

My betta used to watch football with me as the tank was next to my desk

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No way!? That’s brilliant

We had some guppy grass arrive in the post today, hubby ordered it online.
Now, we are still quite new to planted tanks, and what we received were what looked like cuttings, or trimmings, not like the sort of plants they sell in the store with roots etc.. is this normal? Will the plants still grow and/or develop their own roots?

My best efforts to plant the trimmings..

Sparx said:

My best efforts to plant the trimmings..

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Looks good to me . You can also use guppy grass as a floating plant I believe. It will grow quickly. I did that with Hornwort I got off Etsy before I put it in my 90L.

MattW3344 said:

Looks good to me . You can also use guppy grass as a floating plant I believe. It will grow quickly. I did that with Hornwort I got off Etsy before I put it in my 90L.

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Ahhh ok that’s good then. Maybe I’ll use the excess as a floating plant in the bigger tank, it took me over an hour to plant all this, not sure I can stand to plant it in the other one as well

My most used fish-related tool is tweezers. I've found the best way to plant (stems in particular) is to grab 4-6 individual stems and press them into one big stem between the tweezers. Then plant somewhat deep into the substrate and when pulling out the tweezers from the substrate, squeeze and release constantly until the tweezers are free. I've noticed that doing this means substrate falls on top of the buried stems anchoring them down.

Another tip would be to trim half a leaf or two on the stem you are planting. The half-cut leaves when planted into the substrate act as a temporary anchor which stops those pesky amano shrimp from uprooting plants .

(Cut on red lines)

*Forgot to mention I found a lot of info/inspiration from - MD Fish Tanks, MJ Aquascaping, SerpaDesign,

MattW3344 said:

My most used fish-related tool is tweezers. I've found the best way to plant (stems in particular) is to grab 4-6 individual stems and press them into one big stem between the tweezers. Then plant somewhat deep into the substrate and when pulling out the tweezers from the substrate, squeeze and release constantly until the tweezers are free. I've noticed that doing this means substrate falls on top of the buried stems anchoring them down.
View attachment 346039
Another tip would be to trim half a leaf or two on the stem you are planting. The half-cut leaves when planted into the substrate act as a temporary anchor which stops those pesky amano shrimp from uprooting plants .
View attachment 346038
(Cut on red lines)

*Forgot to mention I found a lot of info/inspiration from - MD Fish Tanks, MJ Aquascaping, SerpaDesign,

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! I do have some aquascaping tweezers and that’s the method I used, although I didn’t know about the cutting, I will be sure to do that in future
I’ve also subscribed to those YouTube channels thanks

Hint…hint
Our August Fish of the Month contest will feature Bettas.

And September’s Tank of the Month contest will be for 16 gallon and smaller tanks.

Fishmanic said:

Hint…hint
Our August Fish of the Month contest will feature Bettas.

And September’s Tank of the Month contest will be for 16 gallon and smaller tanks.

Click to expand...

… I’ll let hubby know…

@Sparx
So does hubby visit our forums. If not, maybe get him to join too. Maybe he could register as Sparx2.