10 Gallon Planted

[Munroco]

Been reading lots of the posts on here about shrimps I'd like to give them a try.
 
With that in mind, I bought myself a 45 litre (10 gal) Aquael 60 bowfront tank. I'm going to try black gravel and I want it to be densely planted. Hoping to stock it with 20 Celestial Pearl Danios and red cherry shrimp. Going to use stones from the beach and Twisted Hazel twigs for hardscape. Plants still to be decided so I'm open to suggestions. I want a back ground plant that will get big and bushy and a few small plants for the foreground, that will hopefully spread.
 
The tank is 24*12*12 inches and will have at best medium light but possibly low light, I'm not going to use co2 so the plants I get need to be pretty undemanding.
 
Pictures to follow as I work through setting it up.

 

[LyraGuppi]

Following!
 
Maybe Anacharis as the bushy big background plant?

 

[Munroco]

Day 1. Tank arrived intact thankfully so set it up, socked up my sub substrata of garden compost. I put it in wifes old socks and tie the ends up. Sand packaging says sand is allready washed but you may wish to give it a rinse............ Put sand on top of compost and filled tank. I have an aquarium full of milk.
 
Not sure I like this sand, its not as black as I expected and it seems very lightweight. Its more like very small shale. Certainly wouldn't use it if I was planning on stocking catfish or anything else that siphons gravel.
Hopefully filter will clear the water by the time I get up tomorrow.
 
Pics arent uploading. I'll try again later

I'll check out anacharis Lyra. TY

Checked it out, its what I would call elodea. I have a pond full of it. I pull out armfuls every 2-3 weeks in summer. I might give that a try

 

[Munroco]

Pics to make sense of above post

 

[Munroco]

Day 2
 
Tank is slowly clearing, I put in a sponge filter to try and help it along a bit but it didnt seem to make any difference.
 
Made a trip to the beach for stones, beautiful sunny day but was very cold so I didn't hang about. I've got a lot more than I plan on using so I can pick and choose.
 
These are the hazel cuttings I'm gonna use. They're from a "contorted" hazel tree, you can see why its called that as the branches are all twisted into great shapes. Its still a bit buoyant so I'll need to weigh it down with stones at first. I had a few plays to see how it would look.
 
Day 3
 
Still clearing...... I expected it to be crystal clear by now, but at least its getting there.
 
I played about with the hazel branches again and got a look I quite like. There isn't going to be room for as many stones as I thought. The ones in there atm are weighing down the wood which has lost some of its buoyancy allready. I also wanted to see how the gravel would look with some plants, so I grabbed some Java fern from another tank.
 
Things to do next are level the tank (should have done that first

) and make some sort of backing for it. Pondering the idea of cutting up the box the tank came in and spraying it black, or taping a black bin liner to the back of the tank.
 
Still haven't ordered plants, not sure what to use (ive been discussing it on another thread) I want something big and bushy for the back and some low (preferably fast) growing stuff for the front. I hope to cover most of the branches with Java moss, but my moss has been a bit of a failure so far. It seems to be disintegrating into a brown mess. I really want the planting to be very dense. All suggestions welcome.

 

[LyraGuppi]

Really, it's very pretty! I wish I had a hazel tree...

 

[Munroco]

Its in my sisters garden, it grows into some really twisted convuluted shapes. I wish I could get rid of the bark but its very thin, I think I'd need to sandblast it to do that.

 

[Munroco]

Probably about day 9
 
Water cleared after 3 days.... I cut the box the tank came in to make a backing for it. I may paint it black later. I decided less was more and took some of the branches out and rearranged it somewhat. The wood has almost lost all its buoyancy.
 
The Java fern are just floating for now. I'm going to cut up the bacopa from my other tanks to try to create some bushy areas. I've ordered Java moss, hairgrass and an anubias which should arrive tomorrow or the day after. Then I'll plant the tank and tie the fern, moss and anubias to the branches. Hopefully I can hide the heater and filter eventually. I'll be adding some more small rocks too.
 
The tank is still not quite level, hopefully some bits of cardboard under the table legs will sort that.

 

[jag51186]

Looking magnificent!! I like the wood a lot!!

 

[BiggTexx]

Agreed, that wood is very unique!

 

[LyraGuppi]

Agreed again!

 

[Munroco]

Day 12
 
Plants have arrived at last, time to get to work.
 
Emptied tank, looks like mud.
Rescaped tank with a few more stones just to get it more or less sorted in my mind before I plant it.
 
This is  the approx layout.
 
And these are the plants I bought.
 

 

 

[Munroco]

Doesn't look like much, lets hope a little goes a long way.
 
Top Tip - Before tying moss to branches, check sewing box is the right way up before you open it.
 
Trying to be sparing with java moss without making it too sparse.
 
Only enough for 3 branches, the 4th will have the anubias and some java fern.

 

[LyraGuppi]

Looks great!
 
what did you tie the java moss with?

 

[Munroco]

just brown thread, it was a bit fiddly, I think if I do something like that again I'll go for the super glue

Tied the anubias on to the last branch and started separating the hair grass into plugs. The pic is the 2nd (and last) batch. I could have split them further but tbh I don't have the patience, anyway I got about 50 little plants which was what the advert promised, and I still have more than half of the bunch left (good deal), I'm going to plant that as a clump in another tank and see how it does.  I planted the little ones in the front right corner and I'm hoping it will spread out and form a carpet. I also have the java fern to go in. I'll tie a bit to that last branch and spread the rest out.