10 Gallon Semi-iwagumi Set Up

tophat665

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My Single White Male Betta, Bruce, has shuffled off this mortal coil, run up the curtain, and joined the choir invisible, leaving me with a 10 gallon tank I had been seriously considering reworking even while he was alive. (I was going to sit him in a 2.5 for a couple of days while I did it.)

If anyone saw in TFH last month (the one with the porcupine fish on the cover) there was an Amano tank (50 gallon) with Glosso and hairgrass. I'd like to try and do something like this in that 10 with an iwagumi layout instead of the lovely driftwood thing he did.

So the thinking goes like this: move the filter (A duetto 50) to my amazon tank to keep it running. Lay down a layer of peat a quarter to a half inch thick. Set a half dozen stones (Either Petrified Wood or something gnarly if I can find it reasonably priced) on the peat, then around them with organic potting soil to get the sloping, then top with some of the new fluorite sand.

Plant according to the plan below - hairgrass along most of the back and one side, Dwarf sag across the rest of the back and in amongst the stones, glosso for the rest, letting the glosso and the sag mix in along the edges.

10GalPlan.jpg

Populate it with a half dozen or so cherry shrimp, three ottos, and six female bettas.

Any Carbon to be done with Excel. Little bit of peat in the filter. Flourish fertilizer weekly.

My big question is how much light will I need? Would 30 watts (2 standard strip lights) pass muster?

Did I miss anything important? (Oh, the circle in the picture is the heater). Should I maybe skip the sags and go with pearlgrass (HC is thin on the ground hereabouts)
 
Plan looks good, not sure if the sags will get to big though? Glosso will over run HC. How about a carpet of Glosso, then hairgrass then Hemianthus micranthemoides at the back? Just an idea.

Lighting wise I would aim for 3-4WPG, a pair of 24w T5s or 18w T8's would probably do the trick.

Sam
 

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