5gal Planted / Betta Journal

[holokai]

Ok, so I expect this to be a long post. Bear with me!

I've been looking into starting a betta tank at work for over 3 months now, and I actually bought all the equipment around 2 months ago. But, due to this and that, I've not set it up yet. I plan to set it up next week, finally.

You can see the supplies I bought below.

I've purchased -
- 5 Gallon Tank
- Fish Net
- Power Strip
- 3/8 Inch Airline (Water changes)
- Thermometer Strip
- Seachem Flourish
- Hydor Theo 25w heater.
- Magnet Cleaner
- 20lbs Eco-Complete
- 36 watt light (2x18w 50/50)
- Maxi-jet 400 (water changes)
- Master Test Kit
- Whisper 10 Power Filter
- some really boring looking driftwood (won't be used)

I still need to figure out how to place the light on the tank. I can't find any glass covers in Hawaii, so I'll be going with a mesh lizard cover. That's kind of frustrating, but not much I can do about it. Other than that, though, I think I'm set.

I'd like to go with a densely planted low-light tank. I've read that actinic light does not generally count when you deal with freshwater tanks, but I like the look of the 50/50s. So that should mean I'm dealing with 18w of light, which should put me on the low end of the lighting scale. I have read differing opinions on this though, so please, let me know what you think.

I plan to create a valley off center to the right heading towards the back left of the tank. I hear this gives a pretty good illusion of depth. I'd like to play around with the layouts some, but I'm not sure if I can do that with the eco-complete. Does anyone know if I can try various layouts with the eco-complete and not worry about the "stuff" in it dying on me?

I'm also not sure about the plants I should use. I went to the local store and they had the following in stock -
(keep in mind these are the names the store gave them)
- Cryptocyrene Cilata
- Cryptocyrene Mendtii v. Tropica (bronze and red)
- Cryptocyrene Balangao
- Vallisnaria
- Banana plant
- Anubias
- Java Fern
- Water Sprite(This isn't an aquatic plant, I don't think)
- Green Hedge
- Red and Green Hydro
- Amazon Sword
- Brazil Sword

As far as fish, I plan for one betta, and perhaps some CAEs or similar for algae control.

Please let me know what you think! I've bragged at work about how great this tank is going to be, so now I have to deliver. But, I guess when all they've ever seen is a betta bowl.... well, anyways.

Thanks!
- Chris

 

[Themuleous]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'd like to go with a densely planted low-light tank. I've read that actinic light does not generally count when you deal with freshwater tanks, but I like the look of the 50/50s. So that should mean I'm dealing with 18w of light, which should put me on the low end of the lighting scale. I have read differing opinions on this though, so please, let me know what you think.

Yes 18w would be low light however I'm not to sure about the lighting choice. Both Actinic and 50/50s are designed for marine tanks and have a lot of blue in them, which will only help algae so best avoided. I can highly recommend the Arcadia freshwater tubes.

I plan to create a valley off center to the right heading towards the back left of the tank. I hear this gives a pretty good illusion of depth. I'd like to play around with the layouts some, but I'm not sure if I can do that with the eco-complete. Does anyone know if I can try various layouts with the eco-complete and not worry about the "stuff" in it dying on me?

I use EC in both my planted tanks and have found it to be excellent. You don't need to worry to much about the 'things' dieing, well I certainly wouldn't, I presume you'll cycle the tank in the normal way before adding fish, in which case it shouldn't matter what you do to the EC.

Plant list looks ok, not sure about the valls in a 5g, even the nano variety gets to 50cm long! Same goes for the amazon swords, which will be to big. I guess that your biggest problem will be to get plants that stay small. There is a pinned list of easy aquarium plants, any of the 'foreground' ones would probably be ok.

Betta sounds good, but I would avoid the CAE will be to big for a 5g, ottos would be an alternative.

Sam

 

[fishboy619]

i wouldnt get CAE, stick with ottos.apart from that, it all looks like you have it set up, pictures along your journey would be intresting to look at.good luck witrh it all

 

[holokai]

Hey Guys, thanks for the responses. I didn't know the CAE's would get too big for a 5 gallon, thanks for the heads up. I Am of course planning on cycling the tank for a while before I get any fish.

Yes 18w would be low light however I'm not to sure about the lighting choice. Both Actinic and 50/50s are designed for marine tanks and have a lot of blue in them, which will only help algae so best avoided. I can highly recommend the Arcadia freshwater tubes.

Actually, the bulb is half actinic and half 10,000k. So, It'll be a good mix of bright white and blue. I've not heard that the blue causes algae, I Was told in freshwater it didn't really do much. I may have to reconsider.

Plant list looks ok, not sure about the valls in a 5g, even the nano variety gets to 50cm long! Same goes for the amazon swords, which will be to big. I guess that your biggest problem will be to get plants that stay small. There is a pinned list of easy aquarium plants, any of the 'foreground' ones would probably be ok.

Actually, those were just the plants I saw at the LFS. I've not made my plant list yet. I'll check out that sticky again, I read it, but now I want to compare it to what I've seen around here.

Glad to hear that I can play around with the EC some without worry. I'll get right on that, and get some pictures up.

Hi and welcome to the forum

Thanks!

- Chris

 

[Eskielvr]

My absolute favorite plant is the Anubias Nana. They can tolerate low light (which I don't think yours will be, yours will probably be medium to high light). They're slow growers and remain small. Perfect for that sized tank. I have several in my 20 gallon.

 

[n3ont3tra]

It sounds good so far, I can't wait to see what plants you chose! I think, if you want it to seem like you have a bigger tank than it really is, then small leafed plants work well.

 

[anodized]

looks like a good setup, are you going to go CO2 with it?

as for the lid, i have a similar size tank and i picked up a sheet of lexan to make a top for the light.

look forward to seeing it set up

 

[Castellop123]

Cheers...

 

[Themuleous]

I would still avoid that bulb, its not that blue is necessarily bad (plants do need blue light) just that to much and little of the red and green is bad and that's exactly what marine bulbs do, lots of blue very little else.

Sam

 

[holokai]

I would still avoid that bulb, its not that blue is necessarily bad (plants do need blue light) just that to much and little of the red and green is bad and that's exactly what marine bulbs do, lots of blue very little else.

Hi Sam,

What Kelvin range should the light be? The bulbs in that unit are actinic and 10,000k which is a pretty crisp white, not much if any blue there. I don't really want to go any lower that 10,000k because then you start getting yellow, which I'm not a fan of. I ran 6,700k's at one point over my reef, and it didn't do much for me. But hey, if that's what it takes...

Thanks!
- Chris

 

[Themuleous]

To be honest I hate the whole kelvin rating of bulbs, its a lode of crap IMHO and completely pointless. I have a power glo 18000k which is positively pink, when it should in theory be blue. Most people tend to go for around 6500k for planted tanks. By far the most important thing is the spectrum of light produced, plant specific ones have peaks in the blue, green and red wavelengths. I will add that I have Arcadia freshwater tubes and they are an excellent plant bulb that give a very white light.

Sam

 

[holokai]

Sam, if the bulbs you're talking about are the ones in your EI Nano journal, they are very white indeed. I'll have to look into them. Does Arcadia make 18w PC bulbs? I'll have to go look around for some.

Thanks!
- Chris

Forgot to mention, I went to my two usual LFSs, and they were out of all 5 gallon lids, go figure. So I'll have to order one or call around to other shops. That just means there will be little to no progress until next weekend, unfortunately.

- Chris

 

[Themuleous]

The tubes on my current nano are not the Arcadia freshwater, cheapo tri-phophor tubes. I did however have the arcaida's when I first set the tank up.

Interpet do decent PC lighting, George uses the daylight interpet PC bulbs and says they are very good. Think the tri-plus is pinker of the two, daylight is whiter.

Sam

 

[holokai]

It sounds good so far, I can't wait to see what plants you chose! I think, if you want it to seem like you have a bigger tank than it really is, then small leafed plants work well.

Yeah, That's what I'm going for n3on. I was at the LFS yesterday, and was dissapointed to only see big broad leafed plants. They get their next shipment in on Thursday, I'm going to try to swing by then to see what they get.

looks like a good setup, are you going to go CO2 with it?

as for the lid, i have a similar size tank and i picked up a sheet of lexan to make a top for the light.

look forward to seeing it set up

Anodized, I just picked up a mesh lid. Not sure if I will keep it or not yet. I would like to keep this tank as low tech and low maintenance as possible, so I plan to dose CO2 for now. I may look into some sort of DIY CO2, but last time I tried, it didn't work out well.

Anywho, I put the Whisper 10 filter I bought together and slapped it on a 2.5 gallon with a betta in it that my buddy has. even on low flow it was too much for the fish. Is this because the fish was unused to any current at all, or is it simply too much? I've seen people use soda bottles to disrupt the flow, but this is unacceptable for this tank, as I have co workers to impress Any Ideas? I've thought about melting a piece of plastic to the return lip of the whisper, to disrupt the outflow a bit, so it's not all going in the same direction. this I think would slow the current considerably, and not be an eyesore. How does that sound?

- Chris

 

[Castellop123]

Cheers...