K.j.'s 10g Journal

[K.J.]

Well, I've finally ordered the last bit. It'll come in on Tuesday, I think. Here's the information:

Fish;
- 2x Platies
- 4x Corydoras
- 1x ADF (being moved)

Tank;
20"x10"x12"
50w max incandescent light strip
10 Gallons

Filter;
Penguin 20G, 100 GPH

Plants;
Ludwigia, vallisneria, java ferns, java moss, wisteria, anubias

Ornaments;
Rocks, wood.

And I'm ordering:

A fluorescent light strip to replace the first one, I'm not sure of the wattage. Eco-Complete substrate, & Nutrafin Co2 Kit. I'm trying to achieve a look similar to this: This. That is NOT MY TANK, but I am trying a similar look. Hopefully I can make it look even better in ten gallons. I haven't decided on a definate layout yet, but like I said, I have an inkling.

 

[Castellop123]

s...

 

[K.J.]

Sounds like you have it all planned out... Have you thought about liquid/dry fertilizers? What is the water chemistry?

Cheers...

I might use a liquid fertilizer I bought a while ago. I'm not sure what you mean by chemistry, but the PH is 7.6 - 7.8, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates unsure, but at most 20. The water is soft, but I don't know the exact level.

 

[mlawson]

Sounds good. Your water chemistry seems fine, I'm looking forward to seeing this setup.

 

[K.J.]

Okay, so we got it and did it today. Pictures now:

The tank before. It still lacks height now, but the vall will *hopefully* grow and the ludwigia and suck. Anyway...

What we got - Eco Complete, Nutrafin co2, and a fluorescent tube strip.

First step: take out plants. In this picture you see crypts, hornwort, ludwigia, java moss, java ferns & wisteria.

The rocks after being washed. They got washed again after that.

Halfway into the planning without any plants. It'd be a cichlid wonderland.

A closeup of the anubias.

And the final product... it lacks height. I know. You just wait.

I don't know. I just finally got a cool picture of the cories.

 

[Themuleous]

Looks cool much better after the re-do, are you pleased with the results? You going to add more plants?

Sam

 

[K.J.]

Looks cool much better after the re-do, are you pleased with the results? You going to add more plants?

Sam

I might add some vall if the one I already have (it's tiny, you can't see it) doesn't grow. You can tell from the picture below I do have it fairly well planted, and I'm trying to leave at least a little room right now for the cories. For the most part, I'm just waiting for the main plants to grow out. Would a big swordplant look good in there?/

 

[fozziebear]

in my opinion id either lose some of the rocks or some of the wood, they dont look good together to me, just my opinion though. also it looks a bit rammed with stuff apart from plants, id free up a bit of the substrate to be bare, you want to accentuate the plants with the hardscaping, and your cories will be greatful for a nice area to root around in my 2 pennies.

 

[K.J.]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Where do you think is a nice area to have a cleared place? Originally I had planned to have a place that was like a little "playground" enclosed with Wisteria, but then I didn't have enough, so I came up with this. There are a few caves and stuff you can't see, but for the most part, there are a lot of rocks.

 

[fozziebear]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Where do you think is a nice area to have a cleared place? Originally I had planned to have a place that was like a little "playground" enclosed with Wisteria, but then I didn't have enough, so I came up with this. There are a few caves and stuff you can't see, but for the most part, there are a lot of rocks.

id say take out the biggest rocks, and use the smaller ones to make a bit of a cave for the corys with a clear area infront of it, then try and plant so the plants will grow over the rocks of the cave, and at the other side make an area with the wood, and plant around that, taller plants to the back smaller plants to the front and such

 

[lljdma06]

Unless I'm mistaken, the fluorescent strip light you ordered comes with a 15W bulb right? For a 10g tank, this is very low light, especially for a small tank. When a tank is less than 10-20g, it needs more light to achieve the same growth in a tank larger than 20g. For example, my 8g nano has 24W of Power compacts over it, 3WPG. I don't inject CO2 and I consider that tank a low-light aquarium. My 2.5g has a whopping 5.2WPG and it is also a low-light tank. I've grown plants in 1.5WPG in a 10g, but I was limited to anubias, crypts, egeria, mosses, java fern, and perhaps some very hardy stemplants. You can always add another strip light and I did this for a time, but it is very bulky. The fact that you are injecting CO2 and have a good substrate is a plus. In the future, you may want to consider a slimmer T5 fixture or perhaps power compacts.

Expect slow growth.

llj

 

[mlawson]

If I were you, I would not bother using CO2 either, IMO it isn't really needed in tanks less than 2wpg, but it will still make a difference. If you were to improve your plant growth the best thing you could do is improve your lighting first, you already have the CO2, so it would be fine.

I think you should have more of a clearing at the front and perhaps remove some of the rocks or put them to the back. Overall, it looks good, well done

Mike

 

[K.J.]

Unless I'm mistaken, the fluorescent strip light you ordered comes with a 15W bulb right? For a 10g tank, this is very low light, especially for a small tank. When a tank is less than 10-20g, it needs more light to achieve the same growth in a tank larger than 20g. For example, my 8g nano has 24W of Power compacts over it, 3WPG. I don't inject CO2 and I consider that tank a low-light aquarium. My 2.5g has a whopping 5.2WPG and it is also a low-light tank. I've grown plants in 1.5WPG in a 10g, but I was limited to anubias, crypts, egeria, mosses, java fern, and perhaps some very hardy stemplants. You can always add another strip light and I did this for a time, but it is very bulky. The fact that you are injecting CO2 and have a good substrate is a plus. In the future, you may want to consider a slimmer T5 fixture or perhaps power compacts.

Expect slow growth.

llj

Hopefully when I get some more money I might be able to get a better bulb. Is that the only wattage for the size or will I have to buy a better hood?//

 

[TammyLiz]

You can't get a higher wattage bulb to fit into that fixture, you'll have to replace the fixture or add another one.

You mentioned that you have an incandescent hood before. Is it the kind that takes two screw-in bulbs? If so it would be an upgrade to put two compact fluorescent bulbs into that. Then you'd have around 22 WPG (depending on exactly which bulbs you got, it could be slightly higher or lower), but the compact fluorescent has a higher light output per watt than the normal output fluorescent.

 

[K.J.]

Well, might as well update.

I changed it a bit at the next water change so it had more space for the cories and I definately liked it better. After that I did a couple more, minor ones. Then eventually I just got down to the lighting problem; mom insisted on buying a "grow light" that someone at Petsmart "had in his tank" because our diatoms were getting bad. It didn't change much So then we tried fluorescent and they work perfectly, only now the lighting is clearly yellow which goes bad with the brown diatoms. Oh well, hopefully it will start to look up I now have 30 watts or 3 WPG on it, which makes it reasonibly high tech a guess. My ferts are API Leaf Zone and some stuff I found in the Nutrafin kit; I'm not sure really what to do with fertilizers. Plenty of new growth but it all looks sort of dead because of the diatoms... Anubia got 2 - 3 new leaves and the cryps have about 3 new leaves each with the java fern having about 5 new babies, heh. xD Well, pictures later.