10 Gallon Planted Tank Plan

[mdwheeler]

That milwaukee isn't such a bad deal at all! I'd totally buy it but I'm gonna have to wait a little while till i've settled down in school.

I basically rescaped my aquarium, again and for the last time. I threw out my wisteria and my rotalas. The wisteria was just junky looking and the rotala had black brush algea to the extreme. It was starting to die at the roots because of the algea which also threatened to spread onto my other plants.

Still dosing 1.5 ml Seachem Flourish every other day and have healthy plants and perfectly healthy fish.

I bought more Cabomba and Hygro Rosa, as well as a piece of driftwood and java moss. I literally boiled the dang wood for two hours after having it soak in my tank for 36 hours and it still wouldn't sink. I had to way it down with old gravel (which worked!)

I've noticed the Cabomba is very similar to coral. At night, when I turn the lights off, the leaves shrink and the plant curls a bit, and when I turn the light on the next day it fans back out.

My co2 system is working like a charm. I kinda changed the method of diffusion by running it through an old small internal filter and running the out put through a hose that runs under the dirt and has an output in the bottom middle of the tank. I use my powerhead simply as a sponge filter as well as for current now.

Pics soon!

BTW my pic right now looks nothing like my tank anymore. (and it was my tank about a week ago)

 

[mdwheeler]

PICTURES!


Before:

Then:

And now (officially):

As you can see my Vallis just completely died. I have a little bit left that I shoved in the left corner to see if it will restart (you might be able to see it; its in front of the cabomba) but i'm not really thinking it will or actually care for that matter. As a 'ground cover' (such as hc or glosso) I will simply try to mass grow my hygro rosa and keep it trimmed in the front but tall in the back. I'm also gonna try to keep the gravel clear in front of the drift wood.

 

[Jallen]

Definitely an improvement. Nice one.

 

[mdwheeler]

Definitely an improvement. Nice one.

Lol thanks


I can't wait for it to really 'flourish' in about two months!

 

[hakova]

Great job mdwheeler. Are you still using lights ~4.8 w/g? And how many yeast CO2 bottles are you running?

Here is what I got:

It has been about 10 days since I started fertilizers (EI) and halved the light to 2.4 w/g. I think I am starting to see new leaves on sag.subulata. Slow growers (java fern and anubias barteri v nana) look OK, too. However, HC neither starts to form a carpet nor looks very healthy despite abundant CO2 as documented with the drop checker:

The moving bubbles seen around the drop checker are CO2 bubbles that come out from the powerhead on the right side of the first picture. As soon as they come out, they hit on the side of the rock next to the powerhead and spread around nicely. The filter output at the top also helps them to distribute around the tank. I am also adding 1 ml Fluorish Excel every other day in addition to all that CO2.

Ideas, recommendations are quite welcome, as always.

 

[mdwheeler]

Looking good, but of course mine is growin a little quicker due to more lighting (yep thats right, 4.8 wpg) as well as different species. My local aquarium store has about 8 watts per gallon on like a 150 gallon planted tank! He also used to have a 10 gallon planted with 9 wpg and 20 fish!

I'm still using 3 bottles of diy co2. I alternate between them ever other day or so but generally have about 2 bubbles a second if all the valves are closed due to the slight air leaks in the valves. I bump it up when I turn the lights on to about 4 bubbles a second or more. Still waiting to purchase a drop checker (not worried since every things healthy). I'll purchase it when I buy a pressurized system since I don't want to deal with the shipping and handling and ordering and all that jazz (literally NO ONE sells them around here). I might trash my internal filter and buy a second powerhead, maybe even a more powerful one too. If I did get the 900 instead of the 400 I would simply use my 400 as the bubbles smasher. My poor little fluval 1 plus gets so annoying sometimes. It has a constant tinking noise whether its got co2 running through it or not. I've actually got to the point where I put it on a timer so I wouldn't have to listen to it when I go to bed .

And not to forget 1.5 ml of Flourish every other day. I might (if I see growth stunting) bump it up to 1 ml every day. The bottle actually recommends it twice a week but heck I'm satisfied with what I'm doing.

BTW I use a marineland maxi-jet 400 (Don't know what your using.....what are you using?).

 

[hakova]

...
BTW I use a marineland maxi-jet 400 (Don't know what your using.....what are you using?).

The powerhead came with the CO2 kit, it is Red Sea brand.

I am just waiting for the maturation of the tank to get 6 cardinal tetras. I may go for an Oto, too, if I can find it in LFS. Otherwise, S&H costs a fortune. I thought I saw a little algae growing around at the time of the last WC.

I am more concerned about the health of flora (plants) than the fauna (fish). I feel like this is kind of an art to get the right ratios of light, ferts, CO2, timing, etc. If you get the plants healthy, I feel it will be easier to keep the fish healthy.

 

[mdwheeler]

I am more concerned about the health of flora (plants) than the fauna (fish). I feel like this is kind of an art to get the right ratios of light, ferts, CO2, timing, etc. If you get the plants healthy, I feel it will be easier to keep the fish healthy.

To be honest I don't worry a flip about my fish. I only feed them once a week and have yet seen one get ill or die (over the last 3 months).

If you don't think your plants are doing well do what I'm doing: bump up your lighting and fertilization. According to your drop checker co2 is definitely not the issue. The color indicates that you have about 50 ppm (so I read on another site).


I'm running my lights anywhere from 5-8 hours a day as well.

 

[Jallen]

I only feed them once a week and have yet seen one get ill or die (over the last 3 months).

D:

 

[mdwheeler]

I only feed them once a week and have yet seen one get ill or die (over the last 3 months).

D:

Thats what I was told to do! And they're healthy! In reality its more like every 5 or 4 days. I just kinda feed them when they start moping around the top 3 inches of the water.

BTW I have:
4 Otocinclus Catfish
2 Zebra Longfin Danios
2 Red Minor Serpae Tetra
1 Gold Platy

 

[Jallen]

I only feed them once a week and have yet seen one get ill or die (over the last 3 months).

D:

Thats what I was told to do! And they're healthy! In reality its more like every 5 or 4 days. I just kinda feed them when they start moping around the top 3 inches of the water.

BTW I have:
4 Otocinclus Catfish
2 Zebra Longfin Danios
2 Red Minor Serpae Tetra
1 Gold Platy

I feed mine once a day for what they will eat in 2 minutes... they go absolutely beserk. I can only describe it as a feeding frenzy. When feeding time nears they all come to the front of the tank when I walk past haha.

 

[lljdma06]

Have you considered Plant vs. Plant competition? You may have 50ppm of CO2, but not all your plants may be getting to reap the benefits of that number. Maybe there is a more CO2 agressive species that are consuming more nutrients than your HC. The Barr Report discusses this in an article. Fascinating stuff. I use these ideas in terrestrial gardening, only stands to reason that aquatic plants would behave in a similar fashion. I can't link directly to his article, I think you'd have to register for his forum to see it, but I can link you to this interesting study, which basically takes a look at this.

http/www.apms.org/japm/vol23/v23p7.pdf

50ppm seems an aweful lot. How is your surface agitation? Do you have any? I like some ripples, not river rapids, but little ripples. Remember, when the lights go out, plants stop using CO2 and start using O2. Maybe you do not have enough O2. Plants need this too.

llj

 

[bagu]

looks fantastic mate, i love it!

Bagu

 

[mdwheeler]

50ppm seems an aweful lot. How is your surface agitation? Do you have any? I like some ripples, not river rapids, but little ripples. Remember, when the lights go out, plants stop using CO2 and start using O2. Maybe you do not have enough O2. Plants need this too.

llj

I've considered putting an air pump on a timer for like an hour or so after the lights are out. Any recommendations?

 

[hakova]

@lljdma06: The filter output is directed toward surface, creating a good amount of surface agitation. BTW the flow rate of the canister filter is 100 gallons/hour, which is 10x the volume of the tank and you can feel the high volume turnover in the tank if you look closely. The fish usually stay deep in the water, which makes me think that there is no oxygenation problem in the water. Thank you for the article, I found it very interesting. The only fast grower in my tank is the sag. subulata, which started to show signs of growth and improved health, with new and brighter green leaves. I tend to assume that the slow growers, java fern and anubias will not compete with HC very much. For one thing, the actual biomass of HC is 2x more than java fern and 4x more than anubias.

HC came in pots, they were probably raised emerged, therefore this may be a reason for adjustment issues. The color and general appearance of all HC today seem a little worse than yesterday. Before noticing the posts here, I happened to open another topic basically asking for help to resuscitate the HC. You may remove that if you consider it double posting lljdma06. I apologize for this situation.

I know you were not an advocate of high intensity lighting, but now that I am adding fertilizers daily and maintaining high CO2 levels, do you think there is a place for adding that second T5 tube again (4.8w/g)? I really don't mind losing all my HC at this point, as long as I figure out a way to help survive and grow a very small portion of it. As soon as I formulate how to do this in my conditions, I can order a new batch of HC pots to replant, this time for a healthy growth. It is all about that secret art of finding he right ratios.