Jartiles305's Planted 10g Journal

[JArtiles305]

Here is my 10 gallon tank. I'm keeping some basic fish stock in it, and trying to keep it a low tech planted tank. Planting with novice low lights plants, something that should be fool proof. Regardless, here are the stats.

Substrate: Pool Filter Sand
Lighting: 10w Daylight Flourescent Bulb x 2
Plants: Anachris, Java Fern, 1 Unknown
Fish Stock: 1 Platy or Swordtail unsure, 1 CT Betta, 3 Aeneus Corycats

I need to put more plants, probably in order to stem off an upcoming algae attack. Any tips on the tank, I have a few plastic plants until I can replace them with more live ones. This weekend I'll be heading to the LFS to get some more plant cover. Any chance I can get away without having to dose fertilizer, or CO2? Any plants to look for? I'm going to buy an Anubia Nana, but unsure of what else to stock. Any fast growers to look for, or just more Anachris?

Hope to keep this updated. I'll be sure to be asking questions.

Thanks in advance.

Any clue if this is a platy or swordtail? Has a slight sword, but am unsure.

 

[wood27]

Thats a nice tank, are some of the plants fake? The white gravel is very nice, i wanted to try it, but my friends tank has white gravel, but it looks really bad when its dirty.
I really like the color of the platy.

 

[JArtiles305]

Thats a nice tank, are some of the plants fake? The white gravel is very nice, i wanted to try it, but my friends tank has white gravel, but it looks really bad when its dirty.
I really like the color of the platy.

The only real plants are the Anachris, Java Fern, and the single stem in the middle. I have no clue what plants it is. The substrate is pool filter sand, and I agree it's a pain to keep clean. I do weekly water changes and vaccum and it gets dirty extremely fast. The orange fish was about 1/4 inch when I got it, it's grown a ton.

 

[JArtiles305]

Well it's a little under a month and the tank is completely different. The fish stock is 5 Harlequins, 3 Cories.

I have a brown algae problem on some of the walls and on the Anubia leaves, not sure how to remedy this.

Any suggestions/comments/critiques would be appreciated.

 

[Luke_e]

That bogwood looks superb with the moss, i love it!!
Is the substrate slant right - left done on purpose?

 

[lljdma06]

Tank looks great! Yeah, another Miamian!

Diatoms are pretty easy to remove and not a big deal. If I were you, I'd try and move your CO2 ladder more to the right, or to the left. Try and hide it behind your taller stem plants and your tank will look better.

llj

 

[JArtiles305]

Gently clean the algae off the anubias (an old toothbrush works, rinse it well first). Too much algae build up on the leaves will cause the anubias to "starve" for light and will turn yellow.

I've actually been scrapping it off with my fingers, but I'll try to see if I can get myself an old toothbrush. For now the fingers are working decently.

That bogwood looks superb with the moss, i love it!!Is the substrate slant right - left done on purpose?

Thanks, I repositioned the wood and this seemed like a better alternative to the previous one. No, I have it sloping from the back to the front. The slope from right to left was completely unintentional and a result of moving stuff around.



I'm looking to add some more plants besides all the Cabomba I have. Though I can't seem to decide what and were I can fit it. Any suggestions on anything I can modify on the tank would be appreciated.

Also, I should be adding some Cherry Shrimp within the next month or two.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Qays]

Great tank!!!

 

[JArtiles305]

It's been ages since I do an update. I sort of had abandoned by tank and had stopped not kept up with it. So a day before thanksgiving I decided to give it a nice cleaning. The tanks setup had been changed since the last update but no pictures were taken since then the abandonment began.

So here it is before the cleaning:

Algae had gotten out of control it was dense on the glass. There is also a lot of dead or dying Java Moss, besides the ground is covered in brown looking mulch type thing. I also manually pulled out of the Java Moss, these stringy looking things that had grown on it. It was almost like vines with little green balls spread evenly throughout the vine.

I rubbed the glass down, cleaned out the filter, and replenished the CO2 supply.

This is after the cleaning:

I still need to give it a better cleaning. More than likely within the next week I'll put the fish in a bucket and give it a better cleaning. I have no idea what to do about the dead Java Moss, as it seems almost impossible to remove all the strings unless I do a complete tear down and reattach the live moss.

Really unsure what to do with the tank. I'm out of ideas and really want to head in a new direction.

Well that's the update for now I guess.

 

[George Farmer]

Much better clean.

 

[lljdma06]

The tank looks much better clean. I agree. I think you should get the tank stable first before you try some new things. If you do find that you want a fresh approach, I would be more than willing to rehome your crypts.

What are your stats again? There could be an underlying cause for your algae. Are you using the Nutrafin system?

llj