Noobs Ltlb 10

[Steve H.]

This will be a journal following the experiences of my first planted tank. I started fishkeeping as a hobby 3 months ago completely by accident, and going with live plants seems to be my natural progression in what has become a quite enjoyable new obsession.

My goal is to transform what currently looks similar to this:

Into something with a very natural and eye pleasing look.

The Plan:
To apply a natural and realistic aquascape to my 10gal tank using a low tech method with a low budget(LTLB 10). I would like to keep my budget at $30 or less.
This will be a low tech project as my tank currently has limitations, and so do my skills. I would like to avoid co2 and ferts for now, and attempt those in my next chapter of this hobby. I will be loosely using principles of the Walstad Method combined with other knowledge I have picked up in my research here at the TFF.

Style:
What seems will work best for me is a Triangle Scape. I would like to keep it as natural looking as possible. I have a vision in my head, but due to limitations I have had to make a few compromises. I still think I can make most of what I would like it to look like happen.

Equipment & Hardscape:
Lighting - 60w spiral fluorescent, 5500K, 1.4 wpg
Substrate - 1" organic soil under 1" fine black gravel enriched with some flourite
Ferts/CO2 - none
Flow - Whisper 55gl filter(rated 200gl per hour) and an airstone
Hard scape - oak & rocks

Tank Stats:
NH3/4 = 0
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 10 to 20ppm
pH = 8.3
gH = 60ppm I think this converts to dGH=6, but not sure how to convert the ppm
kH = 260ppm I think this converts to dKH=15, but again not sure

Currently I am still researching plant species that will work well for me. I still need to change my substrate, but will not do that until the day I am ready to plant.

I am also playing with the hard scape which has been beneficial as I can now actually see how much planting space I have.

I will post hard scape set up and tentative species list next.

As always tips, help, and opinions are welcomed.

 

[Steve H.]

I started tinkering with the hard scape. I found some interesting rocks that I scrubbed and preped.
I also have some oak from a dead tree down the road which I scrubbed and have been soaking the past couple of weeks.

God...I can't wait to get rid of this electric blue gravel. But, this tank actually belongs to my 4 year old son. He only let's me play with it.
It took some convincing to get him to agree to taking out the fake rock formation. I had to get him excited about all the new rocks and wood.
But that's not all....I had to let him do it "all by myself papa", and this is what he came up with:

Surprisingly...not bad for a 4 year old. I didn't hate it, but it was not exactly what I was after.

I had to wait until Lucas lost interest before I could get back to it. Although I found the red rocks nice out of the tank, I did not care for them when Lucas put them in there. Unfortunately he loves them. Also, due to the small size of the tank I feel I have to go with a "less is more" approach in order to keep the scale in an eye pleasing proportion.

This may not be my final decision on the hard scape, but it gives me a great look as to all the planting areas. This will help me make my final plant selections.
Because of my lighting ballast the right side of the tank receives more light than the left side. So, I am already thinking I will flip this current configuration by placing the rocks on the right and the wood on the left. This will allow for a larger planting area directly under the light.

 

[Steve H.]

Plant species and positioning plan:

Background Left - Sagittaria Subulata. Background Right - Sagittaria Subulata
Midground Left - Hygrophilia Balsamica. Midground Right - Hygrophilia Difformis
Foreground Left - cryptocoryne wendtii green Foreground Right - Pogostemon Helferi
Ground Cover Center - Hemianthus C.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Well this is fun and interesting!!! I can't wait to see your progression. I have a 2 year old, luckily he doesn't care much about the way I place everything, he just likes the phishies {fishes} -->my attempt at his word. I hope you keep this updated!

 

[Steve H.]

Well this is fun and interesting!!! I can't wait to see your progression. I have a 2 year old, luckily he doesn't care much about the way I place everything, he just likes the phishies {fishes} -->my attempt at his word. I hope you keep this updated!

Thanks! I will be updating as I progress.
Problem with my son is I made this a kind of father/son thing. He helps with all the cleaning maintenance, water testing, and feeding. The other day I was at the sink cleaning some diatoms off the fake plants when I hear "Papa! I did it all by myself!". When I turn and look he was able to start the siphon, and was draining the tank into the bucket. And, I don't have a fancy gravel vac I just have a plastic hose from Home Depot. The little dude actually had to suck to get it going. I was pretty impressed he learned that by just watching me. Although Im sure he got a mouthful of poop water.
:$
Combine that with the fact he is pretty OCD for a 4 year old, makes for difficult times when I want to change something.

Hopefully you won't have to worry about that for quite some time.

 

[Steve H.]

Getting the plants I want is proving to be harder than I had anticipated.

I can order on-line, but it will cost me $17 to ship $27 worth of plants. I don't know if I can overcome the cheap skate in me and bring myself to spend that must shipping.
It also pushes me over my $30 budget by $14, and I still have to buy substrate which is another $8.

Luckily these will be the only purchases I need to make. Everything else for this project I either had or found....

I might just have to bite the bullet here, and go $22 over budget. Big Box stores don't carry the plants I want, and lfs all have great selection of fish but not plants.
I guess I can think of the $22 as a convenience fee for not having to get off my lazy butt.

 

[lljdma06]

Getting the plants I want is proving to be harder than I had anticipated.

I can order on-line, but it will cost me $17 to ship $27 worth of plants. I don't know if I can overcome the cheap skate in me and bring myself to spend that must shipping.
It also pushes me over my $30 budget by $14, and I still have to buy substrate which is another $8.

Luckily these will be the only purchases I need to make. Everything else for this project I either had or found....

I might just have to bite the bullet here, and go $22 over budget. Big Box stores don't carry the plants I want, and lfs all have great selection of fish but not plants.
I guess I can think of the $22 as a convenience fee for not having to get off my lazy butt.

Where are you?

 

[Steve H.]

Getting the plants I want is proving to be harder than I had anticipated.

I can order on-line, but it will cost me $17 to ship $27 worth of plants. I don't know if I can overcome the cheap skate in me and bring myself to spend that must shipping.
It also pushes me over my $30 budget by $14, and I still have to buy substrate which is another $8.

Luckily these will be the only purchases I need to make. Everything else for this project I either had or found....

I might just have to bite the bullet here, and go $22 over budget. Big Box stores don't carry the plants I want, and lfs all have great selection of fish but not plants.
I guess I can think of the $22 as a convenience fee for not having to get off my lazy butt.

Where are you?

Near Chicago....

I already bit the bullet, and ordered my plants. They were out of stock of Flame Moss, and that dropped my order to less than $40 with shipping.

The enthusiasm side of me overpowered the cheap skate side.

 

[Steve H.]

So my plants are ordered, but I don't think they are on there way yet. It looks like I won't be getting them until next week sometime.
Disappointing because I am so eager to get this going, but I have plenty to do to prepare for there arrival. I've been researching how to best plant each species.
I have to find out about quarantine of the plants. I have been doing my best to set up to prevent algae, and don't want new plants bringing it in.
I read to use 1 part bleach to 20 parts water and soak plants for 4 minutes. Does not sound right to me, so I need to look into that a little more.

I have been thinking a lot about my lighting. With a 14w bulb I am maxed out unless I buy something new.
I noticed I was losing a lot of light out of the back where the filter is. So, I went ghetto

I decided to keep the light from escaping to adhere some foil to the filter cover, and try to bounce some of that light back in. And, since I already had the foil and glue out I might as well do the whole inside of my hood. The motivation was to bounce more light to the left side of the tank where the lighting was less intense.
It was relatively easy. The foil molded the the curves of the hood easily, and left a fold as a guide to cut out for a perfect fit. A little spray adhesive, and boo ya, ghetto reflectors.

Actually works pretty well. Here is a side by side before and after:

 

[FishFanatic04]

on the hood. lol My 10g hood just died on me. I have to figure something out too. I am not sure on quarantine of plants, but I ran mine under my "gentle" tap water in my kitchen sink. I also stripped off some weird stringy clusters, which turned out were snail eggs. The bleach solution might kill anything, but I would be worried about anything getting into my tank. Any snails that have hatched are easily smushed "when no one is looking, meaning my 2 year old" My other fish eat them before they fall. It takes a strong stomach. But I worry that bleach solutions would affect my whole tank. Plus if you don't overfeed, the snails won't overbreed.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

I've never bleached plants, and haven't heard of anyone doing it till now, mine go straight from the pots in the tank, after a quick trim to encourage new growth that is.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

My OH read my post and said it sounded nasty lol wasn't meant in tht way dude.

 

[FishFanatic04]

My OH read my post and said it sounded nasty lol wasn't meant in tht way dude.

 

[Steve H.]

My OH read my post and said it sounded nasty lol wasn't meant in tht way dude.

No worries. I didn't take it that way at all.
I was actually hoping someone would confirm for me if that was right. Because I didn't like the sound of it when I read it.
So, thank you and FF for confirming that for me. Also, that it is not entirely necessary to quarantine my plants is good to know.
Thanks for the insights!

 

[Ps3Steveo]

If ya get any snails on them just pick up an assasin snail