Shopping list for 10g to be planted

dewilde2 said:

Hi- I have an established 10 gallon tank that I am looking to switch over to planted and I have a few questions.
1. currently I have regular white gravel, but I would really like a black substrate, especially since that will help with the plant growth. I am thinking Eco-Complete because it looks darker than the Flourite and doesn't have to be rinsed.

2. Supplements: planning on some Flourite, anything else?

3. The plants I am hoping to try: micro sword, temple narrow leaf, moneywort and four leaf clover. I've found them all at liveaquaria.com and probably going to get them from there.

4. Lighting- I bought two of the "plant growth" light bulbs at the LFS and they awesomely enough don't say what wattage they are and I threw away the box...what should I have to support the plants above?

5. Should I start gradually adding plants or would it be bad to just totally switch and start with all of them at once?

6. I should also mention that my water consistently tests hard and I don't know if there is anything to be done for this in terms of sustaining healthy plants...

Any advice or recommendations would be great! Thanks

Click to expand...

eco complete is a great substrate. get it if you want to.

supplement as in nutrients? try dry ferts from rex grigg http://www.bestaquariumregulator.com/ferts.html

plants are up to you to decide.

the bulbs are probably 15ws each. do you have a twin strip hood?

Well the wattage of your bulbs would defintely help in aswering your questions, BUT if you are not injecting CO2, i would recommend using Flourish Excel in addition to Flourish Comprehensive. It provides a carbon source for your plants.

Is your lighting fixture compact fluorescent or just a standard 10g hood?

I believe having hard water won't effect most plants too much.

Also, yes you can add all the plants at once. That is actually better than adding them gradually. Give them about a week to acclimate then start your dosing schedule. Dosing of ferts is really dependent on the amount of light you have. I'll let someone more experienced give advice on specific dosing etc.

good luck.

1. Eco-complete is a good choice, no need to add Flourite to it as they pretty much do the same thing.

2. A light dusting under the Eco-Complete of peat or better yet, mulm (fish waste gunk) from an existing tank helps but isn't necessary.

3. I'd stay away from the temple plant, grows too fast and big for a 10g. The rest are good, maybe replace the temple with the much easier to manage, like water sprite, anubias nana, or java fern.

4. Your lights are either 10w or 15w, depends on the hood. Hopefully they're 15w giving you 30w total, which will give better growth. The "Plant growth" bulbs are unnecessary, regular daylight bulbs at the local hardware store will grow plants just as well and are likely cheaper.

5. Cram as much plants as you can right away. Adding a little at a time is asking for algae problems because the smaller amount of plants won't be able to out-compete the algae for nutrients.

6. Most plants are tolerant of hard water, all the ones you chose are.

30w of light isn't alot of light but you should still have ferts on hand. Dry ferts that was recommended is good and cheap and a single order will last for over a year for a 10g tank. CO2 or Flourish Excel for carbon will increase growth.