Frosty's 10 Gallon

Hi. This is my first real thread on this forum. Thought I'd post some pics of my tank.

This was my tank a few months ago, with 40 watts of light, Pressurized CO2, and Eco Complete Substrate.



And this is the tank now. I did a major rescape because I switched to ADA Aquasoil substrate. It's two weeks old now. Will post more specs later.

wobbz said:

nice man.

what kind of eco complete substrate was that? it seemed like you mixed it with some other kind of gravel

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It was defective Eco Complete. I bought 3 bags and they were all mixed with white and red pebbles right inside the bag, and the grain size was ridiculously large. Unfortunately, I was unable to return it, because I bought it in sealed bags from another hobbyist and not from a store. It still grew plants great, but the grain size and color was not at all the plain black I expected. Bags of eco still sometimes turn up like that, with lots of large red and grey pieces. Definitely not always the prettiest substrate.

jamesstill84 said:

Is that branch a dried out piece of driftwood? It looks fresh.

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It was dried out, but it was not sandblasted, so the bark was still intact. It was so thin that sandblasting would have destroyed it. Unfortunately, my red ramshorn snails ate it down to nothing. I bought a large package of 20 pieces of driftwood from a hobbyist on another forum, and all my driftwood is from him.

LuciferSam said:

Is that the Amizonia soil? If so make sure it is type 1, not two, two crumbles to silt in about 1 or 2 months

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Yep, its Amazonia, and yep its Type 1. I've heard horror stories of even Type 1 melting into mud though, unfortunately. So far, it's kept its shape, although it's definitely easily crushed, so I won't be moving my hardscape around much at all. Thanks for the heads up!

SMinNC said:

Nice, both ways!

And pressurized on a 10g. I wish I would have started out this way!

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I actually started with DIY CO2, but that became such a pain. I'm using the Red Sea Paintball CO2 system with the solenoid regulator. It lasts me a couple of months. I only run CO2 during the day when the lights are on. It was a Christmas gift from my family, cause they knew I'm too cheap to break down and buy anything so expensive on my own. My lighting is the USA Current Satellite fixture running 40 watts of 10,000k/6,700k lighting. It's sufficient to grow pretty much anything I want in this tank, although that company does make an 80 watt version that's also 20 inches, which would be awesome for a noon-time burst of light.