I have had a ten gallon for about 3 months now and am looking for any tips on it. I will post pictures on it as often as possible.
What would you like to do with it once you rehome those fish? That would help with giving you pointersI have had a ten gallon for about 3 months now and am looking for any tips on it. I will post pictures on it as often as possible.
Personally I wouldn’t even do live plants, fake ones have come a long way and look just as nice. I get the natural environment and growing aspect, I’ve kept reef tanks, but to me the reward of keeping live plants isn’t worth the effort.You will not want sand at all and certainly not over 3/4" cause it isn't beneficial to plants and will only cause problems in the long run.
But I see sand is the new goldfish in a bowl, people just want it, they had one in a bowl for xx years happy as can be, and no amount of evidence, logic or reason can change their mind. Good luck with that.
Sand the new "goldfish in a bowl"? I've been using sand for decades, as have many hobbyists I know. Always in my cichlid tanks. In my more advanced planted tanks I usually have a 1 inch layer over 1.5 to 2 inches of soil, ala the Walstad method. In cichlid tanks where the soil is going to be turned over by digging cichlids, the build up of anaerobic gases is avoided due to that very digging. In tanks where it is used as a cap, root growth is usually enough to prevent anaerobic pockets, and the addition of a few burrowing snails such as MTS all but eliminates the risk. Sand is more than adequate as a substrate for val, crypts, and swords, as well as plants that develop minimal root systems such as elodea, cabomba and ceratophyllum, and again a few MTS will all but eliminate the risk of anaerobic zones. Sand and MTS will actually allow you to keep some tougher plants, such as those I mentioned, with cichlids that will turn the substrate over some but not enough to discourage all plant growth, and it does a better job IME than gravel. If you're going to explore more delicate stem plants, then yeah, you'll want a more advanced substrate, and as I said, my preferred choice is a sand cap over soil.You will not want sand at all and certainly not over 3/4" cause it isn't beneficial to plants and will only cause problems in the long run.
But I see sand is the new goldfish in a bowl, people just want it, they had one in a bowl for xx years happy as can be, and no amount of evidence, logic or reason can change their mind. Good luck with that.