Planted tank Setups

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willsher

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Dec 13, 2006
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Lately i've been finding myself looking at more and more planted tanks and have been amazed at just how awesome they look. I've begun to pick up study materials on the subject and keep looking in my fish closet at a 10 gallon tank that's been sitting in there empty for awhile now. I have most of the main things I need (I think).

Can anyone tell me if a 10 gallon with a small HOB filter and a DIY CO2 diffuser would be a feasible setup for a planted tank with say a small group of cardinal or neon tetra's. I could possible step up to a 20 long if a 10 would be too small.

Thanks
 
with a hob there is a lot of surface agitation and will gas off the co2. you might want to try excel. if you do go with the hob and diy co2 make sure the water is all the way to the top and as little surface agitation as possible. i would go with the 20 long. gives you more area for plants and more options for fish.
 
Great looking tank. Is there a light kit that someone can suggest I use to give the right amounts for a 20 long?
 
lighting depends on what you want to do with the tank. for a cheap easy start i would go with the power compact screw in bulbs you can find at walmart. put two of them over your tank and see how it works out. there are a few different light amount of watts. i have seen as low as 12 watts and high as 27 watts.
 
I mess around a lot with a couple of 10g set ups. I would suggest you do low light plants. I use a standard fluorescent top and I keep one on the west side of two glass doors that face north. In the summer it gets early morning sunlight. I used to keep one near a south facing window but that one had an algae problem a few winters ago when the sun was low in the sky and it got too much light. I would leave them uncovered and try and use more natural light but I find that just leads to too much evaporation here. I have started using eheim aquaball internal filters on them recently because my local petsmart has those filters on clearance for $10, right now.

You can spend a small fortune on lights for these little tanks but every time I think I ought to do that I realize I would rather have a larger aquarium. Anubias, java fern and moss crypts and things like that work well and most of them are about the right size. Actually only the crypts even need a substrate so sometimes I just leave the substrate out. I use a few rocks and a lot of driftwood and every few months I take everything out of the tank and vacuum out the bottom completely. It is very easy to maintain.

I just recently put some flourite in the substrates because I want to try and grow some sagittarria subulata in them. I am also trying to convert them to CO2 from excel because I am tired of buying it. Anyway they are small and I like to experiment with them. I just recently created a hazardous waste in one of them and had to toss what was in it and start over.
 
These are all awesome suggestions. Since perusing this site, I've never been without plants of some sort in all of my tanks.

One of the best things you can do to make things easier is to start with the most durable plants you can find. Choose the ones that need the least light and are easy to keep (i.e., no special nutrient dosing required in most cases).

My first choices upon starting this hobby were just swords and egeria densa. Later, I added hygrophila polysperma (sadly, h. polysperma is a noxious weed in most states), java fern, and java moss. My 100gal tank has all of the above except for the e. densa, and it requires almost no maintenance other than pruning during water changes. The vals, swords and hygrophila can plant right into the gravel, and they flourish in spite of a powered UGF. The java fern does fine in the corners where the light is sparse, and the java moss is an accidental import that is just starting to show strands here and there...I started with a baggy of it, and now have a couple handfuls in my 3 other small tanks...it just grows, and grows in spite of my ineptitude at keeping green things alive.

I'm not an expert, so it's great to be able to listen to experts here; all I have is pressurized CO2 after struggling a year with DIY sugar & yeast. I lurk often on this part of the forums, because of the high knowledge levels.

Here's a pic of my rookie planted tank. I just finished pruning out several large handfuls of val clippings, and uprooted a small bucket of h. polysperma. I had to clear out all the h.p. in the middle area to transplant that little sword from another tank I'm tearing down and rebuilding. I started with two ragged looking val fragments, and they just took off (it's jungle val; i'd suggest the smaller varieties). That dark green clump closest to the right side of the pic is a bunch of java fern that started as a 2-inch strand that I tied to a small piece of driftwood. These are all beginners' plants, and even though they're not exotic, they still look wonderful waving to-and-fro in the light current I have going.

v/r, N-A

Just Pruned.jpg
 
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Actually, I think a 10 gallon is a great size for a first-time planted tank. For cheap lighting all you need to get is an incandescent hood (Perfecto makes a nice one) and then use screw-in compact fluorescent bulbs in whatever wattage you choose. My first planted tank was my 10 gallon, and I used a Whisper HOB filter (I have since switched to an Eheim canister I found cheap, but the HOB worked fine). For CO2 I dose Excel, but a DIY set-up could certainly benefit the plants if you wanted to try something over 2 wpg.

Here's my 10 gallon:

IMG_1340.JPG
 
webcricket, that is a gorgeous little tank. I don't employ enough light to get anything to grow that has red chlorophyll like you're doing.

Living proof (literally) that 10gallon setups can be made to look as good as any other setup, or even better.

v/r, N-A
 
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