10 gallon planted tank

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/23/2022 at 5:04 PM, sairving said:

In this case it was a tumor. If my water was soft or I had rodi water, I would try keeping a wild betta species. 

Very tragic.

I do enjoy a lot of the wild species, such a unique fish and unique coloration.

[sairving]

On 10/23/2022 at 7:10 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Very tragic.

I do enjoy a lot of the wild species, such a unique fish and unique coloration.

I love the wild species. If I could run a true blackwater tank, they would be perfect.

[sairving]

 

What's been going on in my tank? White Clouds and my second attempt at pygmy corys. One pygmy isn't going to make it. The other one seems fine. At this point, I'm not buying anymore. I love the the White clouds. Such a pretty little fish. One of the males has been displaying near the females.

I plan on adding some new plants this week and propagating the anubias. The white clouds are also not very enthusiastic about the LFS branded fish food. They will eat it eventually. I picked up some bug bite spirulina flakes and they love those. Regular bug bites are a hit too. 

 

I'll see if I can get better pictures tomorrow. 

 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/26/2022 at 4:23 PM, sairving said:

I plan on adding some new plants this week and propagating the anubias. The white clouds are also not very enthusiastic about the LFS branded fish food. They will eat it eventually. I picked up some bug bite spirulina flakes and they love those. Regular bug bites are a hit too. 

Anubias + Mopani is literally what should be the "Fish tank beginner kit" for everyone.  It always looks SO AWESOME.  The dark brown and the texture on the work works so well to make it feel natural and anubias is just a wonderful, easy plant that can go through a lot and still end up ok. 

Your tank looks great. I really dig the layout and it reminds me of so many of my own. 🙂

Now if I only had some white clouds around...... 😂

[sairving]

@nabokovfan87 Thanks! I've been working to get the algae under control and the tank back on a regular maintenance schedule.

Mopani is my favorite driftwood. I've tried spider wood and random pieces from the fish store.  They never look as interesting in a tank as Mopani does. My favorite plant combo is anubias, crypts, and vals. All three work so well together.  I have thought about doing an anubias only tank.

Edited October 27, 2022 by sairving

[sairving]

I decided to propagate my anubias today. Happy with the results. I need to pick up a few crypts and maybe some vals. It needs something tall in the back. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by sairving

[sairving]

Last Sunday, I ordered a few things from Aquarium co-op. My order arrived right before Thanksgiving. I received an Amazon Sword, Crypt tropica, and a Dennerle snail catcher. Normally, I'm all for snails but I had a population explosion in my tank.

For three days I have been catching snails (sooooooo many snails). Then I pulled out my driftwood and anubias, put them in a bucket of water, added some hydrogen peroxide, and soaked them for a bit. I should be able to keep the population more balanced now.

Now I just have to decide, vals, water sprite, or both?

[Guppysnail]

For plant dips try Regerse respiration. It kills snails and snail eggs without damaging plants the way peroxide does. 12 hours weighted down I. The dark plain seltzer water. 

 

[sairving]

On 11/26/2022 at 10:10 AM, Guppysnail said:

For plant dips try Regerse respiration. It kills snails and snail eggs without damaging plants the way peroxide does. 12 hours weighted down I. The dark plain seltzer water. 

 

I'll have to try reverse respiration next time. I noticed the anubias still had snail eggs that survived after the peroxide dip.

[sairving]

Alright, I'm going to brave my LFS today. This could be the greatest idea ever or it's going to be so busy, I won't actually go inside.

[sairving]

On 11/26/2022 at 10:50 AM, sairving said:

Alright, I'm going to brave my LFS today. This could be the greatest idea ever or it's going to be so busy, I won't actually go inside.

I chickened out lol. After having to venture to Best Buy to pick up a gpu, I decided to avoid people the rest of the weekend.  The good news is we can finally get rid of the gpu from 2016.

Edited November 29, 2022 by sairving

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On 11/29/2022 at 11:29 AM, sairving said:

avoid people the rest of the weekend. 

I can't blame you there!

[sairving]

On 11/29/2022 at 1:37 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I can't blame you there!

Right? One store was enough for me.

[sairving]

 

It's been awhile since I've posted any updates. The last month has been insanely busy. My manager at work went in vacation and never came back. I stepped up and started doing the what I could of his job. HR and the area manager wanted me to apply for the job. I've been promoted to general manager. Yay, I'm getting compensated appropriately now but being short staffed at an airport sucks. This is also my first management position so it's been even more stressful.

Anywho...I have been mainly doing water changes and occasionally fertilizing. The algae from months ago is still not under control and the snail population just keeps growing. Since this tank has been setup, I just can't keep it balanced and the plants aren't doing great.  I'm seriously considering pulling the plants and decor, treating them with the reverse osmosis method, redoing the substrate, and rescaping the tank.  

 

Problem 1- the Brightwell substrate I normally use is out of stock and has been for a few months. I'm considering using Amazonia Light instead. 

Problem 2- snails are eating my healthy plants. Thinking I just need to replace most of them. 

My fish are perfectly healthy and don't care that their house is a mess lol. I'll post more pictures later.

 

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I think it still looks pretty good for a tank that you haven't had a lot of time for. I think reverse respiration is a good idea to try and save some of the plants as if the algae is that bad it could be choking the plants out- generally speaking snails won't eat the healthy parts of a plant so they may just be nibbling on dead spots. If the fish are happy I probably would just go that route instead of resetting the whole thing. I may only do a section at a time with the reverse respiration to not upset the tank balance too much. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[sairving]

On 2/6/2023 at 4:46 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I think it still looks pretty good for a tank that you haven't had a lot of time for. I think reverse respiration is a good idea to try and save some of the plants as if the algae is that bad it could be choking the plants out- generally speaking snails won't eat the healthy parts of a plant so they may just be nibbling on dead spots. If the fish are happy I probably would just go that route instead of resetting the whole thing. I may only do a section at a time with the reverse respiration to not upset the tank balance too much. 

That's a good idea with doing one section at a time. I would like to save some of my plants. I'll have to buy some new ones. The vals are spreading nicely. I'm thinking of  replacing the sand section by section with new aquasoil. I'm not really liking the caribsea sand in this tank.

Edited February 7, 2023 by sairving

[sairving]

The ten gallon hot mess. That's what I should call this tank. For the first time in 3 years, I caught a cold at work. Well, that turned on into an infection. I'm on a second round of antibiotics and steroids. Plus an inhaler and oral cough medication. 

My nerite snail died, tank is filled with algae, and my tidal filter died yesterday. My lfs was out of the tidal 35s so I ended up with a top fin pro 30. It's a little strong for a 10 gallon and I did have to modify it. I'll post about that another day.  To my great horror, I ran out of sponges. What kind of fish keeper runs out of sponge? I'm going to order more. 

When I'm healthy again, I'm going to start over with this tank. New substrate, new plants, maybe a smaller filter or a bigger tank. Now I'm turning into a fish tank horder lol. 

The fish are completely happy though. Listening to the water coming out of the filter is making me sleepy. 

 

[sairving]

I like the overgrown look, but yes, it's a hot mess. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by sairving

[sairving]

Well, this is my last update for my 10 gallon journal. When I got back into fish keeping in 2020, I started with a 3 gallon, moved to a five gallon, then a 10 gallon tank. 

The original 10 gallon tank was doing well then cracked. After 3 hours of a fishkeepers worst nightmare, the fish were safely in their new tank. Its been broken down redone it multiple times. Either because something wasn't working or I wanted a change. I have learned and gained so much experience with this tank. 

So what happened? I bought the only fishtank stand I could find in early 2021. One that came with a cardboard door (the description did not say that lol). 

Cardboard door isn't done well, so I bought a new stand. Then I decided to buy a new tank. Like a magpie, I was distracted....by a shiny UNS 60S. 

Currently, my plants have an algae issue but I'll cut the light down and do a peroxide did before moving them to the new tank. 

One last picture before I break it down  On to an exciting new challenge.

Those little guys are my rice fish.

[sairving]

Sairving's Shiny New Tank journal has been started. 

[Guppysnail]

Here to say goodbye to the 10 gallon journey I’ve enjoyed for the past two years. But already enjoying The Shiny New Adventure.