My first aquarium! 10 Gallon Planted Aquarium - BesidePeacefulWaters

[BesidePeacefulWaters]

Hi everyone, 

 

I'm about 2 months into learning about the aquarium hobby. Mid-may my parter and I made our way to over to PetSmart, and got a TopFin Essentials All-in-One Starter Kit. A 10 Gallon seemed manageable for our first one. I brought it home and started to design the layout. I had been watching a lot of GreenAqua videos, and wanted to try my hand at a planted aquarium with Aquasoil. 

 

 

After testing the water, we bought our Betta "Mystic" and added him to the tank! It was really a special moment for us!

A couple days later, we stopped at a local aquarium shop and picked up 6 Diamond Head Neon Tetras. We lost 3 of them over the next week, which was very challenging. After spending some time with the tank, it seemed to stabilize. We added 3 regular Neon Tetras, so there would be a total of 6 again to school with. We call them "The Rainbow Collective." Since then there haven't been any problems or any more fish lost.

Mystic started to flare at the neon tetras a lot, so he's in a separate aquarium now as we build him a 5 Gallon Tank of his very own! I have my own freshwater testing kit now, so I can test the water regularly and make sure it's still safe for our fish friends! Right now Ammonia is at 0, Nitrites at 0, and Nitrates staying below 20, with a weekly 20% water change.

It was quite the first month in the hobby! Definitely some ups and downs after losing our first fish, but overall it's been a really wonderful and uplifting experience. I really love this hobby and looking forward to hopefully many years to come! Will keep this journal updated as I can. Nice to be at a point where I can just enjoy the hobby and having the aquariums around!

Here is the final tank after that whole process, with only the 3 Diamond Head Neon Tetras, and 3 Neon Tetras living there now. I planted a lot of Anubias and Java Fern, so they have a lot of places to hide, and we have a lovely green aquarium to look at. They seem very happy. We are really happy too! A lot of fun to feed and look at them every day, and we love showing them to friends.

Guessing there will be a lot more to come in this hobby. Glad to have this form to document and share the love with this community.

Warmly,

Jordan

 

Edit: The second video link not working. Not sure why. I attached a photo instead!

Edited July 1 by BesidePeacefulWaters
Video Link Not Working

[Rube_Goldfish]

Welcome to the forum and to the hobby!

The tank looks great, and you're already coming down with multiple tank syndrome (MTS)! The picture didn't come through on my end, at least, but I really liked your time lapse.

It was a little hard to tell in the video, but are the Java fern and anubias rhizomes buried in the aquasoil? It's okay, maybe even preferable, for the roots to be buried but you'll want the rhizome to have full exposure to the water column. Sorry if you've already planted them that way; like I said I couldn't quite see that part in the video.

Can I suggest adding more plants? Partly because more is more when it comes to plants, partly because it's easy for me to spend other people's money, but mostly because that aquasoil is a nice fertile bed and your epiphyte plants will mostly pull their nutrients from the water. So you've got a lot of space and opportunity to plant a lot more! I think a bunch of cryptocorynes would look very nice!

[BesidePeacefulWaters]

On 7/1/2024 at 9:04 AM, Rube_Goldfish said:

Welcome to the forum and to the hobby!

The tank looks great, and you're already coming down with multiple tank syndrome (MTS)! The picture didn't come through on my end, at least, but I really liked your time lapse.

It was a little hard to tell in the video, but are the Java fern and anubias rhizomes buried in the aquasoil? It's okay, maybe even preferable, for the roots to be buried but you'll want the rhizome to have full exposure to the water column. Sorry if you've already planted them that way; like I said I couldn't quite see that part in the video.

Can I suggest adding more plants? Partly because more is more when it comes to plants, partly because it's easy for me to spend other people's money, but mostly because that aquasoil is a nice fertile bed and your epiphyte plants will mostly pull their nutrients from the water. So you've got a lot of space and opportunity to plant a lot more! I think a bunch of cryptocorynes would look very nice!

Hmm not sure why the second video link didn't work. I just edited and added a photo instead.

For the tank. I glued the anubias and Java Fern to rocks, and then put those below the soil. Tried my best to keep the rhizome above the soil in most cases.

 

Yeah I definitely caught MTS haha. I currently have 3 aquariums after just a month 😅. Been a lot of fun, and also looking forward to just a couple weekly water changes and light maintenance. Thanks for the welcome! This seems like a lovely forum and I'm glad to be here.

Edited July 1 by BesidePeacefulWaters
Video Link Not Working