Tank Reshuffle

[COM]

I've decided to repurpose my ten gallon fry tank since I now have a 20 long for that purpose.

So far I have put in ten pounds of that black moon sand stuff. I already had all of the equipment I needed but I decided to upgrade to a better filter.

My plan is to move some fish from my other tanks to rebalance a bit.

Here's my thoughts:
From the collection:
7 Cardinal Tetras
1 Dwarf blue gourami

From the fish store:
5 to 8 ghost shrimp
or 4 red-orange bumble bee shrimp

My other thought is to try and find my flower shrimp and put it in there.

Okay, so on to plants...

I have a nice 28 watt fixture that fits on this tank. I'm thinking that I could do some cool plants. I refuse to mess with CO2, so that may be a bit limiting, but what would be some fun plants to do with that lighting in sand?

[Good Wolf]

I would go with the bumble bees over the ghosts. Instead of co2 you can use Flourish Excel if you have any problems.

[lohachata]

since a 10 is kind of small for a lot of plants you can try to miniatureize it a little..pigmy chain swords..green wendtii crypts will look like full sized swords..crypt willisi are pretty small..maybe 2 inches or so..dwarf hair grass is cool but a pain to plant.dwarf baby tears are cool too;but i don't know about light needs;but i think that the fixture you have will do fine.
wrap the sides and back with heavy black visqueen (plastic sheeting)i am not a shrimp fan so i can't tell you about them.as for myself....i would put 4 or 5 of the dwarf cories and a dozen cardinals and leave it at that..a small piece of malaysian driftwood;some cool plants and just a couple of kinds of fish make a very cool tank.maybe even a couple of nannostomus beckfordi...

[COM]

What would the purpose of the black visqueen be? I have a black background on the tank.

Isn't visqueen like house wrap that goes on underneath siding?

[lohachata]

visqueen is the proper original name for plastic sheeting..kind of like kleenex..since you already have a black backround,forget about the visqueen..they don't use it to wrap houses..they use tyvek for that so the house can breathe..

[COM]

I see - it looks like landscape wrap. (Don't use that, btw, bad for your shrubs...).

[JustOneMore20]

Loha gave you some good plant choices, but the Dwarf Baby Tears (HC) isn't gonna be happy in that lighting and without co2. Its a high light plant and loves higher co2 levels. Dwarf hairgrass would be iffy....probably wouldn't grow fast (IME) but it should live. Echinodorus tenellus/Pygmy Chain Sword is a good grassy alternative in low and medium lighting.

Some small leaved stem plants would be good. You'd have to trim some, but you could always sell extras or trade to the LFS. Rotala rotundifolia, Ludwigia arcuata, Hornwort, and Anacharis would work.

The bulb you have is a daylight bulb, right? Just wondering, since I've seen some of those 28w fixtures with 50/50 and actinic bulbs.


Bumble bee shrimp are cool. I'd choose them over the Ghosts. You may not have alot of juvies survive.....I would think the Gourami would eat them.....but adults just might be safe. It may be worth trying a few Ghosts at first though to make sure the Gourami won't eat shrimp.

[COM]

It's a 50/50 and actinic bulb.

Here's what is in the tank so far:
7 Cardinal Tetras
5 Orange Bumble Bee Shrimp (I can't afford any more at the moment)
Some sort of rotala that I had in 29 gallon fairly low-light that grew just fine (I'm 90% sure it is rotala rotundifola)
1 Anubias Nana
Dwarf Baby Tears (HC) on a rock (strange, no?)

I'm pretty confident that the light is sufficient for those plants. Plus, I believe that the pressurized CO2 is nothing but a dangerous internet conspiracy. Nowhere in nature would the plant get that much CO2. I'm going to give it a shot, and, if the plants die, I won't be too upset over the investment of $13. I'm thinking that what would be more likely is that the plants just won't grow much, and that's fine by me. Less maintenance.

I also got two cool pieces of really twisty and knotty driftwood that I have boiling in an old pot I found in a box from when I moved. I thought that I lost it and replaced it with a nice new one. Repurposed.

I'll post some pics tomorrow once I get the lighting set up properly. Right now I have an old desk lamp over it.

Oh, yeah, I decided to do some trades since I was moving fish around anyway. I traded my big marble angel from the tank where the cardinals came from, so the gourami is going to hang out there with a school of serpae tetras and a couple of corys. This decision was aided by the $4.99 per piece price tag on the orange shrimp. That's an expensive lunch.

Once this little ten gallon gets settled, I'm going to redo my 29 gallon. The cabomba is getting out of control and there are farrrrrrr too many hiding places preventing me from seeing my Vampire shrimp. Not to mention that I'm totally over java moss. What a mess.

[trashion]

I don't think that in nature, plants are receiving concentrated high-wattage lighting just a couple of inches above them either...

Anubias species are great, just make sure you tie them to something so the rhizome won't rot I wrapped a plant weight loosely around the bottom of mine mine and just buried the roots in the gravel, it did really well like that if you don't feel like tying it down.

[lohachata]

hmmmmm..28 watts on a 10 gallon tank is pretty good lighting.that is almost 3 watts per gallon..and 50/50 actinic at that.you can grow reefer with that much light.it should bve good for the pigmy swords and such.baby tears and hair grass i am not so crazy about.and my pal just sent me some.i just stuck it outside in a tub.if it grows,fine..if it don't,that is ok too.for me.the whole idea of the dwarf plants in a small tank kind of puts it in scale to a big tank with big plants.a near perfect effect..
you must be blind com..you live by lake erie..haven't you seen the giant co2 tanks down by the docks?
you might be a little wrong there julie..man has yet to develope a light that can rival the power of Sol..
the dutch tank idea is all plants with few or no fish..co2 injection and all kinds of ferts.they could care less about the fish.as much as i like plants;they are not what got me into this hobby.

[JustOneMore20]

The actinic portion of the bulb does nothing for plants, so you essentially have 14 watts over the tank.....low light over a 10g. HC won't have a chance IMO. If you aren't sad about losing money over the plants, I'm not either. Just thought I'd warn ya. Some people appreciate advice about plants. I'll reserve mine for those people.


The sun is powerful, but so is having strong lighting over a small amount of water.....and having alot of extra nutrients. Thats why algae can be a huge issue when you have alot of light and no co2, one of the reasons co2 is deemed necessary in high light tanks. Algae is in natural bodies of water too, but we don't look at them all the time and care about what they look like, like we do our tanks. But I could care less if you use co2 or not.

Good luck with the tank.

[lohachata]

that is interesting..i was under the impression that actinic provided the higher amount of light some plants need.so can com change the bulbs on his fixture to achieve that goal?i would think that he should be able to do that...
i always try to avoid high light plants because i am unwilling;nor can i afford the extreme cost of special lights they require.if a couple of shoplights won't do it;then i don't bother.but then again;i am more interested in breeding than show tanks.
like com;i won't use co2..i just can't afford the risk of the possible losses..and trust me..my luck is far worse than you could imagine.plus..if i ran out of co2 and didn't have the money to refill the tank;the plants would start dying pretty quickly..don't need that either..

[COM]

I won't use CO2 because I believe that the science behind is slightly questionable but mainly because it a toxin to the fish. I'm also a very clumsy person so precision adjustments are not a good idea.

As for the actinic bulb, it's not true that it does absolutely nothing for plants. I am not a plant expert but I know basic photosynthesis. Any light source (absolutely any) can support some level of light reactions in plant cells and disrupt some level of dark reactions. The actinic may not be the ideal light source for plants, but it isn't useless either.

No, I don't think I can change the bulb. It's a screw-in split bulb setup. I don't think that it would be possible to find another bulb in exactly this size. However, I will look. I need to go to Canada for a sales call sometime next week so I'll stop in Big Al's. They have pretty much everything.

Also, Kristin, I'm not ignoring your advice. I appreciate your input and you're the queen of plants.

Julie- thanks for the note on the rhizome. Right now the anubias is in a pot. TR posted before the site crash that the best thing to do is to keep the plant in the pot for a month or two to acclimate it gently to the tank, then remove the pot and most of the potting material. Do you think that's the best bet for the anubias? It's a really nice specimen with great leaf patterning.

[trashion]

Hmmm...I never heard of doing that. I always just popped the anubias out of the pot before putting it in the tank. You could do it if you wanted, but I didn't.

[COM]

I think I'm going to ditch the pot. I can't help but notice a bit of plastic sticking out and I'm obsessing about it now.

[Good Wolf]

I've had actinic lighting over my 55g for a month now and all my plants are doing fine.

My water oak did fall apart but I think that was due to the high temp and salt from the ich treatment.