Low Tech Planted 10 gallon help?

Well I had a betta for quite awhile in a 5 gallon on my kitchen counter, but he died months ago and I took the tank down since I was so wrapped up in my 65 reef build. Now I've got the 65 and a 29 gallon SW tank, but miss the betta. So I'm going to setup a 10 gallon this time for the betta, and after looking at some FW planted tanks, I thought I would do a 10 gallon planted tank with a betta.

I wanna keep the tank low tech, no CO2 or anything like that. Just a few kinds of easy plants. I'm looking for some basic advice/guidelines to follow.

Here is what I have right now as far as equipment:

10 gallon tank
Aqueon QuietFlow 10 Power Filter (100 GPH)
Heater


I need to get a light and substrate, which I need a little help with. I'm thinking a dual T5 fixture with 6500K bulbs for the light. Any help would be great.

 

I would probably get something of about 20 watts maybe a little more.

For substrates since this is a low tech, I would just use regular sand no specialized substrate.

I would add most of the plants you want at once, to suck up nutrients. Don't fertilize until plants display signs of deficiencies, at least at first then you can create a routine.



Remember the more nutrients you pump into this thing the smaller the line you will have to walk, if you stray algae will explode.

I would recommend some kind of algae eater, research this. get one that wont get too big and wont eat plants.

 

What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate a little more? Lol.

 

Ok so plants grow faster with more nutrients (or things that are necessary for photosynthesis). We I say nutrients think ammonia, iron, phosphate, etc..

So you add nutrients, through fish waste, fertilizer, plant substrate. All these things allow them to use more light and Co2 and grow faster.

There is a optimum point of nutrients, where the plants are growing as fast as they can due to some limiting factors.

any extra nutrients will not be used by the plant because they simply can't. Those extra nutrients will feed algae. Most of the time the algae that breaks out is one of the more virile , and will grow extremely rapidly in the planted tank environment.

There are 3 things needed for plants to grow, CO2(provided by the atmosphere), Light, Nutrients. They use all 3 in a certain ratio. if they have less of one in the ratio, they can't use the other 2 fully.

So the limiting factor will be one or more of the three things mentioned above, if you do everything perfectly genetics would be the limiting factor.

I'm rambling now, anyway the one thing you don't want is more nutrients then the plants can use.

 

We're Sorry. . . The page you requested is no longer available
good stuff, sand will work to. java ferns+moss,creeping jenny,micro sword,hair grass,amazon sword are nice plants. DFS has some nice lighting options to.

 

I should probably, add since nutrients is a broad term, there are more ratios inside that.

 

I've done such a tank before, very low tech. I use an inch layer of *organic* potting soil covered by an inch of seachem flourite, though any gravel would work here. the soil provides optimum texture and nutrients for rooted plants while not allowing algae to access the nutrients. As the organic materials break down they emit CO2 for awesome plant growth. I read about this method in TFH magazine btw. I have utilized it in both a 10 gallon and 55 gallon with great success, and it lasts along time. For lighting, you can get a $10 incandescent hood for a 10g and use CFLs instead. I like GE CFLs from walmart, they are about $8 a pair and have the kelvin rating labeled on the package, and are 6500K. They come in 13 and 15 watts, either is sufficient for a ten gallon and any plants you want.

 

Okay, that makes perfect sense. Thank you for the explanation, I didnt get you at first. This is exactly the type of information I was looking for

So sostoudt, does this mean plants can be added as soon as the tank is setup? Since they like ammonia, there is no need to wait for a cycle?


I see alot of people run soil in their substrate. I dont get it. Now I've never had a planted tank so maybe I'm wrong here, but wont the soil only work for a short time, until the nutrients are all used up? Then there is nothing to recharge the nutrients in the soil, leaving you with useless soil in your substrate. Seems like a short lived nutrient supply to me.

 

Broken link 1.0. Were you linking to substrate? If so what kind? I love the darker substrate that I see in alot of planted tanks. Excuse me for asking alot of stupid questions but I'm still learning all the acronyms, DFS?

 

insanespain,

check this out. I actually built a 10 gallon planted tank with no lights, just a filter and a heater and livestock.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/planted-tank/10-gal-hands-free-planted-tank-84058-2.html

i wish it was still up*, it was a cool little project.



edit: *freak accident at work took it down for me....