General Aquarium Talk NO SELLING Swaps go in the Fish/Plant Swap Sticky

Someone offered to buy me a 10L nano tank for my birthday, and I'm definitely interested, but I don't know how much work I'm committing to? Is something with such low volume gonna be a PITA?

 

The techden is good Lights will be a bit of a struggle due to the size.

10L is tiny, not much work tbh. I'd just set your expectations low, there aren't too many fish that I'd be comfortable putting in a 10L and the ones that are tend to be on the pricier side.

 

i was thinking a single betta, once the tank was established. a betta will just eat any shrimp I add, right? any other tank-management species I could add to a betta tank to help keep things clean?

 

Excuse my newbiness, but why'd it be extra maintenance Haven't tried hard tubing lol.

For Lights I went MakeMyLED, they take a little while, aren't the cheapest, but are Aussie made if you wanna support that
Filters I'd look anywhere, sponge filters are cheap.
As for foam, just grab a yoga mat from Kmart, super cheap, I went the 10mm one for like, $7.
If it has been in storage that long, I'd definitely suggest looking at getting it resealed.

Super keen to see what you come up with

Not really in 10litres. Snails or shrimp is about it. I have some NT Algae Eating shrimp in with my Beta and he leaves them alone after he sussed them out when I first put them in.


Edit; maintenance on a 10L should be nice and easy, use a cup for your water changes The biggest issue might be temperature fluctuations?

 

not extra maintenance, just maintenance made hard.
the tanks are fixed in place and access is very limited. its not like the owner could remove or add a feature like a peice of drift wood ..
if it was soft tubing then at least the owner could drop the water level and slide a tank forward a little bit (as they are fairly small)
even more so if the tanks were on sliders so you could access the entire tank from above it'd be much easier

 

Okay, looks like my introduction to this hobby is happening! So excited, but oh so overwhelmed too. I'm gonna go down the path of a 15L Fluval Spec V planted tank, low-tech (heater at 27-28C, built-in pump and filter, no CO2) with a Betta and a cleaning crew.

From my research so far, I've basically concluded:

- I need to immediately get Seachem Matrix for my filter
- I should try source my plants from other hobbyists

Any other pro-tips? I plan on taking this slow and methodically.

 

read read read
15L is tiny.
compared to a "big" tank, any changes you make are amplified 100x and the inhabitants are 100% reliant on you to keep the water conditions tip top.

read loads of fish forums, but for a begineer I'd say aim for simple. no crazy additives or anything. KISS

 

More than happy to study up before I make any moves. Any particular forums I should be looking at? Aussie ones would be handy, no?

Yeah, totally appreciate that things can get very dramatic with such a small volume. It's not an ideal situation to be in, which is why I want to read up It's unlikely I'll be aiming to have livestock on board for at least a month post-fill, so I can better understand how the dynamics are working out

 

probally there are forums that lean towards betta's and small tanks. I'm not sure of any off the top of my head sorry.
probaly not - https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/


edit - just jump in. i know i said read read read, and it stands true. reading a number of different opinions will help you form your own understanding.
beware though, some of those fish guys/gals are nuts

if your tank is fishless than not much trouble to be created, and you'll learn about water while you go.
if you need to rip it down and start again, no harm done

 

So.. I bit the bullet.


Click to view full size!

Obviously ran into some floating driftwood issues I've taken a couple of the bigger rocks out and going to tie it down to those with some fishing line.


I also realised that the lily pipes are better if they're on the same side/corner so I'll rearrange those. Hopefully I have enough slack in the piping.

Still a bit more go, I'm going to add some more plants to give it more depth. Maybe another rock or two on the back righthand side behind the sword to terrace some more.

I'm leaning towards introducing CO2 as well to the tank, I really want to get the ground cover going on the back half of the tank (or the soiled section, not sure if you can see it on the photos). Does anyone have any suggestions or tips? The tank is 90x45x50 so looking at a little under 200L.

 

Looks epic man!! Great size tank too. Ahh yes the classic floating driftwood. I've been soaking a piece for about 2 weeks now, still super buoyant!

Are you trying to carpet Eleocharis in the left side of the image? I've tried and so far failed so I better not give any advice haha, til I get it going anyway. Co2 will help, from the video's I've seen they tear it into smaller portions and plant lots of little bits close together, didn't work for me though haha (but I think that was because it wasn't an aquasoil, just straight sand without root tabs). I have heard dry starts help with carpetting but I've never tried it, only heard people doing it.

My only suggestion/tip is you can't have too much hardscape. Super keen to see progress pics, what were you planning to put in it again?

Hopefully .Radiant or MUTMAN have better tips for ya

 

sorry, plants and me dont get along
well more specifically, the loachs dont like me having plants in their tank ...

as for hardscape, i tried to follow the 2/3 rule, but it hasnt really worked out for me. i dont think there's an artist bone in me
but the general rules are all the same. much like a pro photographer would frame a picture, the whole golden triangle thing 1:1.62 (iirc) and feature item offset etc.

the substrate should be angled as much as possible too. side to side, front to read
have all the wood and rocks lean over at the same angle (more or less) as if the water current has pushed them over, over time. having them all at weird angle just doesnt look 'right', unless you're going for a iwagumi scape ... then it's different again :O
not to say you cant a feature rock or wood item at an offset to highlight it even more

i've often thought a small tank of CRS with a 'vanishinig point' would be a cool too

note how the rocks are differnt sizes, and tend to go bigger at the front to smaller at the back as the sand rises


also if you are going to have fish, they need places to feel safe and secure and to sleep (sleep all day if you're a well feed loach)
you'll want to see them swimming around and i hear people asking "why do my fish hide all the time?"
the more hiding spots they have all over the place the more you will see them out and about.
they'll come out and cruise around a lot more if they have spots they can dive into if they get a fright.

 

Haha yeah, I'm sorta learning on the fly a little bit I guess which in hindsight perhaps I should have slowed down a little and spent a little bit longer working on the hardscape before I filled her up. It's salvageable though and I've got a few ideas im going to sketch down and see which I like the most. I might even ditch the driftwood and the river stones I've got and go for some different feature rocks.

The original idea I had (which I still like the idea of) is have a Buddha statue behind where the driftwood is in the photo before it floated away.. sort of creating a platform and terrace some more soil behind it. That should create the 2/3 rule (or be closer than what it is now) giving it some perspective. At the same time creating a sort of creek scene with the sand at the front creating the creek bed and carpeting the eleocharis on the back half behind the riverstones as a sort of shoreline. More plants will be going in too which should help with the hiding spots. For this to work the way I've got it in my head though its really going to need CO2.

I've been watching a lot of videos by these guys below, I've learnt a lot in the last couple of days and I'd probably have started the hardscape differently had I watched more of these first.



In terms of fish.. I'm not entirely 100% sure yet. I'm kind of torn between wanting cherry shrimp or getting dwarf cichlids/rams. If I went the shrimp then maybe gouramis/cory's. If Cichlids/rams then tetras and something else. That or just try to build a big enough shrimp colony with enough hiding space for them to semi survive.. I've got a while to figure that out anyway and its why I went with a partial sand base to cover my options whichever way I go. Might even go a south-east asian species tank to fit in with the buddha theme.

Thanks man that some solid tips. I've tried to go with the angle on the substrate but as I've been fiddling a bit it's kind of evened out. I'll probably be grabbing another bag of the dymax base soil to give it some more gradient angling up to the rear right of the tank behind the diftwood/plants.




Does anyone have any recommendations on which CO2 gear is decent? Between dymax/Co2 art/tunze? (and whatever else) I'm really not sure where to look or what pricing is reasonable. Googling for this stuff isn't exactly straight forward and a lot of the LFS don't have their products listed online.

 

Well "sell it off" is the outcome.

I know selling in this thread is a bit of a no-no, but believe it's a cracking deal for hopefully a keen OCAU member. (See For sale section).

 

you cant 'sell' it here. but you might put a link to the sale in your sig and then casually mention the link is in your sig.
thats a notice, not a sale

 

Hey y'all,

So I've set up the 2ft tank for some Apistogramma borellii, attempting to try 2Toneds diy substrate with a black sandy cap (black sand mixed with Oliver Knotts aquairon).

So the substrate is supposed to be black, but I've got this detritus/deposit building up in one spot. Any idea's on what it is? The marble bits decomposing and solidifying?

I haven't added any fish yet, a couple of shrimp using a filter from an established tank but I've had an ammonia spike so I'm dosing prime and letting the bacteria build again.

Hope someone can identify what it is and whether I need to be worried/how worried.

 

might just be a bit of new tank syndrome ?
i wouldnt panic yet

 

Does anyone here run long-term dirted tanks? Have been doing plentyyyyyy of research, but alas, haven't found a great source of info on dirted tank options using products available in Aus

(plenty of info from the US - including a fella who makes his own substrates and has tanks that've run for 10 years without a water change! amazing!)

 

I was literally talking to someone about this yesterday who uses dirted tanks. They use "Scott's Pure Organic Premium Potting & Planting Mix" with a gravel cap, which I believe is available from Bunnings. I haven't tried it myself yet, but I was thinking about trying it since my 2fter using the 2Toned diy substrate didn't work for me. Maybe because I didn't use blood and bone or tried a black sand which may be too fine? and no trumpet snails/black worms to aerate it. Yeah I kinda didn't follow the recipe to a T so it's not really working. Have a read of the thread though, all materials from Bunnings and plenty of success stories.

I was given a little 10g tank by a mate, thinking either these super cheap root tabs (anyone used them before?) with black sand, a dirted tank or a black water setup with just sand and epiphytes.

 

I haven't done a long term one but had a cheap 5g setup going for around 18 months. Cheapest potting mix I could find with some pisces black gravel as a cap. It worked pretty well, I had some java fern, blue stricta and some sort of rotala in it. Just gotta make sure you have a decently thick substrate/cap layer.

If you want some commercial/expensive options, check out how L R Bretz sets up his tanks on youtube, I haven't tuned into his channel for awhile but he was using a few different seachem substrates capped with sand for his bigger tanks. He runs very very thick substrate layers and no filters at all.