Need Help

[makatak123]

I'm trying to make a planted fish tank in a 10 g(a little small)and need some help.If you can tell me what are some good plants and good fish to put in that would be great!


Thanks!

[TheOldMan]

Let us know what kind of lighting you have for the tank and we can better help you. For small tanks I prefer small tetras such as neon, ruby, ember, etc.

[Sea-agg09]

How tall/what shape is the tank? What kind of lighting are you looking at? How much $$/effort are you wanting to put into this? Do you want the plants to be the star or the fish? Small tanks are great because it doesn't take much to add fertilizer/CO2.

Fish that come to mind:
Betta, white clouds (golden are my fav), celetial danios, guppies/endler's, Honey dwarf gourami (Colisa chuna), Killifish pair, Badis (Badis badis or Dario dario).
Some would say zebra danios, neon/cardinal tetras, or rasboras, but I think they get to big and swim too much for 10 gallons. There are quite a few "micro" fish out there, which come in a variety of forms. Most are rasboras of some kind. I know fish gallery keeps a few varieties on stock.

Plants are not usually light limited in a 10 gallon setup. Because the light is so close to the plants, most plants get plenty of light without going too crazy with the wattage. Purchasing the correct color/temp bulb will go farther than upping the wattage. In a 10 gallon, you will only need a single bag of Flourite, so it would be worth the 20 bucks and not have to worry about ferts for the most part. I would also buy some flourish/fert tabs. Pretty sure you would only need to add one a month and never have to worry.

If you do any basic fertilizing and a simple 2-litre bottle CO2 unit, you can do pretty much any plant you want. Be careful of things like swords, which get very bushy when they are healthy.

Plants I would consider viable:
Anubias (NOT A. congrensis), crypts (red would be pretty), Java Ferns, Ludwigia (L. repens or L. glandulosa), Rotala macranda

If your tank is taller rather than the standard rectangle, you will want to move toward more green plants, and less of the red varieties.

[mnemenoi]

Dwarf shrimp are certainly another option as well as Oto's for algae control and limited additions to the overall biomass. If you are using treated tap water I'd suggest Yellow or Cherry shrimp as there are quite a few members who keep them and they breed readily in a good environment. As far as substrate, I bought one bag of Eco-Complete and with Flourish tabs and Excel have experienced terrific growth of all my plants. I will say my lighting is a bit crazy, but anything that supplies between 1-3 watts per gallon should suffice (with proper spectrum).

Christmas Moss, Corkscrew val, Moss Balls, Cardinal plant, and Pygmy Chain swords have all done wonderful in my planted 10. Certainly something that is fun to do is hunting through driftwood and various stones to accent and scape such a small tank.

Nearly all Nano type fish would certainly work in that tank, I found a good list here though it does not contain much info so you'll have to search out each specie.

Frank's Aquarium also has great pics and different types of fish suited for Nano's

[wesleydnunder]

Also, a consideration is how much "gardening" you want to do. A small tank can quickly turn into a jungle if not trimmed and pruned regularly in higher light levels with fert and co2. At lower light levels the plants are slower growing and require less work to look good. Also, do you want a garden with some fish or shrimp or do you want a fish tank with plants? There is a difference...

Mark

[justjuice]

im planing to buy a few plants myself some time in the next two weeks if you want i can set you up with the plants im planing on replacing

[brad713]

i got swordtails and oto catfish in my 20g and they work great!!! the oto catfish is badass i had alot of algea bought 3 otos and within a week the tank was cleared up very hardy

[justjuice]

dude are you going to want the plants?