10 gallon Freshwater Aquarium with Live Plants
Pets & Animals 14 years ago 305,255 views
This is an update to a previous video after 8 months of improvements and iterations to the setup. The idea of the setup has always been to create a healthy, long term supportable environment that is low maintenance, low budget, and low tech. A lot of research, trial and errors went into this setup. No major hazards or changes made since the beginning, so this setup can be used as a proven guide that's been running for a year. Suggestion to viewers is to take an aquarium setup serious, as there are many right ways as there are wrong ways. Summary of what I learned in the process, and where I want to take it in a future aquarium is as follows: - General rule of thumb in an aquarium as the size of tank increases setup cost increases, maintenance cost increases, but maintenance effort decreases. Yet bowls, vases and such are hostile to house fish in and are even illegal to do so in some European countries. - An aquarium should always be amongst the highlight of a room, so position, stand, dimensions, filter noise, colors, and illumination should be well thought ahead. - Inside an aquarium consider type of substrate, background, light hood, heating, filtration, and how to conceal them the best. Try to balance color contrast with dark colors on substrate and background, with green of plants, and bright colors of fish. Read about "Aquarium Golden Ratio" for layout. - As setup time progresses many types of algae is part of natural occurences, by no means are harmful, but can be cosmetic annoyance to some. There are natural yet effective ways to fight different types of algae. So get an algae cleaning crew once enough algae grows, then encourage more algae growth to keep the crew well fed. My algae team is consists of 2 otocinclus, 3 red cherry shrimps, 1 mystery snail. Keep aquariums away from direct sunlight. - Do not rush to add fish. Patience goes a long way, add equipment and living organisms in stages. Understand biological filtration, bacteria colonisation, nitrogen cycle in the aquarium first. Give or take 3 weeks is when the first fish should be added. - Avoid overcrowding with fish to reduce maintenance and creating an unhealthy tank. Read more about fish stocking capacity. Achieve aesthetics via other elements in the aquarium, whether with a DIY 3D background, plants, or ornaments. I tried to make a moss wall in the background by using a knitting grid to grow Java Moss inside, but after an imbalanced growth pulled the most moss out and kept the grid. Star of the show is a female crowntail betta, Hayan Paran Balik, her personality steals all the attention from danios. - I go for natural looks and get amazed with symbiotic relation of plants and fish. To support plants I went with DIY CO2 injection with a ceramic diffuser. I learned that in order to prevent mucky clogging white build up in diffuser, attach an inline filter/bubble counter bottle to your yeast bottle. The key is to have miniscule bubbles running through water as much as possible. Also avoid surface agitation, unlike I do, with air pumps. - There are many kinds of aquatic plants to choose from. There are rootless as well as rooted plants. There are plants that can root on bogwood and rocks, or can be just left floating. Even if you started without a plant root supporting substrate and filter setup, like I have, you still can grow many varieties of plants. My plants of choice are listed in tags of the video. For best plant growth lower pH and temperature is necessary to increase water's CO2 carrying capacity. - To reduce maintenance and cost I utilise an undergravel filter along with a hang on back filter. I am happy with my filtration system in current setup, as I never came across any ill effects. Though UGF limits the variety of plants that can take place in a tank. I replace active carbon in filters seldomly, eventhough I found out its not necessary or advised to have active carbon or ammonia removers in planted tanks. - Weekly 25% water changes via a gravel vacuum is the most important task of the aquarium maintenance. If something is out of order, better do small water changes daily. Never do more than 50% water change at once as this will impact nitrifying bacteria. Be gentle or completely avoid vacuuming around plants' roots in substrate. - A sturdy stand is essential to an aquarium as my 10 gallon tank weights 110lbs. sitting on top of the tempered glass of an Elmob brand TV stand, which is not suggested unless you know the specs of your stand. - Avoid air pumps as any bubble popping in the water surface creates noise, works counter productive to any CO2 injection system. Avoid any coated gravels, as time goes coating wears out. Go Natural! My next setup would be a 20/30 gallon with a DIY 3D background, kitty litter substrate with sand, heavily planted with ground cover plants, DIY or off-the-shelf CO2 system. In summary I would just lose the gravel and UGF, add a nicer background and substrate.
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