# 10-gallon planted guppy tank



## alphaparrot (Nov 28, 2017)

Started my first planted tank about 3 weeks ago, as a place to put eventual baby RCS from a smaller shrimp-only tank that will not be able to support a population explosion. It has 3 male guppies to keep the shrimp population in *this* tank in check (I assume they'll limit how many baby shrimp from each clutch survive), and I've started it off with 8 blue velvet neocaridina from Shrimp Fever (I'm fine with wild-type or skrittle offspring; this isn't for breeding, but I do want a diverse gene pool when they *do* breed, to keep them healthy). Plants are establishing themselves, and despite a little bit of rough-housing, the guppies seem to be settling in nicely. The shrimp have proven *extremely* good at hiding, as I've only ever seen 4 at once after several days of them being in there. I may move the dwarf lily; I did not think it would get *that* big, and if the hairgrass on the left side of the tank continues to grow more slowly than the rest, I may put the lily there and let the more-successful hairgrass further up the slope colonize the space where the lily currently is.

No CO2, only dosing liquid carbon and occasional micronutrients (may start dosing more ferts)
NICREW 16-20 inch 18W LED aquarium light
Substrate is a mix of Fluval Stratum, root tabs, and Carib Sea Super Naturals "Crystal River" sand
Using a DIY sponge filter powered by a Tetra Whisper 20-gallon air pump, with a shaped outflow at the top to provide some current and a bit of 30 ppi foam to act as a tiny diffuser on the end of the air tubing (more smaller bubbles = more efficient water advection). The filter isn't visible because it's hidden behind the wood.

Livestock:
3 male guppies from Big Al's in Scarborough
8 blue velvet Neocaridina heteropoda from Shrimp Fever (I think they're still juveniles; seem a bit smaller than the RCS in my other tank)
Several Physella acuta (acute bladder snail, aka pond snail--must have hitchhiked on some plants)

Plants:
Alternanthera reineckii "Roseafolia"
Bacopa caroliniana
Nymphaea stellara (red dwarf lily)
Echinodorus "oriental" (oriental sword)
Ceratopteris thalictroides (water sprite)
Eleocharis acicularis (dwarf hairgrass)
Microsorum pteropus (Java fern)
Taxiphyllum barbieri (Java moss)
Taxiphyllum alternans (Taiwan moss)
Vesicularia dubyana (Christmass moss)
Bucephelandra
Pothos (not visible in photos or video; it's sitting behind the driftwood above the sponge filter

Setting up hardscape:









Initial planting (you can see seeding filter media in the back):









Physella acuta--these guys are beautiful, extremely hardy (this guy was perfectly happy with 2 ppm NH4 and 4 ppm NO2 during the tank cycle!), and love eating algae and decaying plant matter









Livestock added:

















The tank this morning, 21 days after planting:


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Very Cool!
I like the lilly a lot but I agree you might have to move it. I like the crypts myself! They kinda get lost behind there. 



It should be neat to see this grow in.


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## alphaparrot (Nov 28, 2017)

Thanks! There actually aren't any crypts--you're probably looking at the oriental sword.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Oh my bad! Thank you! That's what the plant is nestled in the wood there?


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## alphaparrot (Nov 28, 2017)

The green thing nestled in the wood is a java fern volunteer I pulled out of another aquarium and wedged between the wood and a rock. You might also be looking at a buce I stuck on the smaller piece of wood in the foreground. It's not visible in any of the pictures, but I've also put a buce on the top of the big piece of wood just below the surface--I'm hoping as it grows I'll get some nice emersed growth


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## alphaparrot (Nov 28, 2017)

Thought I'd post a Day 40 update!

Plants are growing in, and I've already had to thin out the water sprite (went away for a week and it colonized the entire water column... everywhere in the tank), and trimmed and propagated the bacopa. All the water sprite I initially planted into the substrate melted, so I took a particularly successful floating bunch and have pushed into an open spot in the substrate to see if that will do better, since it was already threatening to send its floating roots into the substrate. This stuff grows a mile a minute, so no loss if that melts too. The hairgrass is starting to carpet in one part of the tank, but there's a corner where it still hasn't really taken off. That's at the bottom of the slope and not directly under the lights, so it could be a problem with getting less light, or shallower substrate, or something else. Not sure; I'm taking a wait-and-see approach. Very little of it is showing any signs of melting or yellowing, it's just not growing as fast as its counterpart in other parts of the tank. At Ciddian's suggestion, I moved the dwarf lily, and it's now doing quite well and I really like the increased visibility for the mid-ground plants in front of the driftwood. The top of the wood, near the surface and right under the lands, has developed a *very* pretty aufwuchs that the snails seem to absolutely go bananas for.

Shrimp mostly hide out under rocks and wood, but occasionally I see a few swimming around (and have reason to believe a saddled female was making some booty calls about a week ago). The pond snails (Physella acuta), meanwhile, have gone through a population explosion. I'm considering adding a single assassin snail to the mix to keep the herd in check. They're not eating the plants (nor the hair algae that's been showing up in a little nook of the wood -_-), but I don't know what the snail carrying capacity for this tank is and I'd rather they not crash the tank by overshooting it by a factor of 100. I appreciate their cleanup contribution, but I reckon a single assassin snail wouldn't be able to eliminate the entire herd based on this rate of reproduction.

The two Lymnaea stagnata pond snails (Greater Pond Snail) that showed up have been moved into a 3-gallon bowl and no more have shown up since. I'll show the bowl in a separate post.


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