Phishies Inn

My 10 gallon tank has been sad lately. Very sad, actually. It was my first ever tank and I was overzealous and overstocked it. That's what happens I suppose...but in any case, it's now dwindled down to literally two fish: One neon tetra, and one albino cory catfish.

Well, no more! I want to take my sad looking 10 gallon and upgrade it! Heh heh. I don't have any pictures right now I don't think so I'll have to get some later, but here's the plan:

1) The corycatfish moves to the 55 gallon. He'll be friends with the loaches

2) I throw out all the current plants in there, because they are all looking rather dead - an algae attack (due to the overcrowding) did some serious damage, and replant the tank. I'm also going to find a nice chunk of driftwood as the "main" decoration in the tank and follow my usual trend of natural decor.

3) Get 4 or so more neon tetra so they can have a school - neons hate being by themselves and I feel very sad for this guy.

4) Get 1 small pleco...haven't decided on the species yet, but probably a clown pleco. I've always wanted a pleco but never had the space for a huge one, and I don't really want one in my 55. But clowns and some other species don't get much more than 3/4 inches

5) Have a happy tank!

Now as far as money goes...mehh...I just had a concert the other day and I did get paid, so as of now I probably have enough to get my new plants and the driftwood, which is really the only expense here (neon tetra are dirt cheap)...except for the pleco, which I'm going to have to order online, so yay expensive shipping! But it'll be a while before I do that.

So yeah. I'll be sure to have some before/after shots of the tank when it's done

Jugglo

If i had the 10 gal, id make a betta tank with a divider u can have two males.

susitna-flower

10 gallon tanks are SOOOooooo hard to keep nice, basically you have to have 1 smail and 1 fish, and ........OR as you said a very small school of neons. I am sure once you get it cleaned up it will make you happy. Just be careful not to disrupt your cycle.

What is this concert all about? Do you play, or sing? Sounds interesting...

COBettaCouple

Sounds great and I'll look forward to seeing your neon and his new buddies in the redone 10g tank.

Phishies Inn

I play the viola for this group: http://www.rappahannockpops.org/ We're a local orchestra, but our concerts usually have decent turnouts I guess. Just very small side money, I only get like $50 a concert but that's better than nothing considering I am currently a broke high school student, heh :P

And yeah I'll be careful to watch my cycle. When I empty the tank to replant and stuff I'll put the same water back in, and I'm not going to change my filter media anytime soon. Well, except for cleaning out the sponge of course. I think I might add some sand in certain parts of the tank as well - but not the whole tank...maybe just around the driftwood or something. I don't know! It'll be fun.

Coryd55

I am not sure if you mean three quarters or three to four. Just thought I would clarify in case you thought it was three-quarters. Clown plecos get close to 4 inches at adult size and can live for a long time for a fish.

Phishies Inn

Yea I know, I meant "3 or 4" inches, not 3/4ths of an inch, hehe :P That would be one adorable little pleco if it was that small though

Coryd55

Haha. That actually would be neat. I'll keep my eyes peeled for one .....maybe ina few years....

It would probably just look like an oto

Ryno

I saw the tiniest little Gold Nugget Pleco at the LFS. I couldn't believe how small it was.

Phishies Inn

At least you HAVE gold nugget plecos at your LFS :P My LFS has some nice rare marine stuff, but as far as freshwater goes..meeeh...they only have common sailfin plecos there. Sad. However there is this huugeee store in Richmond, apparently, and I emailed them and asked if they had any bristlenose plecos (while I was looking for one a long time ago), and the guy said they had BN and other small varieties. So I think I'll go down to Richmond one day and see what they have (I'm only an hour away or so).

COBettaCouple

It would be nice to find more plecos variety.

Bud-Macintosh

are you sure your tetra wouldnt be territorial and be deffensive of the newcoming tetra? If already placed in please tell me of results.

Phishies Inn

Ah I guess I should update this

My last tetra did not make it. He actually died not too long after my last post in here, I felt pretty bad.

So now the cory catfish is in the 55 (he seems pretty settled now), and I have stripped down the 10 gallon. After cleaning up the gravel I put a layer of sand overtop, and now after a couple days it's settled out pretty nicely. Today hopefully I'll have time to stop by Petco and get some driftwood (Petco has the best driftwood in town, strangely)...my plants are currently in a bucket near the window to provide as much light as possible but, I want to replant my babies :P

After that, since I've disrupted so much I'll probably wait for it to re-cycle if needs to before I think of adding fish. Since I don't have any tetra left, I'm debating on what kind of fish I want to go with my pleco. I don't want a schooling fish anymore, not really enough space...so I'm looking for a "pretty" fish I guess that stays relatively small. Right now my best choice so far is a Blue Ram Cichlid, they only get like 3 inches max. Either that or some kind of gourami. Very beautiful fish I dunno though, we'll just have to see.

COBettaCouple

I'm sorry the last tetra didn't make it, but I do love those GBRs.

Phishies Inn

Okay guys, here's the big update.

Sadly I didn't get a picture of BEFORE I stripped down the tank, the only thing I have is a really old picture, around when the tank was first set up:



As you can see it didn't look terrible back then, but meh. Besides that was when all of the plants were still healthy - after my algae outbreak I could only salvage a handful, and in the end didn't keep too many, but that was because the driftwood I got became the huge centerpiece! So, here's the new tank all spiffed up:



Here it is with the flash (no fish in it so flash wouldn't hurt anything, heh)



There are some closeups of parts of the plants/wood here if you guys care: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynndot...7603546104927/

So yeah, now that we've had a total reconstruction I'll work on the fish! Well, eventually anyway. I'll be sure to update when I do!

I know that the wood takes up a lot of space, but I'm only having 2 fish in this tank, one which will spend most of its time in the wood (the pleco)...so I think it's okay. I've got a lot of microbubbles for some reason, but other than that I think it's turned out pretty well! I have the sponge on the intake tube because when I first put the sand in I didn't want the bigger chunks that went flying getting near the motor. I'll take it off here soon.

Phishies Inn

Well I redid my 10 gallon, again. TWICE. I was having a real hard time with my aquascaping on this tank. So at first I removed one of the pieces of driftwood and rearranged some plants, and came up with this...



But I just couldn't fall in love with it, really. I needed more plants, more cover. So! I bought some flour leaf clovers, java moss, and some hygrophila angustifolia - which is the most beautiful plant I've ever bought from someone online - green, full, and TALL. In fact, half of the plants I bought were so tall they wouldn't fit in my 10 gallon, hah!



Since I didn't feel like trimming, I kept the ones short enough and put them in the tank - but I couldn't imagine wasting the other 6 stalks left, so I put them in my 55 gallon. I forgot to get a picture but I'll add one later to the 55's thread. They're a very lovely addition to the tank.



A bad picture clairty-wise of the clovers and hygro.



The "cave" for the dwarf cichlid I plan on having this tank - and it'll be the only thing in the tank probably, I think this will be more of a plant show tank than fish tank. 10 gallons are too small really...

COBettaCouple

Lots of work, but it's looking great.