Plants for a ten gallon?

[Lupinus]

So now that the 40 gallon is about done, turning my sights back on my ten gallon tank.

Short basic idea is to turn it into a planted tank with driftwood, dark sand or maybe fluorite substrate, either ghost or RCS, and a few small fish (TBD). Will be switching out the HOB to a sponge filter.

The tank has the hood that came with it and would like to keep it, for lighting I'd like to swap out the two incandescent bulbs to CFLs. Still new to plants but I understand this should be OK right?

Thoughts on good plants for a ten gallon tank? Given the size I want to make sure I don't get something that looks good now only to find out it's going to take over the tank at full size. Would prefer to stick with relatively friendly plants. Ferts and such are fine, but would rather stay away from something that I'd need to start playing with C02.

 

[pirahnah3]

Yeah the light will be OK for a while, I had mine going with a clip on cfl for a while before I got a better light.

I don't know what you like but in my 10s I have:

Chain sword
Wisteria
anubias nana
rosette sword
marimo
unknown crypt
and a couple other unknowns lol

Really all I would advise avoiding is the amazon swords and things like jungle val. The rest you can work with, depending on light.

 

[convict15]

Sorry but wanted yo.know why not to use amazon swords. And what does CFL stand for

 

[convict15]

To not yo. Got a new kindle fire and it keeps hitting the wrong letters

 

[RainSong1]

Hi:

I just setup a 10 gallon planted tank. It is your basic Topfin 10 gallon tank with hood from Petsmart. I replaced the incandescent bulbs with 2 CFL Daylight bulbs from Home Depot. I have Endler's livebearers and PFRs in there. The substrate is black sand from Petco.

I have a piece of mopanI driftwood. The plants I have are: Wisteria, rotalla, ludwegia, anubias, elodia, java fern and a lot of java moss for the shrimp and fish fry. I also have a marimo moss ball.

Here is what it looks like:

This picture was taken before the shrimps were introduced.

Also, FYI, Amazon Swords get HUGE and can easily takeover the entire 10 gallons of space.

 

[convict15]

Wouldn't it work if you just trimmed the leaves when they got to big. What are CFL bulbs?

 

[AlyeskaGirl]

Amazon Sword deffinetley isn't for a 10 gallon. I pulled mine out of my 55 gallon because it was getting tall, cranking out leaves and cutting leaves off was getting old. They also get a huge root system. Their leaves can block light from other plants.

Wisteria can get tall but can be trimmed. Dose best with moderate light.

Some lowlight plants: Dwarf Sag, Cryptocoryne varieties, Anubias, Mosses and Java fern.

Planted tank all starts with the light.

 

[APColorado]

Wouldn't it work if you just trimmed the leaves when they got to big. What are CFL bulbs?

CFL= compact fluorescent lamp

 

[pirahnah3]

Yeah amazons just can get huge and unruley in a tank, I have 3 in my 75gal and they cover about a third of the bottom of the tank lol.

 

[convict15]

Ok. Someone had told me that it was easy to just trI'm the large leaves and that wasn't a problem to me. But I don't like the sound of the root system taking over. So I will be moving them out of my ten(put them in there because it has a better light) and moving them into my 75 gallon

 

[pirahnah3]

I don't see why you can't grow them out a bit in the 10gal and then move them. They are a great plant to look at.

 

[convict15]

Well it being a dirt tank when I pull them out their large root system will pull out a lot of dirt and make the tank look bad

 

[APColorado]

I've done that before, the dirt settles to the bottom, kind makes it look like a natural lake bed bottom

 

[pirahnah3]

Yeah its only messy for a few hours.

 

[Lupinus]

Thanks for the input all. Still working on exactly how I want to lay it out, but sounds like I won't be quite as restricted as I thought.

 

[Lupinus]

So next question.

If I were to swap out the hood and go with a glass top and T5 or similar, would it be preferable to go one or two tube? And I imagine for a tank this size regular T5 should be fine and I wouldn't need HO correct?

 

[AlyeskaGirl]

Yes, you want to stay away from the high output for that size tank. HO would give you too much light. The T5NO will be sufficient. One would give you low light, 2 would give you around moderate.

 

[midnamoondog]

Rain, lovely tank!

 

[pirahnah3]

I actually use a 24inch T5HO on my 10 and don't have any issues, if you find it too bright get some floating plants like salvinia which also do a FANTASTIC job at sucking up nutrients in the water. If you want some PM me lol I'm happy to share!

 

[AlyeskaGirl]

With my experience with HOs I wouldn't put one on a 10g. lol

But that's just me.

 

[Lunas]

I might put a no on one but not ho two cfl on my 2 10 gallon is too much light as is at least my algae eater is well fed...

 

[Lupinus]

New question after looking at some different fixtures. CFL is still an option, but would a strip light with 1 T8 be sufficient lighting? I'm going more towards lower light plants- Java moss, java fern, anubias, things of that nature. Or would a T8 be a little to low and restrictive to very low light plants?

 

[Lunas]

Should be OK but in my 10 gallon those plants are growing very well under dual cfl though I do have a few algae issues