# New Planted Tank, Advice needed.



## chumblaka (Jan 3, 2010)

Hello all I am fairly new to aquascaping and I am trying to do a El Natural method if possible.
I just finished planting my ten gallon with a betta and here are the plants inside.

Dwarf Hairgrass
Dwarf Baby Tears 'HC'
Banana Plant
Micro Sword
Dwarf Sag
Dwarf Hygro

The substrate is eco-complete and is about two and a half inches deep. I have a couple of questions that hopefully can get answered soon so my plants can flourish and live.

1. Do I need the oxygen bubbler for the plants/Betta to survive in the ten gallon?
2. Is the filter really needed, I heard the current from filter can be dangerous to a Betta.
3. Do any of these plants need any fertilization, and if so what is the cheapest? Tablets?
4. Can the HC, Hairgrass, and Sword spread into a carpet without fertilization?
5. Now that there is a lot more hiding spaces can my Betta live with a cherry shrimp and an otto?









Here is a picture of my tank as of last night, feel free to give constructive feedback. 
Thank you.


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Hi,

Here's some quick help to your questions:

1. You do NOT need the airstone. It will drive out Co2. Plants provide lots of oxygen and if your temerature is not too high you should have enough oxygen in your tank.

2. The filter is not absolutely needed, but it is good to have water circulating. Just observe your betta, if he looks struggling to swim against the current, reduce the flow.

3. Cheapest ferts are dry ferts. But since you have a 10 gal, pretty much everything will be cheap. In theory, you should not need any ferts if you have an El Natural set up. But you have a low bio-load and we dont know how much light you have... i wouldnt worry too much about ferts unless you notice plant deficiencies. 

4. HC and hairgrass need very good light and co2 injection. I wish i could get HC to grow well under an El Natural set up, but so far i have not been able to. Some have lasted olnger than others, but eventually struggle and die. Maybe with high light and DIY co2 or excel...

5. Depends on the Betta. I have a male betta that attacks everything from larger fish, small fish, a pleco, even the filter intake. Other bettas are pretty relaxed. You could give it a try....

Try reading a bit here on APC, there is LOTS of great information about El Natural tanks. Try to figure out how close to El Natural you really are, and how little maintenance you want to do and then tewak your tank to both your preferences and your limitations.

Good luck!


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## chumblaka (Jan 3, 2010)

Ok, air stone is out! =]
Water looks a lot calmer without the air stone, I guess the air stone was causing all the water commotion and not the filter.

What dry fertilizer would you suggest? I would very much like to be low tech but I want my plants to carpet, what would be the best dry fertilizer to accomplish this? I thought eco-complete had fertilizer in its own substrate.

The light is a GE Aqua Fresh and Saltwater 15W bulb.

My order of cherry shrimp will come in sometime next week I will put one in and see how the Betta reacts.


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

chumblaka said:


> What dry fertilizer would you suggest? I would very much like to be low tech but I want my plants to carpet, what would be the best dry fertilizer to accomplish this? I thought eco-complete had fertilizer in its own substrate.


Your plants will carpet not because of the ferts you add, but because of the LIGHT you provide. However, as you provide higher ammounts of light, plant metabolism increases and therefore more nutrients (specially CO2) are needed by your plants.

Your substrate and fish waste may already contain the needed nutrients (except maybe Co2), but if you want carpeting plants then you have to increase lighting and at least a simple DIY Co2 and/or Excel.

Then if you must get nutrients, for a 10 gal (and if you are new to this) the simpler way is to buy some branded NPK + Traces; look in the Fertilizing forum here on APC, or do a web search, even Ebay.... But once you're doing all this, you're pretty far from an El Natural set up, and will definitely have to be doing maintenance.

OR you can get easier plants to grow


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## chumblaka (Jan 3, 2010)

Alright so I guess I might give diy CO2 a try. Seems pretty easy. I have a question on how to diffuse it into the tank? I don't have a glass diffuser and I've ready about people doing it through the air stone?

You mentioned more lighting, how much wattage per gallon would I need for these plants to carpet?

Hmm I guess I had the though of El Natural to stay on the cheap side but maintenance isn't a big deal. I just wanted it to be cheap considering I got the tank, filter, light, and heater for free.

Ok so a DIY CO2 and how much lighting exactly?


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## Hoodie (Oct 6, 2009)

hey !

do you have an external filter? if so you can just put the co2 tube in the inlet !

if you have a intern filter just build something like this :


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## LVKSPlantlady (Oct 4, 2009)

Your tank looks really good...I like your rock boarder you have created. I have Dwarf hair grass in my 10gal NPT seem to grow good with the 3 WPG of lighting and no CO2 injection...good but slow!


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## chumblaka (Jan 3, 2010)

Hello everyone! I just got some new pics to post, and my seachem excel finally came in. I also upgraded the lighting in my tank. I now have 2.6 WPG and I am dosing excel everyday. I also started a moss wall that will hopefully take off in a month or so.

Here is a pic of the the updated tank:









My dwarf hygro is really taking off! I started off with three stalks of dwarf hygro and now I have seven! the original three are already at the top of the tank about 10 inches tall. I want to get rid of some if anyone is interested in buying. =]

Also I have a bit of a problem, I seem to be getting brown algae all over the tank in random places, it is even getting on the plants. How do I get rid of it? Keep in mind I have only been dosing excel for two days, and the brown algae has been there for about a week and a half now.

Thanks everyone, hope to get some help soon.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

chumblaka said:


> Also I have a bit of a problem, I seem to be getting brown algae all over the tank in random places, it is even getting on the plants. QUOTE]
> 
> Snails or certain algae-eating fish might help with the brown algae. That said, you'll need all the help you can get for trying to grow difficult plants in an NPT. I recommend robust, easy-growing plants for tank startups.


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## chumblaka (Jan 3, 2010)

dwalstad said:


> chumblaka said:
> 
> 
> > Also I have a bit of a problem, I seem to be getting brown algae all over the tank in random places, it is even getting on the plants. QUOTE]
> ...


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