10 Gallon Aquarium (EI/Walstad/WhateverWorks)

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share some pics of my new 10 gallon tank. I have this in the corner of my office. I used to keep fish but haven't been doing that for 10 years. Recently I decided to start again. I started the tank 3 months ago.

I started it using the Walstad Method. The plants did well for 2 weeks, then unexplained deaths of some plants occurred. I was going to chalk it up to allelopathy. But since I had nothing to lose I decided to buy a bottle of Seachem Flourish to see how the plants would do. The situation improved, so I did more research a found info about PMDD. I thought it sounded interesting. Over the next 3 weeks I went to Home Depot, Lowes, and greenhouses all over the city looking for the ingredients. Was nervous at first about adding things like stump remover, murate of potash, gypsum, etc. since there was a lot of negative talk about it on the web and from some fellow hobbyists. I didn't have anything to lose so decided to just give it a shot and started with very small amounts.

I kept it up over the next few weeks and kept doing more research. Then came across the info on EI. It was very nice to find people who have had similar experiences as me. And also for me to learn from the experience of people who use this method. I'm using a lot of the info I'm finding here with great success. I don't have a CO2 enriched tank so I'm using smaller doses than that Greg Watson recommends in the EI for less techy folks post. But the info I found here about EI showed me that I could add much more than the amounts I was using. So I increased my dosing 3-fold and waited to see what would happen.

Now I'm just pretty much dosing if plant growth slows to a rate I don't like. Since I started the tank I have done only 1 water change. I'm looking forward to keeping a low maintenance tank with more plants I know what to do with for many years to come.

 

Yeah, so far I'm having to prune a lot. I cut back on light duration and fertilization and it seems to slow down the growth. The tank currently has just plants that you can commonly find at Petco and Petsmart.

Currently the tank consists of these monsters.

Cabomba caroliniana, Cabomba
Rotala rotundifolia, Rotala
Ludwigia repens, Red Ludwig
Myriophyllum pinnatum, Frill Plant (Myrio)
Echinodorus x barthii, Red Melon Sword
Echinodorus martii, Ruffled Sword
Cryptocoryne wendtii, This one is the only one that is not as fast growing!

I'm getting involved with a local aquarium group though so I may be able to obtain some other plants soon. I may be able to get a variety of slower growing plants soon.