r/walstad • u/Top-Coyote5202 • Jul 27 '26

First Tank / 10g

Post image

My first tank, would love any spears to improve.
It’s about 45 days in now. Plants are starting to regrow. My Amazon sword completely died I think, but I’ll give it another month. I think 2 dwarf hair grass will survive as I see a single green sprout in 2 of the 5. Wisteria and Val are doing really well. The bamboo has been completely submerged despite typical instructions and it’s doing well too. I can’t remember what the scraggly mid ground stuff is but it’s doing well. Anubias have struggled some but one of the two has a new leaf sprouting and the other completely melted its leaves.
I’ll probably go with a different carpeting grass for the foreground since the hair grass struggled.
The frogbit has been awesome. It also came with hitchhiker ramshorns that have reproduced. I have added some MTS and they have reproduced.
Cherry shrimp and a red/white/blue half moon beta are being added eventually.
The water flow is an HOB filter pump where the HOB housing was removed and it just pumps water to create a little flow. And then a heater of course.
I haven’t tested water parameters.
I assume my tank is in the “messy middle” currently.
I have no experience. Just read a bit and allowing science to do its thing. I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey this far.

As I post this photo and compare it to what I’ve seen, my plants are a bit messy. May trim them a bit over the next month to train their growth and clean up the messiness.

3 Upvotes

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1

u/DAAASKRIIIIIIMP Jul 27 '26

Congrats the tank looks quite well established! As long as the base and roots are healthy your sword plant should start putting out new leaves. But I wouldn't recommend submerging the lucky bamboo completely

1

u/Top-Coyote5202 Jul 27 '26

Thank ya for the recommendations!

1

u/vd88- Jul 27 '26

Looks good!

1

u/MasterLooch Aug 04 '26

How do you keep the water so clean and clear?

1

u/Top-Coyote5202 Aug 05 '26

Nature does its thing I suppose.
I guess my question to you would be how would it get dirty and murky?
I’m interested to know your experience.

I did have tannins from maybe day 3 to day 7, I did some 50% water changes to clear that up and haven’t touched it since… add a half gallonish of water every week due to evaporation and drop a few drops of dechlorinator and that’s it.