its got a 19 watt bulb, pebble substrate about an inch thick, thicker around plants.
Nowadays just stating the wattage is pretty much useless. A 19 watt LED lighting system can be extremely bright. A 19 watt incandescent lighting system won't even be as bright as your refrigerator.
Not trying to come down on you, but we need more info... maybe this will help though...
This is to inspire you as to what can be done with a ten gallon planted tank.
The lighting is provided by one Solar Flare 115 which consists of one 460 nanometer blue LED, two 6700 kelvin yellowish white LEDs, and two 10,000 Kelvin bright white LEDs... Total = 15 watts.
Filtration:
Standard undergravel filter with #2 gravel... 2" in front & 4" at rear.
As per your request, no CO2 added, however... the fish can't provide everything... I add 10ml (2 tsp) of Flourish per week.
The flora:
Floating is a healthy mat of Riccia fluitans (shade for the crypts)
Bottom from left to right:
Left-Front ~ Crypto Lutea
Left-Mid ~ Valisinaria spiralis
Left-Rear ~ Cabomba carolinias
Front ~ dwarf Amazon chain swords aka pygmy chain
Mid-left-front ~ Cardinalis
Mid-left-Mid ~ Lutea
MId-left-rear to Center-rear ~ Dwarf Amazon swords against back glass
Center-front ~ light scattering/placement of pygmy chain swords
Center-mid ~ Banana plants
Center-mid-rear ~ pygmy chain in pockets in the wood
Mid-right-front ~ scatterings of pygmy chain swords
Mid-right-mid ~ Valisinaria spiralis
Mid-right-toward back (in shadows of wood) ~ Crypto wendetti (green)
Mid-right-rear to Right-rear ~ Cabomba carolinias
Right-front corner ~ Myriophyllum
The fauna:
1 pr electric blue rams
2 sunset dwarf gouramis
6 neon tetras
16 celestial pearl danio
4 pygmy corydoras
1 hillstream loach
Your imagination is the limit, provided you meet all the requirements for the plants as well as the fish and strike this somewhat elusive proper balance. You do that and upkeep is minimal.
For this tank, I need about 10 minutes per week to trim out the excess plants and keep it tidy.
