Total NOOB, please help - I have read a lot but...........

[kaffinated]

Okay, so I recently fell in love with Kuhli loaches and started backwards creating a tank for them. Right now I have 13 of them in a 10 gallon with three small yellow "glowfish," one albino catfish, one upside-down catfish (fiance just HAD to have him) one 2 1/2 inch shrimp and maybe 2-3 red shrimp to clean the algae off my moss but I am not sure who's still around - there might even be 4 smaller shrimp, there's almost too many hiding spaces.

The filter I'm using is for a 20 gallon aquarium and though it's another brand I'm using the aquaclear stuff for it and am switching over to that type of filter when I can afford it next month. I also have pvc piping under the substrate to bring the water from one side of the tank to the other. I was thinking of getting one of those water pump things to create more of a stream but is that overkill for a ten gallon (is a ten gallon even enough???) I've got tons of hiding spaces and such too though. I don't have a heater at the moment but my tank never seems to go much below mid-late 70's now that it's summer and I RARELY use air conditioning.

It's heavily planted but a good deal of it is still young and looking yucky but I'm working on it and some of my low light plants are dying and have to be replaced with high light but I'm waiting for the place by me to get their next shipment so don't judge too harshly when you see the pics.

Thing is, I'm completely new to this, have about 3-4 heavily pregnant females and want to give them the best environment possible and would love to see at least a few babies grow up. (I've even stopped giving them bloodworms and only give them flake food and brine shrimp so maybe they won't think of the fry as food if any survive - they don't seem to like the sinking pellets I bought for them that's supposed to be MADE for them).

They're extremely active, play a lot, and seem to be pretty happy. I check the levels often to make sure that the ammonia levels don't get out of hand and stuff but is this too small a space for them? Have I done ok as long as they're happy?

Help?!? i love my tank more than anything evah evah evah and just want to make sure I'm taking the best care of my guys as possible.... any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks much!!!

(and of course, as I turned on the light for pics, a couple could care less, everyone else SCATTERED!!! And then as soon as I put the camera down, they almost all came out... omg I love them but they kill me lol)....

~~Brandi

oh, btw, they always seem to be scrounging for food - am I not feeding them enough?

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[Diana]

Welcome to Loaches, Kaffinated.

Yes, a 10 is too small for as much as you have going on.
I would try a 20 long or even a 29 gallon tank.
The 20 long is the same footprint of a 29 (30" long), but shallower. Makes a great small river tank.
The 29 would offer a lot more room for the fish and taller plants, and you could still increase the water flow with a river tank manifold if you want, or just add a Koralia power head. Perhaps a Koralia 2 would be plenty. Even a Koralia 1 with a good filter would be plenty of water movement in either of these tanks.
An Aquaclear 50 would be the minimum filter I would try on a 20 long, and an Aquaclear 70 would provide a LOT of water movement on a 29 gallon tank. These filters are hard to make into a river tank system, though. (I sort of have that using an Aquaclear 110 and 2 power heads on a 4' long, 45 gallon tank). If you went with a smaller filter (Aquaclear 30 for the 20 or an AC 50 on the 29 gallon tank) and a bigger power head the tank would have a more directional flow. You are not losing any filtration, the river tank manifold will have sponges over the intake, and these provide more homes for the beneficial bacteria, as well as mechanical filtration.

A river tank is not the best for tall plants. Plants that survive in fast flowing water in nature are low plants that cling to the rocks (Moss is good) and tough leaved plants that can handle the strength of the water (Anubias dwarfs, tucked into the rocks).

If you simply add plenty of water movement, but not blast it all from one direction a planted tank is a lot easier. If you can get somewhere like 2-3 watts per gallon over the 10 gallon tank, or 2 wpg over a 20-29 gallon tank from a T-8 bulb and add carbon (Excel by Seachem is good) then the plants ought to do a lot better.
If you really want to aim at the plants, then look into the T-5 fixtures. Pricey, but much better reflectors and more efficient bulbs. You could have a nice low to medium light tank with about 1.5 wpg over a 20 or 29 gallon tank. I would still aim at 2 wpg over a 10 gallon tank. They just do not respond the same as larger tanks; they seem to need a little more light, just to be 'low light'.

If your tank is still cycling (you mention monitoring ammonia) then you have WAY WAY WAY too many critters in there.
If the tank is cycled then you should be monitoring nitrate, and basing your water changes on keeping the nitrates low. Between 5-20 ppm is a safe level, and offers enough nitrogen for the plants.

[kaffinated]

Okay.... so I went crazy....

Petco was having a sale on tanks so I bought a 20 gallon long. I also bought an aquaclear 70. Now, I know it's a crazy powerful filter but I got it in my head to try to do the stream thing and went out and got pvc and all that to try to bring it from one side to the other. All I have created is a headache.

Most of the time it works great. At the end of it I used a sink screen that was bendable and was able to fit over it nicely, put another piece of connector pvc on top of that and I put one of the aquaclear filter pieces cut to size just so small debris doesn't get trapped in the screen. Thing is, I woke this morning and the water was really slow, had to clean rinse the filter sponge and it seemed ok. But I'm afraid that it'll burn out the motor if I'm not careful....

Is this overkill? With the aquaclear 70 do I even NEED all that or will it cycle the aquarium well all on it's own?