10-Gallon Low-Tech Iwagumi Aquascape (Beginner)
A 10-gallon Iwagumi: a few stones, one carpet, and a great deal of deliberate empty water. It is a nano tank, where every decision shows. No CO2 and no dosing regime — slower to fill in, far more forgiving, and cheaper to run. 1 plant species, Seiryu Stone, and 2 livestock groups checked against each other for compatibility — every quantity below sized to 10 gallons and every plant chosen for a beginner.
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Everything below is generated for this 10-gallon Iwagumi build — 1 plant, 2 livestock groups, and gear sized to 10 gallons. The studio does the same for your tank, free.
Hardscape — what to buy and how to place it
Seiryu Stone is blue-grey, sharply angular, cut through with white calcite veins that run the same way on every piece. Seiryu is a carbonate rock, so it slowly raises KH, GH and pH. That suits most community fish and is worth knowing if you are keeping soft-water species — test your KH a fortnight after filling rather than assuming your tap numbers still apply. Keep every stone’s veins running in the same direction; it is the single thing that makes a group read as one broken rock rather than several unrelated ones.
At 10 gallons, plan on three pieces in clearly unequal sizes. An odd count is easier to compose, and one piece should obviously lead — a group of similar-sized pieces spread evenly across the tank is the most common way a first scape goes flat.
Iwagumi is built from named roles, not from a pile. The Oyaishi is the main stone: the largest, set on a third of the tank width rather than the centre, leaning very slightly off vertical. The Fukuishi supports it from the opposite side at roughly two-thirds its size, and the Soeishi is smaller again and sits close to the Oyaishi. Odd numbers only, and no two stones the same size.
Substrate
Aqua soil or capped organic base, capped with fine natural gravel/sand cap, built to about 2–3" and sloped higher at the back. A nutrient base keeps low-tech plants fed; cap with fine gravel. Slope higher at the back.
A capped nutrient base is the engine of a low-tech tank, so the one rule is to leave it alone. Vacuum the cap, never the layer beneath it — driving a siphon down into the base releases everything it has been quietly storing and can gas a tank in an afternoon.
The whole floor of this tank is Cryptocoryne parva, so the substrate contour IS the layout — there is no background planting to hide a flat bed. Build a real slope from front to back and let the carpet run up and over it; that rise is what gives an otherwise open tank its depth. Plant in small clumps a couple of centimetres apart and let them spread sideways to meet, rather than packing them in to look finished on day one.
Cryptocoryne parva is a root feeder rather than a water-column feeder, so it wants depth and a root tab more than it wants dosing. Give that part of the bed the extra depth.
Plant list & placement
Plant back to front, into damp substrate with the tank only part-filled — it is far easier than fighting buoyancy in a full tank. Cryptocoryne parva is the tallest thing in this plan at around 2.5", so it sets your back row and everything else steps down in front of it.
Nothing in this plan grows quickly, which is the point — it means very little trimming, but it also means the tank takes longer to look established and gives algae a wider opening in the first two months. Keep the light modest until the plants are visibly growing.
Every plant here is a hardy, forgiving species. None of them need CO2 to survive, and all of them recover from being neglected for a fortnight — which is the right way to start, because the tank should be teaching you the routine rather than punishing you for missing it.
Stocking
At 10 gallons this is deliberately a single-group tank — Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) works every level. One species kept properly in numbers is a better-looking tank than three species kept in twos, and in a tank this size it is also the only honest option.
Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) is the centrepiece, and being semi-aggressive it sets the limit on what else can go in. Solo centerpiece; never house two males. Calm tankmates only, no fin-nippers.
Blue Mystery Snail is the clean-up crew, and in a planted tank it earns its place — grazing biofilm and soft algae off the hardscape and leaves faster than you can. Add it last, once the tank has some algae to eat, and drip-acclimatise rather than dumping the bag in.
- Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) — Keep only ONE male Betta — males fight to the death. One male with several females works only in a large, heavily planted tank.
Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) has trailing fins, so the real constraint on this tank is fin-nipping — every other species here was tested against that specifically and anything that has been credibly reported as a nipper was excluded, not merely flagged. Every pairing was run through Skapelab’s compatibility engine and anything returning even a caution was swapped out rather than published. Check any substitution you make there before you buy.
Equipment
| Category | Recommendation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Filtration | Aquatop SP-80B Sponge Filter | ~$7–12 |
| Lighting | Fluval Nano Aquasky LED | ~$30–42 |
| Heating | Fluval E50 Electronic Heater | ~$28–38 |
| Substrate | Fluval Stratum Substrate 4.4lb | ~$18–28 |
| Fertilizer | Seachem Flourish Comprehensive 250ml | ~$8–14 |
| Testkit | API Freshwater Master Test Kit | ~$28–42 |
| Water treatment | Seachem Prime 500ml | ~$12–20 |
| Bacteria | Seachem Stability 250ml | ~$8–14 |
What the first two months look like
| Week 1 | Hardscape in, planted, filled and running with no livestock. Start the photoperiod short — six hours is plenty — because the plants are not yet growing fast enough to use more, and the surplus goes to algae. |
| Weeks 2–4 | Cycling, and the ugly phase. Brown diatom dust on the glass and hardscape is normal in a new tank and passes on its own once silicates are used up. Some plants will melt back and regrow in their submersed form — that is conversion, not death, so trim the mush and leave the roots. Do not stock until ammonia and nitrite both read zero. |
| Weeks 4–6 | Stocking begins, a few animals at a time with a fortnight and a water test between additions. In a tank this small there is no margin — one full stocking list added at once is the classic way a nano crashes. The carpet should be visibly running now; resist raising the light to hurry it. |
| Months 2–3 | The scape fills in and the routine settles into the schedule below. Judge the design now rather than on day one; a planted tank is not finished until it has grown into itself. |
Care schedule
| Daily | Feed lightly — as much as they clear in a minute or two — and take ten seconds to count heads and look at the plants. |
| Weekly | 27% water change — about 3 gallons — using a jug and a length of airline. Wipe the glass, vacuum the open substrate only, and dose a light all-in-one fertiliser. Trimming is occasional rather than weekly at this growth rate. |
| Monthly | Rinse filter media in old tank water — never under the tap, which kills the bacteria colony you spent six weeks growing. Test KH, GH, pH and nitrate. Check for anything the weekly routine keeps missing behind the hardscape. |
| Every few months | Thin the slow growers back hard once or twice a year, divide anything that has outgrown its spot, and top up root tabs around the heavy feeders. |
Make it yours
This is a starting point. Open it in the studio to swap plants, resize to your tank, and get a hand-illustrated render, placement diagram, and shopping list — free.
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