Plants for shrimp tank...first ever planted tank!

[candacecook1025]

I am redoing a 10 gal shrimp tank for the new Blue Velvets I have coming in soon! This will be a shrimp only tank (except for their rabbit snail friend) so everything that goes into it needs to be shrimp-friendly.

This is also my very first planted tank and it feels a little daunting to me. My other large community tank has artificial plants and my shrimp are doing great and multiplying like crazy even with fish in there! But I love the natural look of the wood and live plants so I am going for it! But I could use as much advice as I can get.

This is will low tech and low light. We will see if I can handle that before I take on a bigger challenge in a larger tank.

Filtration: I already have a mature AquaClear 50 on this tank, and will continue to use it, along with a sponge prefilter.

Substrate: I am thinking Eco-Complete. Any thoughts? I know several folks that have success with it in their shrimp tanks as well.

Wood: Looking for the right piece, plus I have tons of cholla wood.

Plants: I ordered a butt load of mixed mosses (java, peacock I think) and am creating a moss wall to cover the back (good for baby shrimplets). I ordered some java fern and also the wavy java fern (will try to attach some to DW). Someone gave me some water wisteria, and I have several Marimo moss balls. And after that I am stuck. I need some suggestions! EASY plants to care for that are not picky. I don't need this to be very heavily planted but want some different plants that look nice together.

Also, any advice on using ferts, as I have never used these. I got some info about using Seachem Flourish and Flourish Excel as a good starting point. Thoughts or other suggestions?

Thanks for all your help! My shrimp will also appreciate having a natural environment to grow and hopefully breed like crazy! (Hopefully soon enough I will post some For Sale ads for Blue Velvets!)

Candace

 

[candacecook1025]

Anybody want to weigh in? I would really appreciate some advice, some suggestions for plants that would be great, some to stay away from, etc. Any tips at all to make my first planted tank a success. Thanks!

 

[jwh0818]

For low light I would try amazon swords, java fern, moss balls, maybe some java moss as well. With a 6700k bulb you should do some good. Very easy to maintain aswell. If you wanted to be cheao you could also make some DIY co2 and put some root tabs in there as well. This should make for a very successful low tech tank!

 

[candacecook1025]

Thanks! I guess I don't even know what type of bulb I have, should go look at it. And I never thought of root tabs before, will look them up. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[jwh0818]

Yes. I have had pretty good success with a 6500k cfl bulb from lowes or home depot. 13 $ for 2 and ive been using the same 2 for over 3 years. Have around 35000 hours on them

 

[Jev12]

I'm sure you will like the natural look of the live plants and the real wood and everything...I just don't see how people can do fake plants lol

 

[candacecook1025]

I have fake plants in my other tank and I think they are okay, but I know I will love the planted tank so much! Going to get some different/better lights though.