Complete Newbie, Need advice on my Planted Tank

[PKoblall]

Hey Everybody!

My Name is Prem, from Queens, New York. I am 19 years old and am a full-time student. I currently have a 10-Gallon tank and a 30-Gallon waiting to be set up.

I want to make sure that im setting up my tank properly and have some concerns about it. In my 10G, I have 1.25 in of Fluval Stratum as my substrate with very little gravel mixed in. I have a large piece of Malaysian Driftwood in the center and two pieces of Mantazina(not sure if that's correct) Wood as well. I'm using a DiY CO2 set up with 2 2-liter soda bottles to facilitate the reaction and diffusing using a Hagen Ladder and i have a 10-in Bubble Wand. I currently have two Neon Tetras, a small Pleco, a Tire-Track Eel, a Red-Tail Shark, 2 Ghost Shrimp, and 2 Amano Shrimp(I know its a bit overcrowded but I'm transferring things to my 30G once I set it up). I also have about 15 marbled snails. I bought 4 sets of Dwarf Hairgrass from petlands that I have taken out of the plastic and separated into small clusters that I have planted all around the tank. I've had the hairgrass for about two months and they have been surviving pretty well but I haven't seen any signs of growth from them and I've read that they carpet pretty quickly when planted in Stratum so I want to know if there's anything that I can do to make sure that my hairgrass grows and carpets. I also want to know if i need to change any of my setup to better facilitate my fish and plants.

Thanks in advance =)



P.S. My Filter setup is a Aqueon Power Filter with Sponges and a Bio-bag filled with Fluval Bio-beads and I dose my tank with Liquid CO2 and Seachem Flourish every now and again.

 

[ScotJudd]

Hi there and welcome to AA.
I have a heavily planted tank and most plants are doing really well but cannot get the hair grass to take off. At one time it looked good but I think it is slowly diminishing. I use flourish excel and Co2. Let us know if you have more luck with yours.
One thing I would say is that it has been a common thread on the forum that Seachem Flourish contains a small amount of copper and some people have had shrimps die on it. Flourish excel is reported to not contain copper but Seachem are hard to pin down on this. My shrimps are defo thriving and seem ok with the excel.