Carpet or no carpet?

[ChrisDaFish]

I have been wanting to change my 20 gallon long tank that has all artificial decor to a heavily planted tank. I don't know if I want to do carpet or not. This is my first community tank and I am kind of a beginner so i was wondering if the carpet would be too hard. I just want some of your guy's opinions.

 

[Wills]

I have been wanting to change my 20 gallon long tank that has all artificial decor to a heavily planted tank. I don't know if I want to do carpet or not. This is my first community tank and I am kind of a beginner so i was wondering if the carpet would be too hard. I just want some of your guy's opinions.

Hi Chris, welcome to the forum

In terms of getting a carpet going which plants were you looking at doing? If you're not sure of names were you thinking of a grass type plant or one of the small leaved plants like Monte Carlo?

Carpets can be quite hard to get going without Co2 but it is possible. You really want a nutrient rich substrate - I've started using Wio Eonian as its a long term substrate and you don't get the ammonia spike at the beginning. But I'd recommend capping it with a sand as its quite a coarse texture especially for fish. Having a good liquid fertiliser will also help, I use Tropica Nutrition (the brown one without nitrates).

It's worth mentioning though that carpets can limit the species of fish you keep so make sure your fish are ok without access to sand for example. Cory cats are a good example as they like to dig in the sand and filter it for food so will disturb your plants a bit in a way that means they won't fully cover the substrate.

Another option if you want to have that aquascaped look is to have a sand substrate at the front and plant a few foreground plants without the full carpet - I think this looks more natural to be honest. You can always mix in a hand full of gravel around bigger rocks to make it look more natural too.

Wills

 

[ChrisDaFish]

Hi Chris, welcome to the forum

In terms of getting a carpet going which plants were you looking at doing? If you're not sure of names were you thinking of a grass type plant or one of the small leaved plants like Monte Carlo?

Carpets can be quite hard to get going without Co2 but it is possible. You really want a nutrient rich substrate - I've started using Wio Eonian as its a long term substrate and you don't get the ammonia spike at the beginning. But I'd recommend capping it with a sand as its quite a coarse texture especially for fish. Having a good liquid fertiliser will also help, I use Tropica Nutrition (the brown one without nitrates).

It's worth mentioning though that carpets can limit the species of fish you keep so make sure your fish are ok without access to sand for example. Cory cats are a good example as they like to dig in the sand and filter it for food so will disturb your plants a bit in a way that means they won't fully cover the substrate.

Another option if you want to have that aquascaped look is to have a sand substrate at the front and plant a few foreground plants without the full carpet - I think this looks more natural to be honest. You can always mix in a hand full of gravel around bigger rocks to make it look more natural too.

Wills

I was thinking of pearlweed for the carpet. I am planning on getting a fertilizer substrate for the bottom layer and seachem flourish for the liquid fertilizer. Thank you for the reccomendations, I really appreciate it.

 

[Wills]

I was thinking of pearlweed for the carpet. I am planning on getting a fertilizer substrate for the bottom layer and seachem flourish for the liquid fertilizer. Thank you for the reccomendations, I really appreciate it.

Could work ok pearl weed does best in softer water I’d definitely look at the wio substrate.

Wills

 

[BettaFishGirl]

I was thinking of pearlweed for the carpet. I am planning on getting a fertilizer substrate for the bottom layer and seachem flourish for the liquid fertilizer. Thank you for the reccomendations, I really appreciate it.

You will have so cut the pearlweed a lot so it it starts to spread horizontaly. Otherwise it will shoot straight up. I find putting dwarf hairgrass in small clumps around the hardscape and in gaps, and that looks really good to me. But once a pearlweed carpet is actually a carpet it doesn't look really nice.

 

[10 Tanks]

I have been wanting to change my 20 gallon long tank that has all artificial decor to a heavily planted tank. I don't know if I want to do carpet or not. This is my first community tank and I am kind of a beginner so i was wondering if the carpet would be too hard. I just want some of your guy's opinions.

Hello Chris. Good question. I think not on the carpet plants. There are some nice looking substrate pebbles that I find as attractive as having a carpeting plant. The pebbles are much easier to vacuum and you can have a variety of bottom plants like Anubias and Java Fern. You can include small pieces of driftwood and some rocks that I think look better than carpet plants. But, that's my opinion. Here's a photo of a tank with the pebbles and just a couple of Anubias plants. The grey pebbles really work with the green plants.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

 

[Byron]

@ChrisDaFish welcome to TFF.

Following up on Wills comments, the first thing you should decide is if fish are to be included (as opposed to an aquatic garden tank of plants and no fish or shrimp), and then what species of fish if fish are intended. Plant substrates are not advisable and are in fact very problematic with substrate level fish that eat off the substrate, which includes most catfish, loaches, cichlids (the dwarfs given the tank size) for starters. There are bacterial issues and grain size issues involved. Carpet plants is a wide range of plants, and here too fish can have issues. A 20g long means nano fish, and these are even more susceptible to such problems.

Plant substrates in my view do not improve plant growth much, and I have tried them. I never did carpet plants, unless one calls the pygmy chain swords carpets, because I had fish that need open substrate and "carpet" plants do not really look natural anyway when one sees photos and videos of natural habitats.

 

[ChrisDaFish]

You will have so cut the pearlweed a lot so it it starts to spread horizontaly. Otherwise it will shoot straight up. I find putting dwarf hairgrass in small clumps around the hardscape and in gaps, and that looks really good to me. But once a pearlweed carpet is actually a carpet it doesn't look really nice.

Thank you for giving me an idea with the hairgrass, I will think about trying that!

 

[ChrisDaFish]

Hello Chris. Good question. I think not on the carpet plants. There are some nice looking substrate pebbles that I find as attractive as having a carpeting plant. The pebbles are much easier to vacuum and you can have a variety of bottom plants like Anubias and Java Fern. You can include small pieces of driftwood and some rocks that I think look better than carpet plants. But, that's my opinion. Here's a photo of a tank with the pebbles and just a couple of Anubias plants. The grey pebbles really work with the green plants.

10 Tanks (Now 11)

I like the design of the tank. I really appreciate the ideas and I will think of that while designing my tank!