Plant Newbie Nano Setup

[Andy P]

Hi all,
Firstly I apologise for the length of this post, I expect it to be a bit rambling!

I have kept tropicals for a number of years but have never been to fussed about plants (have had some success with vallis / crypts / amazon swords planted in bog standard gravel or sand substates).

I have a small tank from when I first started fishkeeping (dimensions 16" x 8" deep x 9"high) which I would like to set up in the Iwagumi (spelling?!) style, i.e a couple of interesting rocks, the majority of the floor covered with some sort of carpeting plant and some slightly taller grass type plant in the background.

can anyone suggest suitable plants & substrates? I don't realy want to go down the route of co2 injection.

Filtration would be by way of a mini hang on filter and I've got an 11w arcadia arc pod I could use for lighting but I won't know if the colour spectrum would be correct. In terms of livestock I was thinking of a few WCMM or Galaxy rasbora or maybe just a few shrimp as the tank is kinda tiny.

I realise I'm asking a kind of open ended question but any comments would be appreciated!

Cheers

Andy

 

[lljdma06]

Hi Andy. Usually Iwagumi's feature CO2 as the carpeting plants favored for that scape tend to like CO2. That being said, if it were me doing this style and I could not inject CO2 and I had to work with your lighting, I would use probably a marsilea species as a foreground, or even a moss and Lileaopsis mauritus as the grass. Both are ok with lower light levels and I have grown both without CO2 injection in only a little more light, 13W.

That being said, you can rig up a simple fermentation CO2 to produce very stable CO2 in a small tank. You would need two canisters connected via T-connector. You then alternate changing canisters. The key to the stable CO2 is the use of a dropchecker to measure the levels. It is very possible to create stable CO2 levels in a small tank with fermentation. With CO2 injection, you can then add the traditional, CO2 hungry plants for iwagumi. Your tank is only a bit smaller than mine. Usually the wattage I hear get thrown around for these types of setups is between 18-22 or 24W, depending on the circumstances. Not because this represents especially high light levels. It really doesn't. The bulbs for these smaller tanks tend to be really lousy, so you need more. Color spectrum is not important. Use a bulb that you personally like the look of when on.

I dose via water column, so substrate for me, depends on the fish I am keeping. Many iwagumis, however, feature the ADA soil substrates or other fancies with a cap of another type.

llj