Hey guys. I am setting up a new 500mm cube and I'm looking for some advice. Looking for reasonable substrate that is good for plants, nothing hectic, not looking to go CO2. Any advice on what I can use for substrate?
PFS, small gravel, there's lots of cheaper ADA-like substrates on the market now. I would go with low-tech plants that don't require CO2 - what I had in my cube more than a year ago and in my other two low-tech tanks, providing that you have good lighting and you can actually get away with not using injected CO2: Easy stems to grow but I find that needs regular trimming, which is why I went over to anubias, bolbitis, ferns and bucephalandra ludwigia brevipes ludwigia arcuata ludwigia repens ludwigia rubin hydrocotyle leucocephala most cryptocoryne plants Vallisneria Great carpeting plants: DHG (Dwarf Hairgrass) Monte Carlo (MC) HM HC glosso - some say it needs injected CO2 but threads on APSA indicate otherwise, it can do without but will grow slow Hydrocotyle tripartita cryptocoryne parva Easy low tech but needs wood or stones to be attached to (not too much light) anubias sp small / petite / nana bucephalandra of any kind bolbitis heudelottii java fern needleleaf java fern windelov fern trident fern I also would suggest a supplementary addition of liquid carbon (Excel or Scape Liquid Carbon) and you still need to feed the plants - EI or easy way is to get Scape Complete for less fuss if you can afford it. The liquid carbon will help, like I said supplementary, to encourage good growth. Plants can't take in oxygen all the time so it needs CO2 to exchange for oxygen in the water. Also just one more question - have you considered that you could add micro/nano fish or not planning to?
Good Morning, thanks, will take your advice into consideration. I will be adding some rummy nose and some shrimp in at a later stage, just looking to get the tank setup for now. Where can I find PFS soil?
What he said ^^ I got mine in a 40kg bag from the local building store here, thanks to my dad for knowing a few local contacts. Hmmm good choice there. Shrimps will be a good cleaning crew for the algae so maybe add them in first? There are many micro fish you can find on the market nowadays - neon blue goby, neon red goby, mountain goby - algae makes up a big part of their diet and I saw a video of @Pierré Schoonraad 's goby eating pellets last night, it was so cute...
Interesting, you learn something new everyday. I had the impression that all shrimps were algae cleaners. Why else would one feed them stuff that resembles the green stuff? I am aware that amanos do eat algae but wasn't aware about the other types not eating it. Correct me if I"m wrong, usually they graze on it more than eat it?
Red Cherry Shrimp absolutely do eat algae. This is a sequence of photos of a clump of hairgrass I put into my shrimp tank as a treat for the shrimp. Took 6 hours.
Interesting. In my experience they eat stuff that collects on algae. Then again I only get gsa and BBA
Here are two old tank scapes of mine - mind you they were mostly stems before I got the low tech ferns, buces, anubias and bolbitis: 40cm cube 70cm tank
