Hiyas,

I've just setup a 30 litre tank to create a planted shrimp aquarium.
I have never setup a freshwater tank, so ill be on here regularly asking beginner questions.

I purchased a Fluval Flora and if successful will try something bigger.

3 questions to start with...

1. I love the look of the grass covered tanks.
If I want to start one, once they grow, do people trim them or do they generally stay small ?

2. My tank came with a small Co2 canister but I'd rather keep it simple. Can I just use flourish excel instead of Co2?

3. The kit has a clip on light, if I want my plants to grow well should I switch to a LED light ?

Appreciate any help.

Dead Can Dance.

Hi,

I think your three questions are all related.

1. It depends on the plant, conditions and your preference. Some plants can be made to carpet with trimming that would otherwise grow vertical. Others will naturally carpet but you can optionally trim to keep them lower if they grow up a little.

2 + 3. The need for co2 depends on the amount of light you have. It looks like the kit is low light so you could do without co2 or even excel. However, most carpeting plants don't do well in low light. So if you decide on something that needs more light you may want co2 to avoid issues. Excel would help but the more light you add the more you should think about adding co2. It's less work for a plant to get carbon from co2 than excel but excel is less work than the other options a plant has. Even in low light co2 or excel will help because the plant will be able to focus its energy on other things.

It would not be a bad idea to stick with low light for now with or without co2/excel. You would just have to limit your choices to low light plants. This thread might be helpful for carpet options: https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=90406