[NapTeamCaptain]

Hi guys,

Sorta of a long post, but please bear with me.

So, i want to plant a carpet in my 125 gal, but there are many options, so I would like your guys' input.



Substrate and ferts:
HtH Pool Filter Sand

Fertilization:
Thrive tabs
Thrive all in one
CO2 injection


Lights:
I have GL grow lights. They are really bright and have a pretty good cor spectrum. Will post details of the lights later tomorrow.





So here are my thoughts and ideas for the carpet:
I do like dwarf hair grass, but I feel like it's really common and lowkey overdone.

Monte carlo and dwarf baby tears. I do like the leaf structure, although I'm concerned about shallow root structure and the carpet floating when it eventually grows dense.

I recently came across Marsilea Hirsuta, and it looks pretty cool. But I dont know much about it.



I want a carpet that will not only grow dense and look fabulous, but also be a good fit for the inhabitants. My tank style is basically a nano tank, but on a really large scale. I'm gonna have
red cherry and bamboo shrimp,
rabbit and pest snails nails,
kuhli loaches,
corydoras,
neon amd cardinal tetras,
honey gourami
celestial pearl danio
clown killifish
and other nano fish I will find eventually.

I know the corydoras and kuhlies like to dig in the sand, so portions of the tank will have bare sand with no carpet.



What are your guys' opinions, ideas, experiences, and advice? Thank you all for sticking through the long post.

 

[MissCris]

I had marsilia a while back in my 60g. It's a pretty easy plant to grow, and should do well in sand (I use ecocomplete, but marsilia shouldn't float because it roots pretty well). You'll want to plant nodes fairly close together because each node will tend to send out only a few runners that grow in a straight line, so wide spacing can lead to bare spots; try to intentionally orient nodes at different angles too so that coverage will be thorough. Once it takes off though, it's fairly bulletproof.

I also liked microsword. Like marsilia, it shouldn't float up, and it's also not particularly demanding. If you're trying to avoid hairgrass, it might look too similar for your taste, but it's a little wider-leafed like actual grass, as opposed to the almost needle-like shape of hairgrass.

If you want something really different looking though, and you don't mind dropping a bit more money on it, you could try a carpet of ranunculus inundatus. That stuff looks almost alien with its little feathery lily-pad shaped leaves. It also does well interplanted with other carpets like DHG, marsilia, cuba, or microsword, as the stems will reach up so the leaves sit just above the shorter plants.

Another really interesting carpet is a mass of downoi, though again that's going to be expensive in a big tank. It looks wild though when it grows in. Downoi is a little more finicky than most carpets, but it will definitely root well and should do well in your tank. The main downside is that it fills in rather slowly.

 

[NapTeamCaptain]

I am glad to hear that marsilia roots pretty well.

The last two options, however, their design is a little too much for my needs. I do want an interesting plant for carpet, but those take too much attention away from the rest of the scape.

Thank you for your help tho!

Sent from my SM-A215U1 using Tapatalk