[corey236]

I'm fairly new to planted tanks, I do work in a greenhouse though so I know the basics. I have a 10 gallon tank with a crap load of java moss growing in a ball taking up most of the tank, I'm going try to make a moss wall and tie some to some driftwood and see how that looks, I have two 10 want full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in the hood. I'm getting a 40 gallon flat hex front tank soon and want to plant that too. For both tanks I want hardy lowlight plants that will be fairly low maintenance, I was thinking mosses and maybe some grass like plants, what would you suggest? And I want glosso but thats going to be hard is'nt it? I want to keep it as cheap as possible too. I plan on keeping some kind of shrimp in the 10 gallon and some fish in the 40 if that matters.

 

[bradac56]

The default foreground grass I recommend allot is 'Dwarf sagittaria' it's pretty
easy to maintain and can take a beating. Any Anubias variety would work
along with Java Fern and Water Sprite (planet or free floating).

- Brad

 

[corey236]

I was looking at the dwarf sagittaria, I figure anubias would work and I knew java fern would but the stuff at petsmart all looks like crap. I'll have to check online or with some people at work to see if they have any. At light levels this low will I need CO2 injection or fertilizers? Thanks for the reply.

 

[lauraleellbp]

You'll most likely need CO2 and ferts if you want to keep glosso, but if you stick with low-light plants you should be fine w/out otherwise.

Check out the sticky at the top of the Low Tech forum for a really good list of plants to try.

I'd personally go with E. tenellus 'narrow' over dwarf sag for a foreground in a small tank; IME dwarf sag can grow pretty tall.

 

[Hoppy]

Look for some narrow leaf Java Fern, for a very attractive background plant for low light tanks. I'm not too impressed with regular Java Fern's looks, but the narrow leaf variety looks great to me. Another interesting Java Fern, one that some folks don't appreciate, is Java Fern Windelov, which can easily grow into a ball that fills a whole aquarium with moderate lighting. I really like the appearance of that one too. The Shop n Swap forum here or for sale forums on other sites are good places to find those plants, as is Aquabid.

 

[corey236]

I really like the E. tenellus and the narrow and regular leaf java fern. The windelov java fern looks messy to me. And yeah, now that I checked it the dwarf sagittaria is supposed to get a foot long, does'nt really seem dwarf to me. I like the carpeted look, could I do that with some thing like moss that will be like an inch or less tall? And the micro sword (Lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae) looks really nice to me, it says moderate light level, I only have low light level right? And thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[corey236]

Oh and how do I choose a good piece of driftwood? I might go to the river and get some, they all felt squishy when I was there last time, thats not good right?

 

[corey236]

Since I'm already asking questions, I plan on keeping and breeding red cherry shrimp in the 10 gallon tank, will the baby shrimp be alright if I put a sponge over the intake of the hob filter?

 

[bradac56]

Since I'm already asking questions, I plan on keeping and breeding red cherry shrimp in the 10 gallon tank, will the baby shrimp be alright if I put a sponge over the intake of the hob filter?

That's what I do tho it needs to be a very fine sponge.

- Brad

 

[lauraleellbp]

You might do Ok with Lilaeopsis in the 10gal... I don't think it would die on you, though it would probably take a long time to fill in (actually just about any plant takes a while to fill in under low light...) Moss would work, if you want to try that.

No, you don't want squishy driftwood. Means it's too rotten and is likely to fall apart in your tank pretty quickly.

These are my personal favorite sponge prefilters (you can also get them at PetSmart or BigAls: http://www.epetproducts.com/index.p...d=1679&zenid=ea13b5757cb722d8f572c37e494d0b26

 

[corey236]

I just found out that the 40 gallon tank I was going to buy was a saltwater tank, can I use it as a freshwater tank? I figure I would let it run freshwater for about a month and change the water like each week to get all the salt washed out, has any one here ever turned a saltwater tank into a freshwater one?

 

[lauraleellbp]

Yep, just rinse it out really well, use white vinegar to help get rid of all the deposits, and a razor blade on the glass to clean up what's left.

You may need to make some adjustments in the lighting and filter setup...