Carpeting Plants

[FlamingPeanuts]

Hello!
Im jsut starting out making a tropical fist tank and would like to know what plants would make a good carpet for my tank. I would like it to be like grass that is good at generally surviving as im a newb to this and dont wish to kill it. I was looking at the thread about Ricca, but are there not any plants like that that will rott themselves? Also would like to know where I could get my hands on any of this stuff.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sjdriscoll]

You could try some 'micro sag' from greenline aquatics (http/www.aquaticplants.eu.com/).

It comes in various ways - they do a 'carpet sponge' about 5'' by 5'' that you can just pin down or you could cut it into smaller sections and place it around your tank and wait for runners to join them all up.

 

[fozziebear]

riccia would be a good choice, but mosses also work, echinodorus tennelus is one of the hardiest carpeting plants, along with dwarf saggitaria, but they need a bit more like good lighting and ferts to grow, id recommend mosses for your tank myself if you are a newb to planted, you cant go wrong with moss and verryyy hard to kill off.

 

[Nim]

Riccia needs a lot of maintenance and regular pruning to maintain a good carpet effect. Apart from that plants like dwarf sagitaris, echinodorous tennelus and echinodorous quadricostatus are good starter foreground plants but they will all need good lighting and CO2 injection to get the effect you want. Glossostigma is also a brilliant plant but is regarded as a difficult plant to start with.

If this is your first tropical tank / planted tank then I suggest you get some experience groing different plants first vefore venturing into carpet plants as there are a lot of variable that can turn the tables upside down.

Nim

 

[FlamingPeanuts]

Also what if I wanted to plant some other plants, like talelr ones. Would I have to rip a hole out of the plant on the boterm?

Thanks for all the advice, I shall google them in the morning and find out what they actually are

 

[Nim]

The arrangement of larger plants will have to be in a way that they dont shadow the lowe ones else you will start losing the lower ones slowly.
It would be best to plant taller plants first and then go for the carpeting ones. It would also help fight against algae as taller plants grow faster then shorter ones and thus can out compete algae for food and light.

Nim

 

[fozziebear]

id advise you read the guides to estimative index, easy to grow plants, and lighting that are pinned in this forum.