Small tank recommendations please 😊

[Lcc86]

For floating plants elodea densa is my go to, grows like crazy and you can just snip it off when it gets too much. Other low maintenance floating plants include water lettuce and frog bit.

Just watch out for pest snails, I feel like they're inevitable at some point when buying plants unless you just buy bulbs!

 

[Essjay]

Or buy in vitro (tissue culture) plants

 

[K8EM]

Or they can be glued on with cyanoacrylate superglue. I haven't used this myself but I'm informed that the gel type is easier to get where you want it while the liquid type runs everywhere and turns white when wet.

Got the gorilla one on the way, that's a great tip, thank you! So is it easier just to stick with non-stem plants then? And will stem plants be OK in sand? Didn't know growing from bulbs is an option! Is it recomended or easier just to buy some plants that are already growing? So many questions Hoping that if we're successful with the plants in this little tank I can just use off-cuts to add to a 10g tank of my own in the sitting room in the very near future.

Or buy in vitro (tissue culture) plants

In vitro sounds like a good shout, don't fancy having to deal with snails. Any recommendations for snails that won't multiply and take over though? Do they take away much from the number/size of fish you can accommodate? It's only a small tank so I'm wondering what would be the most efficient critter/critters would be to take care of algae.

 

[BigBurgassio]

Which tank are you going for ?

 

[K8EM]

Just this morning ordered a diversa 54l 60x30x30 aquarium only Liked the flex but the square shape seems to place limits on what you can have happily living in it and I wanted as many options as possible since it's not going to be my choice.
Decided on that rather than the ciano because I think it just gives us more option for growing plants out of the top and stuff since he gravitates towards really 'jungly' looking tanks-no neon gravel for us thank you Also I don't know what he's going to choose to be in it so I thought it best to get an idea of that before we choose a filter and things.

But, I really liked the ciano and I am planning a shrimp tank project for my primary classroom and I think it might be the perfect option for that since we can keep it as just shrimps but also have the option to add a shoal of small fish if we decide to.

Aiming to do a 'silent' cycle though with lots of plants, is this something you've tried?

 

[Essjay]

There are only a few plants which need to be attached to decor - mosses, Java fern, all species of anubias, all species of bolbitis and all species of bucephalandra. Everything else can be planted in sand. Some plants are stem plant, some rosettes (eg sword plants, cryptocorynes), some bulbs and some float on the water surface.

Most plants which are attached to decor are slow growing, and not useful for plant cycling. You need fast growers for that - stem plants and especially floating plants.

 

[K8EM]

Most plants which are attached to decor are slow growing, and not useful for plant cycling. You need fast growers for that - stem plants and especially floating plants.

Brilliant information, thanks I have read the guide on here but didn't pick that up (although I know it's there) so really glad you said it specifically. I bought a light that has good reviews from planted aquarium owners on Amazon so hoping I should be good to go for stem plants then-heading to nearest lfs (2 hours away! on Saturday for plants and filter, Argos for playsand!). Really keen on floating plants so that's handy

 

[Essjay]

You may well find that LFS sell a limited selection of plants - mine certainly only sell bread & butter plants; one only sells elodea!
But there are on-line shops which sell a larger variety of plants, including in vitro (tissue culture) plants if you want to avoid pest snails. I have used Aqua Essentials, ProShrimp and Horizon Aquatics with good results.

Edit to add:
Those shops sell plants guaranteed shrimp safe. I use them because I have shrimps and ornamental snails which I don't want to be poisoned by insecticide or snail killer used to treat plants form the far east. But this does mean that their potted plants may have pest snails. However, they also sell in vitro plants which don't have chemicals on them nor snails or snail eggs.

 

[sharkweek178]

For floating plants elodea densa is my go to, grows like crazy and you can just snip it off when it gets too much. Other low maintenance floating plants include water lettuce and frog bit.

Just watch out for pest snails, I feel like they're inevitable at some point when buying plants unless you just buy bulbs!

Problem with a lot of floating plants in smaller tanks is that the true floating plants like salvinia minima or Amazon frogbit do not like a lot of surface disruption. Since there is less surface area, it can be hard to have enough surface disruption from a filter outflow or bubbler to oxygenate the water but not too much that it affects the plants. Luckily since elodea doesn't float at the surface, it doesn't have that problem. This applies to 5-10 gallon tanks. I think a 15 would be ok

 

[Essjay]

I have red root floater in my shrimp tank - that's ~23 litres and a 30 cm cube. It thrives in there. However, because it's a shrimp tank it doesn't need much in the way of filtration and the flow is turned right down or those poor little shrimp would get blown around the tank.

I also have red root floater in my main tank. I have the odd bit of water sprite but that is not happy. I have to remove the larger plants as they start to disintegrate but I do find baby water sprite plants which are fine - till they reach a certain size. The red root floater circles round the tank after it's been thinned out, then stops when they grow so many they get jammed together.


Red root floater grows so much I throw handfuls away from both tanks at each water change.

 

[bullgoose]

I know the way I keep googling bigger tanks

So in my one I have 1 neon, 5 glow light tetras, 1 aquatic frog, 4 endlers, 2 corys, 3 cherry shrimp. I am thinking of getting a smaller tank just for the shrimp and to separate out the endler males and females.

I would separate the endlers ASAP.. It's become a major issue for me very quickly... I inherited a 40 litre, previous owner had a female in there by mistake... Now theirs 10 + fry as well... The tanks already at near capacity...