5g CRS Tank (Plant Advice)

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GraveyardHound

GraveyardHound

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 7, 2019
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For some reason in September I decided to set up a high-tech 5g Crystal Red S tank. I guess I forgot how hard it is to maintain a nano tank.

Anyways, I have been struggling with this tank since then. There were some bumps in the road but now it is nice and stable. However, some of the plants are not doing too great and I'm getting some algae growth. I want this tank to be full of bright green healthy plants to contrast with the red shrimp. I'm looking for any advice on what to change.

My current setup is the Lifegard Aquatics 5g Fullview Aquarium with built-in filtration. For media I am using sponges and Seachem Matrix. I chose to use CO2 in this tank to give the plants a boost. Most of my tanks are low-tech. The light is the Fluval Plant 3.0 Nano LED set for 8 hours a day.

Parameters
Temp: 70 F
TDS: 113 ppm
pH: 7.4
GH: 5 dGH
KH: 5 dKH
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

20200128_184844.jpg
 
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Why is there ammonia showing?
 
Also I am doing weekly water changes and dosing with flourish.
 
I see you have dwarf hair grass which is a semi high light requirement plant, while other plants seem to prefer darker / less light conditions...

So the mix of plant requirements could be whats causing problems for you, since too little light and your hairgrass doesnt do so well but too much light and your other plants may start getting algae...
 
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Fat Homer said:
I see you have dwarf hair grass which is a semi high light requirement plant, while other plants seem to prefer darker / less light conditions...

So the mix of plant requirements could be whats causing problems for you, since too little light and your hairgrass doesnt do so well but too much light and your other plants may start getting algae...
Click to expand...

That would make sense. Would you recommend that I replace the low light plants with other plants that have similar needs to the dwarf hairgrass?
 
In a smaller tank like this, it would probably be best to keep plants with similar needs to make balancing the tanks requirements easier for yourself, coz if anything goes south, you just need to do small adjustments to make all your plants happy again VS getting some plants happy and others growing mad algae due to slower growth etc...

Also forgot to compliment your aquascape as it looks really good especially for a nano tank...
 
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Fat Homer said:
In a smaller tank like this, it would probably be best to keep plants with similar needs to make balancing the tanks requirements easier for yourself, coz if anything goes south, you just need to do small adjustments to make all your plants happy again VS getting some plants happy and others growing mad algae due to slower growth etc...

Also forgot to compliment your aquascape as it looks really good especially for a nano tank...
Click to expand...

Yes I'll give that a try. I definitely want to keep the hairgrass. The water wisteria in the back seems to be doing well and I might add some moneywort that I have. I'll take out all the other plants and transfer them to another tank. Do you have any suggestions for some other plants?

Thank you for the compliment! When I set this tank up I wanted it to make the hardscape look natural, but pleasing to the eye. I'm actually better at scaping small tanks vs large ones hahaha.
 
What about adding something like some monte carlo to the rocks or something?
 
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