# Planted Nano Tank Suggestions?



## Proud Pastry (Oct 30, 2012)

Hello :3

I've never had a planted tank before, and I'd like my next tank to be a 30g planted tank for when I finally get a larger place (then hopefully later on get a 70g ).
But for now, just to experiment and see what I'm doing before going all out with a large tank, I thought I'd try getting a small one, like a 2.5g, plant it, and then get a betta fish for it 

Anyone have any good suggestions for plants, substrate, ect?
Do you think I'd need a filter for this small tank since it's planted?
Would a 2.5g be big enough to get a betta fish and maybe a small bottom feeder?

I'm very limited with space but if I can find a larger tank (like a tall 3g-5g) then I'll probably get that instead 

Any information and advice would be very much appreciated! ^^
Thank you for reading!


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## Proud Pastry (Oct 30, 2012)

No replies? 

I was also wondering, my current 10 gallon is not planted, but I'd like to put some plants in it. Would it be alright to add potted aquatic plans in?


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

depends on what kind of plants you would like for it? the first thing to decide is whether or not you want plants that grow in the substrate or plants that can be tied to wood or a rock. easy plants that can be tied are ferns and moss. rooted plants offer more variety but depending on the type that's where the substrate nutrience/lighting really becomes a question of $ and maintenance. it's easier to give you advice if you know what sort of plants you would like.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Sorry, must not have seen the posting a few days ago. I think 2.5gal is a pretty small tank, you will only be able to fit a few plants. However, it will certainly be inexpensive to put some good substrate and all you need for lighting is a single reading lamp with a 6500K CFL bulb.

Filtration is always a good idea but plants in a way do some of the filtering for you since they use Nitrates to grow. Substrate is a good place for bacteria which turns poisonous ammonia into nitrates. I suppose you can have some plants and just a sponge filter for filtration. However, I and I'm sure many others on this forum are fans of overfiltration.

My opinion is that a 10gal is the right size to try your hand at a planted tank. Putting plants in pots certainly works, makes cleaning easy and decreases the cost on substrate. I believe there was a journal where a fellow used quite a few pots in his tank and it looked great. His tank was a bit bigger than 10gal though.

Here's a pic of my 10gal (pic is about 3 months old). I paid about 15 bucks for the substrate and about another 15 for the plants you see in there. Some of the plants I got are even free. It is lit with 1 CFL bulb and 1 LED bulb. No CO2, I just supplement with Excel once a week or so.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Despite what some people might say having a planted tank is pretty easy especially with choosing the right low light plants. Go with mosses and a couple cryps and they're pretty much impossible to kill. A friend of mine has a tank with only java fern and cryps as flora and neons as fauna, she doesn't do ANYTHING with the tank - I'm talking about a water change every 6 months, the plants have grown into a beautiful jungle with minimal algae. Somehow everything just balanced out since the plants aren't finicky.


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## Tarobot (Jun 27, 2010)

anubias is a good pick as well. crypts are easy but they dont like to be moved so make sure you dont change your mind once youve planted them.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Ah ha, found them. Here are a couple threads with pics of potted plants in tanks:

http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/introduction-area-4/my-intro-33187/index2.html
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/55-gal-barebottom-potted-discus-tank-33293/

The tanks are bigger but at least you get the idea. I think the thing about potted plants is that the pots themselves take up a bit of height so your plants only have so far to grow unless you have enough depth.

This fellow planted his Fluval Edge which is 6 gal I believe:
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/my-fluval-edge-planted-32920/

And this fellow planted a 5.5gal: 
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/5-5g-planted-nano-tank-new-pix-week-6-oct-24-a-32004/

And another planted nano tank:
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/10g-custom-tank-build-pic-heavy-30811/index3.html

Finally here's a 5gal betta tank:
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/introduction-area-4/my-intro-33187/


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## Proud Pastry (Oct 30, 2012)

Thank you so much for all your replies!  I think I have a pretty good idea for what I'd like to do now 
I bought a 5 gallon tank, along with a substrate, just gotta do everything else haha
I'm planning on putting a couple platy fry in it when they grow up, so I have plenty of time to play around with this project 

I'll take a look at those threads and post again if I need any more help/advice! :3
Thanks again!


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

I also keep my 33G with potted plants, but i used large pieces of malaysian driftwood to block out the pots and its hard to see them at all. To deal with possible detritus build up around the pots, i've used a power head with hits outtake turned down and it does the job, plus it makes the fish come into the foreground more often than hide  One of these days i'll post a pic of the tank


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

I used to have a 2.5 gallon. The person in the LFS told me to get that with 3 gold fish. I paid $20 for the tank and another $20 for the filter. Two weeks later, I returned the gold fish.
Anyway, later on I tunred that tank into a small shrimp tank and the cherry shrimps and grass shrimps were breeding like crazy.
I had a very small internal filter, a piece of rock, with a lot of moss on the ground. The moss was tied to some rocks and they just kept growing. I had no light because when the tankw as told to me the LFS person told me light would be very expensive and was not needed. Anyway, I change the water may be once every 2 weeks, and I did not feed them anything. All I did was add a bit of Equilibrium and water conditioner. I bought a big zip loc bag od java moss from a member here for $5 and I got a few java ferns I tied to the rock--no light, no Co2, no weekly water change. So, as others have pointed out, it is possible to keep a low tech 2.5 gallon tank with some plants. 
In my opinion Shrimps are a good choice than Betta if you want the tank planted. If I were to keep a Betta in a 2.5 gallon, I would not keep plants that need to root in the gravel because I would take the Betta out every few days and raise the gravle and wipe the tank down when i change the water..but that is just me.
Anyway, good luck with your new tank.


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