# Suggestions for carpet/foreground plants for an 8g low tech bowl



## squirrel (Aug 24, 2013)

I have an 8g heated, unfiltered bowl with Amazonia Aqua Soil ad a 13w 6500k CFL in a desk lamp. I got some stem plants from Stuart (thanks again) and picked up some crypts and a large java fern at Aquariums West. I've been trying to get the Hydrocotyle I got off Stu to carpet, but it really doesn't want to. I've been having some trouble with silt/dust from the Aqua Soil and am really wanting to get it rooted down. What should I try for the foreground? I want it to grow as dense as possible.

It turns out our betta likes to eat Amano shrimp, so I would rather it not be java moss or something that will turn into a food waste trap.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

You will need to run co2 to get the plants to carpet properly. I don't see it in your list?


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## squirrel (Aug 24, 2013)

I won't be running CO2. This is just meant to be a low tech bowl. I just started dosing with Excel today and that's as far as I will take this set up. I'm not looking for a super lush carpet of hair grass or anything like that, as nice as it would be. But are there no low-growing, low-medium light plants that will grow more densely in the foreground than a few crypts? Is this wishful thinking?


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

I did a non-CO2 carpet with glosso and Staurogyne, using ADA Amazonia and Metricide 14 as a carbon source. The glosso was slow growing but it did carpet well (the trick is to plant each node of glosso independently and let it do its thing).

Best regards,

Stuart


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## squirrel (Aug 24, 2013)

Thanks Stuart. Now I just need to find some glosso and Staurogyne repens. Aquariums West hasn't had any in quite a while. Someone there had suggested HC Cuba as a possibility. They didn't have that in either though.


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

Check out my old thread "10 Gallon Disaster Tank Transformed"

Best regards,

Stuart


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## squirrel (Aug 24, 2013)

CRS Fan said:


> Check out my old thread "10 Gallon Disaster Tank Transformed"
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Stuart


I just read that thread and have learned I will never know where you get your rocks. I wish I had gotten some of your glosso when you removed it all! I really love the look of the Staurogyne repens.


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## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

I forgot what it's called but IPU used to sell those rocks  
They might still have them but I haven't looked in a while.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Burnaby IPU has them for sure but not the same selection they had when they first brought it in, just left overs mostly from the looks of it that no one really wants to buy for the price. I believe its called Dragon Stone


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## squirrel (Aug 24, 2013)

I'm going to take a look for some rocks at my parents' place, which is the site of a former quarry. Wish me luck. Otherwise I might try to make some arbutus driftwood work, unless that's a horrible idea that will kill my fish and plants. 

The common recommendation for a low tech carpet plant at the Planted Tank seems to be marsilea minutae, but I've been told it's slow and not worth trying by people I've asked locally. 

Am I right to assume I will have more luck with immersed rather than emersed glosso? I don't want to spend half a day planting emersed glosso just to have it all die.


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