hi schwip,
Welcome to the world of planted tanks! Here are some thoughts you may wish to consider as you start your journey:
1. Excess silicon around your tank is ok. Nothing to be concerned at the moment. If you are really worried, just filled it up with water and let it sit for about 15 to 20min. If it is not well-make, it will leak almost immediately. This will save you some pain before you start the actual planting.
2. As for monte carlos, while it is true that it is forgiving but only once it has adapted to the tank conditions. It will require a fair bit of maintenance (ie pruning) once it starts growing... the pruning and cleaning the bits of monte carlos that had been cut is the more irritating work for me. Anyway, I have not used it since I prefer spending less time on maintenance.
3. Using wood for live stock to hide in is very common. It is more a personal taste whether you prefer ceramic or wood.
4. I don't have experience with borneowild with shrimps. I have great success on using ADA soil with cherry shrimps. Sorry, can't help you for ANS planta soil with shrimps.
5. Parasites (worms) occurs if you overfeed. All soils contains bacteria and not all bacteria are bad. In fact, your tank will cycle faster with soil such as ADA/Borneo etc.
6. The downside of using tank in a small tank is that overtime small pocket of ammonia will build up if the layer of soil is too thick (like more than 2 inches) and you don't have plants (with roots) in the soil that can aerate the soil and minimize the problem. So when you disturb the soil to rescape, you will cause a sudden ammonia spike. You can reduce this problem by doing regular siphoning of the soil during water changes. Just remember to do regular filter changes after each siphon as your filter wool will clogged up.
7. As for the filter that you are displaying... depends on how many fishes you put in there... if it is just shrimps.. more than enough provided you do regular maintenance of the filter wool (maybe once a month). Personally, I prefer to 'over-filter' - ie getting a bigger size filter.
8. CO2. I have dosed CO2 (pressurised) and Excel Flourish in my tank with amano shrimps (giant-sized type that you get at C32
. But my tank is a bit bigger than yours and the amano shrimps are hardier than cherry. The key is not to over-dose. Just dose slightly less than what is prescribed, your shrimp should be ok. The other way is to dilute the Excel flourish first with water before adding into your tank. In terms of value for money, getting those permanent 1-litre co2 tank is the way to go... BUT at this stage, I suggest you stick to just Excel Flourish or disposable CO2 until you are sure about your passion for keeping planted tank with shrimps. The good thing about using Flourish is that you don't need a timer on your lighting when you are gassing your co2. Unfortunately, I have not used disposable co2 before so not sure if you need a normal co2 regulator with solenoid to control it.
9. Another big factor is the water temperature. For shrimps and plants, an ideal water temperature would be around 24 to 25 degrees celsius. But 28 degree cel is doable for cherry shrimps... but probably not for CRS.
10. Lighting. No need to spend too much on lighting. Too much lighting (ie too bright) with long duration (ie more than 8 hours) will definite grow algae very well.
11. Do consider adding 1 oto. It helps alot by eating up the brown slime algae that is typical in new tank. But unfortunately, otos are delicate creatures that die easily if they are not acclimatize properly before adding into the tank.
Good luck!
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