Adv For My Planted Tank

[Merduka]

Hi,

I have a 15cm tank in office using LED. I have normal substrate (the brown pellet time) with OHF filter and some 6-8 red eye socket fishes.

Been battling algae as I used to switch on LED all day (in air con room) and used tablet Co2 pill but stopped after algae went out of control. I then added some red coloured snail donated by Satemann and the algae is totally controlled while my jave fern did not too too well.

As algae issue is tackled, I am thinking of doing the following:
1. Use mesh for top to bottom for background - don't know what plant (somehing looking like carpet grass will be nice)
2. a for ground plany and
3. some rooted plant in the middle

Prefer low light and low maintenance - no CO2 but once a week tablet ok since its in office - air con only during office hours and not on weekend.

Kindly advice plants to use

Thanks
Kenneth

[Urban Aquaria]

For your pico tank setup... since there is limited space and low-tech approach, just use moss for the mesh background, and moss on mesh for the foreground.

For small rooted plant can try cryptocoryne parva, it could work as a mid-ground plant in your tank size.

Btw, your current fish bio-load is too much for such a small tank (especially with low light slow growth plants which can't take up enough nutrients), remove the fishes (or reduce to just 1-2) and just have shrimps or snails in the tank to keep it in balance.

[Merduka]

bro can i use japanese java and wjat is cryptocoryne parva? any photos?

[Urban Aquaria]

Not sure what is "japanese java"... maybe you are referring to japanese hairgrass and java moss or ferns?

Java moss and java ferns are suitable for low tech/low light tanks too, and they can tolerate a wide range of water parameters.

Japanese hairgrass could also be used, but their growth would tend to be very slow (or end up just melting) in low light conditions.

Cryptocoryne Parva is one of the smallest species of cryprocoryne plants, here is a photo of it from Tropica website:



Just do a google search on those plants and see how they are used in tank layouts.