New tank idea - help needed

[mattyc]

any low carpeting plant will be higher maintance.

you should be ok to just cap your existing substrate and it should have some of its nutrients still, you could boost it with tropica root tabs if you wanted.

i love crypts they are easy to grow and look good dont grow too large try something like wendtii tropica maby or this

http://www.plantedbox.com/shop/index.ph ... cts_id=305

 

[Ajm200]

Hairgrass is ok when it is established. When you first add it to the tank you should cut it really short as the leaves it has when you buy it usually rot. It is easiest to cut it in the pot prior to planting. Hairgrass does tend to collect muck and stray bits of moss. It can be pain to keep clean without a few shrimps to help out. I used to keep a hairgrass foreground and an Xmas moss wall in my shrimp tank and wasted a lit of time pulling up clumps of hairgrass so that I could remove bits of moss. The novelty soon wore off. Any foreground plant that grows horizontally will eventually get overcrowded, need to be pulled up, thinned out and replanted.