First planted/shrimp tank!

**Korzak** · 23rd Mar 2008, 11:22 PM

Here is my tank, a simple 12 gallon Eclipse deal. I've had the plants in it about a week. Everything should stay as is, except I am going to split the dwarf hairgrass up some more.

My question is, now that I have it running and with plants, how long should I wait before ordering my red cherries?

Front:

Left side close-up:

Center close-up:

Right side close-up:

**milt** · 24th Mar 2008, 12:44 AM

I think 2 weeks should be fine.

**Marya** · 24th Mar 2008, 09:22 AM

Hello there and welcome to a fantastic hobby :-) I agree with a couple of weeks. Then your plants may also have lost their emerse leaves (over water leaves) and started to grow submerse leaves (under water leaves).

I hope it's okay for me to give you some suggestions, if you don't like them then just ignore them.

- you could get a back ground, for instance some black paper that you put on the back side of the tank. That way your plants stand out much more.

- you could cut down the Eleocharis much more (1 cm above gravel); the leaves will die anyway because the plant need to create new submerse leaves and it's best to minimize the amount of decaying plant material in your tank. Same thing with the Cryptocoryne. You can actually cut of all leaves close to the gravel. Be patient; new leaves WILL come as long as the rhizome (upper white part of the root) is intact.

- Consider whether your tank would look more "peaceful/calm" if you reduced the number of plant species and then put in more plants of the same species. For instance you only have two stem plants put in in different places. Stem plants tend to always look their best if you put in many of them and place them together.
I think your tank would look more beautiful if you took away the green stem plants and then added some moss instead to grow on your stones and wood. Your cherries would love that:-)

And then, I don't want to be a party killer, but how much light do you have on this tank? It looks like a low light tank to me. There's nothing wrong with that - then you just need to choose plants that can live with that. Eleocharis can't, for instance, it grows very poorly in such tanks. I've tried it myself;-)

**eclecticoldsod** · 25th Mar 2008, 07:37 PM

Looks nice! If I were to make one suggestion, it would be to drop the water level for a day, and glue some pieces of cork bark to the back wall of the tank. It is slightly curved, so there will be a gap behind it. If you place it so that the gap is vertical, you can tuck the roots of plants that require high light at the top [crud will soon filter in to feed the roots]; you can easily pin moss all over it [the rough surface will quickly aid rooting]; and the gap at the bottom will give shy shrimps somewhere to hide. My shrimps love this set-up...
(Would post a picture, but I am rubbish doing at pictures..!)

**Korzak** · 30th Mar 2008, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by eclecticoldsod

Looks nice! If I were to make one suggestion, it would be to drop the water level for a day, and glue some pieces of cork bark to the back wall of the tank. It is slightly curved, so there will be a gap behind it. If you place it so that the gap is vertical, you can tuck the roots of plants that require high light at the top [crud will soon filter in to feed the roots]; you can easily pin moss all over it [the rough surface will quickly aid rooting]; and the gap at the bottom will give shy shrimps somewhere to hide. My shrimps love this set-up...
(Would post a picture, but I am rubbish doing at pictures..!)

I would love to see a pic of this, even a rubbish one

**Korzak** · 30th Mar 2008, 11:38 PM

So after a re-planting, here is what things look like now:

**jwarper** · 31st Mar 2008, 04:41 PM

I love the look! That substrate really gives it a great contrast. Looks very natural. What substrates are you using?

**Korzak** · 1st Apr 2008, 02:03 AM

Thanks! The substrate is a mix of flourite (2/3) and sand (1/3), with an inch of pure sand on top. The sand is from a local riverbed, washed and boiled first to make sure it was clean.

**Cpark188** · 2nd Apr 2008, 04:24 PM

Indeed is a very nice setup, my suggestion is that you add more plants or moss wall into the tank. The reason is to let the shrimps to have a hiding place and they can breed as much baby shrimplets. And if more plants, it will be safe and free from algae. My red cherry shrimps produce a lot of shrimplets. Can refer to my thread, Good luck.