# What's a good carpet plant and moss for a .5 gallon shrimp tank?



## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

Would you perhaps consider something a little simpler for your first project?

I am only suggesting this because you said that you are completely new, and this is quite an ambitious project. 

It's just that a small tank is more difficult to set up, and the more elements you want to put in it, the more difficult it becomes to do it well. 
A small tank is also more difficult to keep stable for livestock, and a half gallon is very small. i.e. difficult to keep stable water chemistry, stable temperatures etc. 

On the plus side, you don't need much by way of materials, and water changes are easy. 

All my tanks are smaller than ten gallons, by the way. And if I ignore any of them for a week (going away e.g.), the changes are obvious. 

I applaud your decision not to put fish in it, RCS for livestock is a very good choice. You can also add a snail or two (ramshorns, Malaysian trumpet, bladder snail/pond snail). 

I think you could do well with a moss carpet (fissidens or flame on mesh), and a moss tree. If you wish to add the Hydrocotyle tripartita, a few sprigs at the base of the tree would look really nice. The tree may be placed in a corner, I think, so you can have a green field (ie the carpet) to view shrimp feeding and antics. 

With these plant choices you will not need an active substrate so something like coarse black sand would look good with the green moss and show up red shrimp very well. Good for scale as well. You can put a root tab under the Hydrocotyle to provide nutrients for it. 

How does that sound? I tried to pick the elements of your plan that are do-able for a beginner while maintaining true to the theme. 

Oh, the hideout, I have seen someone glue together small rocks to make a hideout. You can put this on base of tree beside or opposite Hydrocotyle?

PS with these suggestions, no need for additional CO2 or dry starting. Excel is just a non-gaseous form of carbon that plants can utilize.


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## Thegreatandpowerfulr (Sep 7, 2015)

Thanks a lot for the help, Those are good ideas. I Found out yesterday that tripartita doesn't feed from it's roots well and mosses don't either so there isn't much reason to use dirt now LOL, looks like I will be using liquid ferts.


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## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

No problem, enjoy the process as much as you can. Good luck with the new project!


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