# Best carpet plant for CRS?



## Nestle_ (Jul 4, 2013)

I'm thinking of having glosso as my carpet plant, and it'll be most of the area of my 90 gallon, but I'm wondering what everyone else mainly uses for a carpet plant with them.
other ideas I had were dwarf hair grass, micro swords, crypt parva (would take forever and ton of them to carpet), Marsilea Minuta
All pretty generic run of the mill carpets.

So tell me, what is your carpet of choice for CRS?


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## Fiftymeatballs (Mar 30, 2011)

I feel like carpets aren't all that popular in shrimp tanks. I think a dark substrate against the CRS/CBS colors make them pop. If you have a carpet your shrimp will blend in or hide in or under the leaves. Mounds of moss, fissiden, pellia, marimo etc are ideal. 

I tried a dense ground cover of S.Repens without ferts or c02 in my shrimp tank. It didn't grow much but didn't die the least bit because of the aqua soil . It just grew very slow. The shrimp seemed to dislike it to be honest. I watched them struggle climbing around it. Half the time I spent looking in the tank counting shrimp trying to find out if I have had any shrimp losses in the new setup. They were dam hard to find in the repens, so I pulled it all out.


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## NanoDave (Feb 25, 2013)

Not directly related but similar. I have RCS in with a very thick gloss carpet that have started to bread prolifically. I've only had the shrimp for a little over a month but I started with 20 and am already seeing dozens of newborns throughout the carpet when looking through the glass under the 1/2" into the tank I can seen from a side view under the carpet. No to mention theirs at least dozens of adolescent shrimp that are all new and have survived my cardinal tetras and celestial pearl danios. I think at the speed gloss spreads it's a very good carpet to protect newborns. Just my 2 cents. Hope that helps.


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## Nestle_ (Jul 4, 2013)

Thanks Dave. That's what I was figuring they would do. And I wasn't looking to get to aggressive with adding in fish until the CRS settled in for a few weeks, and even then I'd bring in really tiny cardinals.



Fiftymeatballs said:


> I feel like carpets aren't all that popular in shrimp tanks. I think a dark substrate against the CRS/CBS colors make them pop. If you have a carpet your shrimp will blend in or hide in or under the leaves. Mounds of moss, fissiden, pellia, marimo etc are ideal.
> 
> I tried a dense ground cover of S.Repens without ferts or c02 in my shrimp tank. It didn't grow much but didn't die the least bit because of the aqua soil . It just grew very slow. The shrimp seemed to dislike it to be honest. I watched them struggle climbing around it. Half the time I spent looking in the tank counting shrimp trying to find out if I have had any shrimp losses in the new setup. They were dam hard to find in the repens, so I pulled it all out.


I know not to many people keep carpets and shrimp. I'm just new to CRS and was hoping to get an idea of the best suited plant for them. I'm not to worried about them hiding all the time. It's a big tank, even if I only keep it half filled like planned (going to be a paludarium). 
I have S.Repens in my (now former) cherry shrimp tank, and they seemed to do fairly well with it, and it grew like a weed with CO2. I love the red it gives when its loaded with iron and CO2, very pretty. But I don't think its the best plant for shrimp as you said, there certainly are better choices. Which again, brings me here asking for experiences of others. 
There will be moss or probably anubius growing up the stump and walls, but the ground needs a single carpet plant. I don't want multiple plants for the carpet.


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## aznartist34 (Nov 19, 2010)

Moss is good for all kinds of shrimp


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## Nestle_ (Jul 4, 2013)

Yeah but I'm wanting more then just a bunch of moss everywhere. If there will be moss, it will only be in certain areas, mostly to hide the background inserts/cracks, but I'm thinking of maybe using anubius nana for that.


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## usgetata (Dec 28, 2012)

In my planted tank I have marsilea minuta carpet. The neos loves to hide under it to avoid my crown killifish. I used to have CRS in there and they liked it too. But a lot of the time it's hard to find them.
















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## Nestle_ (Jul 4, 2013)

Do you run CO2? if so how many bps?


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## usgetata (Dec 28, 2012)

I used to run 1 bps DIY co2, but now I am doing without it. 

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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

most with shrimp tanks keep only shrimp in them and keep it minimal. co2 is pretty deadly to shrimp. its so easy to gas a shrimp compaired to fish. i am using marsilea minuta in my tank. i have between 1&2 inches of ada amazonia and cfl bulb in my tank. ive only had it in the tank for a couple weeks and already see new leaves. the thing is mixing fish and shrimp you really have to be careful due to meds if the fish get sick. most meds will kill shrimp in the dose it takes to treat fish, and salt will kill shrimp as well.


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## Nestle_ (Jul 4, 2013)

Yeah I know about both of those things. 
The tank will have a waterfall setup that will generously will put O2 back in the tank, and I'm not even set on setting up CO2 because of it.
As for the fish getting sick, I have a ton of tanks up and running that would be hospital tanks and serve to fix them, so that's not really an issue.


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