Carpet plant suggestion please

S

ShadowBeast

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Aug 10, 2010
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I've got 2 tanks, 1 20 gal long shrimp tank and 1 40 gal breeder tank, both tanks have coralife aqualight 6,700K/colormax double lightstrip and I plan on using diy co2 and the substrate is eco complete.

I need suggestions for what type of capet plant for these tanks but I can't decide
cryptocoryne-parvacryptocoryne-willisii
glossostigma-elatinoides
hemianthus-callitrichoides
Marsilea Minuta
I'm not sure whether I have enough light/co2 for HC and I'm worried about Glosso getting too thick and I don't want to keeping trimming it and I can't find much info about Marsilea Minuta.
I'm thinking of cryptocoryne-willisii or Parva as a carpet for the 40gal breeder since I've heard that it carpets but I can't find photos of it as a carpet.

So if anyone has any suggestions on what would work best or any other plants that'll carpet let me know.
 
I have 5 crypt parva pots that I got from Mgamer over a month ago. I left them in the pots while I made up my mind about changing my substrate (haven't done it yet), but they are growing good while still in the pots sitting in gravel with root tabs, and are putting out new leaves. They also are not growing tall like I heard that they might if the light isn't strong enough. I hear that they grow slow, but I think that if I plant them close together, they will make a good carpet in time. I don't use CO2, but I do dose Excel. So far, they have been a no-brainer.
 
Vince G. said:
I have 5 crypt parva pots that I got from Mgamer over a month ago. I left them in the pots while I made up my mind about changing my substrate (haven't done it yet), but they are growing good while still in the pots sitting in gravel with root tabs, and are putting out new leaves. They also are not growing tall like I heard that they might if the light isn't strong enough. I hear that they grow slow, but I think that if I plant them close together, they will make a good carpet in time. I don't use CO2, but I do dose Excel. So far, they have been a no-brainer.
Click to expand...
Yeah I think I'll go with the parva over the Willisii since hopefully the parva will stay around 2 inches and I'll still be able to spot the corys, is there any downsides I should know with this plant? I keep getting conflicting info online and it just gives me a headache.
 
cryptocoryne-parva cryptocoryne-willisii These are two different plants. Both should be OK, but they grow and spead EXTREMELY slowly and it would take a very long time for it to "carpet" a large area

glossostigma-elatinoides, needs bright light to "carpet" under lower light it grows taller without spreading out

hemianthus-callitrichoides, you are right, it needs pretty bright light and high levels of C02

Marsilea Minuta, I am not sure if this is considered a low light plant or not, but it grows SLOW

I hope you realize the kelvin number, 6700K, has nothing to do with the light intensity, brightness. All it does is signify the color of the light which has no affect on plant growth one way or the other. Although its not perfect, the "watts per gallon" rule is one way to gauge how much light you have.

For low light levels, there really aren't any good "carpet" plants. True carpet plants are very small and naturally grow in very shallow water. The deeper the water, the harder it is for these very short plants to grow unless you increase the light level to penetrate to the bottom of the tank at a higher level. Thats why HC REALLY struggles with low light, because the plant is so short with very little plant tissue.

If you are going to go with parva, you can buy it potted pretty cheap because its grown commercially in this country out of Florida. Willissii is imported and therefore more expensive. aquariumplants.com gets it from Florida. Your best bet would be to buy as many pots as you can afford to buy, divide each pot into several little plugs, and them plant them in rows about an inch apart. They will fill in the gaps in a few months. That is the only way to get a carpet using this plant. If you just plant a couple of them expecting them to spread across an area, you will literally wait years for that to happen. They make Anubias look fast!
 
Last edited:
Robert H said:
cryptocoryne-parva cryptocoryne-willisii These are two different plants. Both should be OK, but they grow and spead EXTREMELY slowly and it would take a very long time for it to "carpet" a large area

glossostigma-elatinoides, needs bright light to "carpet" under lower light it grows taller without spreading out

hemianthus-callitrichoides, you are right, it needs pretty bright light and high levels of C02

Marsilea Minuta, I am not sure if this is considered a low light plant or not, but it grows SLOW

I hope you realize the kelvin number, 6700K, has nothing to do with the light intensity, brightness. All it does is signify the color of the light which has no affect on plant growth one way or the other. Although its not perfect, the "watts per gallon" rule is one way to gauge how much light you have.

For low light levels, there really aren't any good "carpet" plants. True carpet plants are very small and naturally grow in very shallow water. The deeper the water, the harder it is for these very short plants to grow unless you increase the light level to penetrate to the bottom of the tank at a higher level. Thats why HC REALLY struggles with low light, because the plant is so short with very little plant tissue.

If you are going to go with parva, you can buy it potted pretty cheap because its grown commercially in this country out of Florida. Willissii is imported and therefore more expensive. aquariumplants.com gets it from Florida. Your best bet would be to buy as many pots as you can afford to buy, divide each pot into several little plugs, and them plant them in rows about an inch apart. They will fill in the gaps in a few months. That is the only way to get a carpet using this plant. If you just plant a couple of them expecting them to spread across an area, you will literally wait years for that to happen. They make Anubias look fast!
Click to expand...

Marsilea Minuta seems to be recently new.
I wanted to give as much info as can and wasn't sure about the importance of the kelvin number.
and I wasn't sure how to measure how much light and I usually hear about the "watts per gallon" and wondered if the height had anything to it too?
By the way with the "watts per gallon" rule does the colormax bulb count too?
I've ordered 4 things of parva from sweetaquatics as well as some HC though I'll check out aquariumplants.com to see what they have.
I'm gonna try my luck with HC since I've heard about some people having some luck with it in low light with plenty of Co2 so I'll use the diy co2 and add some excel and hopefully it'll flourish.
 
What's HC?

And when did the convention for scientific names change to put a hyphen between genus and species? For information, the genus (the first name) always has an initial capital; the species (the second name) never has one. Ideally they should be underlined or italicised to show they're a scientific name.

This has been a public service announcement.
 
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