I really want to get a carpet plant for my Tank.
but my tank is very small - 10 gallon, with one goldfish -_-
with regular filter that came with the tank. and those "aquarium light blub" from Aquatic Gardens
with marbles mixed with garvel on bottom.

the plants that i really like are

Riccia fluitansand
&
Hemianthus callitrichoides

my ideal plant is some type that my goldfish can eat it, but not totally eat all of it. that she can eat when she is hungry.
i was also looking at duckweed, but seen that people here said the goldfish will eat it all in a day O_O

thank in adv.

All the plants which are used as a bed require extremely high lighting 3-4watts per gal. If this is for a goldfish tank you have very little chance of growing any carpet plants they will get eaten very quickly. Also they are not very cheap plants and require a fair bit of maintenance. You can give them a go but they are more of a plant for a person with alot of expertise.

i was going to suggest some glosso

it is the little green plant in the for ground right in the middle (this tank is a 10gal shows the possibilities for a little tank)


close up of glosso and this is what the carpet will look like when grown out

Wow, I must say glosso would look beautiful if goldfish didn't tear them to pieces. x_x;;

glosso wouldn't last long enough to be established in a goldfish tank. Neither will Hemianthus or Riccia.... all you'll accompish is provide them an expensive salad buffet.

If I'm to suggest a carpeting plant, I suggest you get some willow moss (either Fontinalis or Vesicularia) and tie them to flat rectangular stones or slates then use them to "tile" the gravel. Takashi Amano did that with some of his tanks (just Willow moss as the plants) and it looked fantastic.

thanks for clearing that up but it was my bad i was supposed to put 'i was gunna suggest glosso' at the very beginning of my post and then have the pros and cons underneath but i got sidetracked and forgot to rearrange things before i clicked post lol.


You could try hairgrass either the standard or the dwarf form are fine if you cut it to about an inch tall it grows well and the trimmings can be replanted.Dwarf hairgrass does not need to be trimmed as frequently as say the standard variety of hairgrass. You need about 3watts per gal though. My goldies don't touch hairgrass i actually have some planted in driftwood at the moment and it looks quite striking. You could even do an iwagumi style tank set up if you used hairgrass.

This is an Iwagumi influenced tank with the 3 rocks and hairgrass this tank was one that was entered in the ADA (aqua design Amano) aquascapers of 2007 tank competition i believe it got placed in the top 30 which is huge recognition considering millions of people around the world enter this competition

Thanks for clearing that up but it was my bad i was supposed to put 'i was gunna suggest glosso' at the very beginning of my post and then have the pros and cons underneath but i got sidetracked and forgot to rearrange things before i clicked post lol.


You could try hairgrass either the standard or the dwarf form are fine if you cut it to about an inch tall it grows well and the trimmings can be replanted.Dwarf hairgrass does not need to be trimmed as frequently as say the standard variety of hairgrass. You need about 3watts per gal though. My goldies don't touch hairgrass i actually have some planted in driftwood at the moment and it looks quite striking. You could even do an iwagumi style tank set up if you used hairgrass.

This is an Iwagumi influenced tank with the 3 rocks and hairgrass this tank was one that was entered in the ADA (aqua design Amano) aquascapers of 2007 tank competition i believe it got placed in the top 30 which is huge recognition considering millions of people around the world enter this competition.

EDIT: I did some research on this tank. The one i am thinking of is similar to this one very similar this is infact a tank designed by Amano himself.


Sorry for the double post i clicked on too early and i am unsure why it came up with edited cause it would not let me edit it

Whoa, hairgrass looks absolutely stunning. Makes me want to go back to substrate-bottom...

i dont know what watt per gallon do i have.
The aquarium light bulbs say 15 watts and I used two of them
in 10 gallon, so that' make 3 wpg, right?
how would I plant those hair grass? is there any step on planting in gravel?

and I been trying to find Takashi Amano aquaium, but no luck.
Do you have picture by any chance?

Hairgrass is one of things that is kind of annoying to plant being the plant is tiny strands. You have 30 watts of light since you are using 2x 15watt bulbs so yes you are correct you are running 3 watts per gal. You kind of take 4-6 strands and plant them together then take another 4-6 strands and plant about 5cm away (2inches) and watch it fill in.

Here is Takashi Amano's website

This is his site if you are interested in buying any of his products be warned they are expensive
http://www.adana.co.jp/index_e.php

pics of his work (for some reason i could only get the Australian site working tonight must be the server)
http://www.adaaust.com.au/gallery/gallery.htm

God, I so LOOVE this tank:

http://www.adaaust.com.au/gallery/contest2.../foto_05_05.jpg

and this one:

http://www.adaaust.com.au/gallery/contest2...o/contest05.jpg

I am wondering about so many plants, and how one cleans the gravel? With such a carpet of plants, does one not need to clean it, as the plants take up all of the nutrients / gunk generated? I would love to have so many plants!

Yep you can vacuum over the plant and gunk will be sucked up but generally only water changes are needed as the plant absorbs all of the gunk/nutrients over time. Usually the tanks have tropical fish and there waster load is far less.

how do you plant it on driftwood? do you have pic of your tank by anychance??

right now i just have sword plant in my tank (that i found in petc0)
my goldfish sometime take them out of the gravel. (right now two plants are floating)
so if the goldfish take those hairgrass out, do they still gonna grow by floating?
btw, my goldfish does eat the sword plant. -_-

thank in adv, dan

Hi D-Links

I don't have a pic of my tank at the moment as the goldies uprooted everything. On saturday i do my waterchanges i can get a pic then I just stuck it in a whole on my driftwood lol. I have not had any success growing hairgrass floating as in the gravel it is able to send up new shoots being a new hairgrass plant