Groundcover Plants and Fish Waste

Hey y'all. I have some questions I'm hoping can be answered by the knowledgeable folks here.

I've seen aquascapes that have an aquatic grass that I thought looked pretty cool. I'd like to do something similar but I have some questions about how that would interact with the fauna biosphere and cleaning/water changes.

My idea would be to cover the sand substrate that I have with grass/groundcover plants. If I were to do that, all the fish waste products would then accumulate on top of it instead of the sand. Would the plants be able to convert all of the waste so that I don't have to vacuum away the waste during weekly water changes? If I do need to vacuum up waste, does anyone have suggestions for doing that without disturbing newly planted groundcover?

Does anyone have suggestions for helping plants get established? My I tried growing some bulbs once but after initial success they died off suddenly. I have a nerite snail, an amano shrimp and a guppy as my occupants right now so any plant growth products that would harm invertebrates are a no-go. Thanks y'all. Do you have any favorite groundcover plants (grass, moss, etc)? I'd like suggestions of products and places to buy. My local pet stores don't always have the greatest plant selection.

 

Hello,

I don't have any typical carpeting plants, but I believe most of them, especially the ones that look like grass, struggle unless you add CO2.

While I don't have carpeting plants, all ten of my tanks are at least moderately planted. I don't gravel vac any of them. When I do water changes I take water from the upper or middle part of the tank. I rarely see fish waste. I believe that's mostly because the snails and shrimp break it down.

 

Java Moss would be the easiest way to get a carpeting effect, and doesn't "need" CO2. you'd keep it cut short to promote it growing out horizontally from where it's planted and eventually it covers things.

Gonna be honest though, Most of what you see are professional pictures and completely staged. Like they scape and sprout the grass damp in a dry tank and grow it like that, then fill the aquarium and add a few fish for the ideal scape for the photo shoot. And if it is done submerged, it's 364 days of problems for that one to a handful of ideal perfection days a year that the pictures are taken.

Like "prized orchids" competitions, 99% of the time they are being meticulously maintained, hundreds of them, for that singular competition day and that one entry that is perfect out of the hundreds grown.

I had a similar experience with bulbs, water lily I think, half of them rotted and never sprouted, a couple sprouted and grew in a limited manner, but then died off also. I think it's more about the bulbs and inexperience though at least in my case.

with a carpeting plant, you'd need to vacuum over it all or it will get blocked and buried by fish poop and stuff settling on it depending on stocking levels.
However like with java moss, you can fix it to rocks or slate and then pull the pieces and run them under the faucet to rinse it out, then neutralize dip it for chlorine and put them back in place. some people will do this, makes it easier to clean up under them when you need to. idea is to wrap a cloth or cotton in a brown color around the slate and fix it with super glue then attach the java moss to the cloth surface so it can really hold on. it will need re attachign and maintenence, but you can pull out the java moss rock and rinse them and place them back or pull them out to trim vertical growth and put them back. like the moss doesn't want to stay attached to a flat surface, so cloth and some glue point gives it something to hold on to.

Think of it like tiling the bottom of the aquarium with java moss tiles. Gonna take a while to grow and fill in.

I was thinking of doing that with my 20 long bare bottom tank with a couple natural slate tiles, 12x12", or maybe an undergravel filter plate kit sized for the tank.. and still no substrate, it's a water column feeder anyways. maybe the undergravel filter plates would be a better option pulling the water and waste through the java moss....... nice flat green mat in stead of bare glass.

 

Java Moss would be the easiest way to get a carpeting effect, and doesn't "need" CO2. you'd keep it cut short to promote it growing out horizontally from where it's planted and eventually it covers things.

Gonna be honest though, Most of what you see are professional pictures and completely staged. Like they scape and sprout the grass damp in a dry tank and grow it like that, then fill the aquarium and add a few fish for the ideal scape for the photo shoot. And if it is done submerged, it's 364 days of problems for that one to a handful of ideal perfection days a year that the pictures are taken.

Like "prized orchids" competitions, 99% of the time they are being meticulously maintained, hundreds of them, for that singular competition day and that one entry that is perfect out of the hundreds grown.

I had a similar experience with bulbs, water lily I think, half of them rotted and never sprouted, a couple sprouted and grew in a limited manner, but then died off also. I think it's more about the bulbs and inexperience though at least in my case.

with a carpeting plant, you'd need to vacuum over it all or it will get blocked and buried by fish poop and stuff settling on it depending on stocking levels.
However like with java moss, you can fix it to rocks or slate and then pull the pieces and run them under the faucet to rinse it out, then neutralize dip it for chlorine and put them back in place. some people will do this, makes it easier to clean up under them when you need to. idea is to wrap a cloth or cotton in a brown color around the slate and fix it with super glue then attach the java moss to the cloth surface so it can really hold on. it will need re attachign and maintenence, but you can pull out the java moss rock and rinse them and place them back or pull them out to trim vertical growth and put them back. like the moss doesn't want to stay attached to a flat surface, so cloth and some glue point gives it something to hold on to.

Think of it like tiling the bottom of the aquarium with java moss tiles. Gonna take a while to grow and fill in.

I was thinking of doing that with my 20 long bare bottom tank with a couple natural slate tiles, 12x12", or maybe an undergravel filter plate kit sized for the tank.. and still no substrate, it's a water column feeder anyways. maybe the undergravel filter plates would be a better option pulling the water and waste through the java moss....... nice flat green mat in stead of bare glass.

Definitely some truth to this! And don't forget the lighting effects and photography equipment.

But it can be done without too much hassle, but with practice though. If you're new, I'd start off with a small, shallow tank and practice.

Aquasoil and CO2 injection make things a lot easier. Especially CO2.

I'm starting a new Iwagumi-ish project soon. The last time I had one, it included aquasoil and CO2 injection. I used Monte Carlo as the carpet. Result: weekly trimming!

Especially Monte Carlo has pretty deep roots. You can use a vacuum cleaner without any issues. Organic waste will not accumulate on top of plants; they'll reach the substrate. This is true for any carpet. Part of this, is that there's typically decent flow to distribute CO2.

So you can use a vacuum cleaner. Leave some distance at the edges to avoid, for instance HC, being sucked in. You can stick in the hose without any problems in established parts.

Other popular plants are marsilea and glossostigma species.

Be sure to gain more understanding by searching the internet for Iwagumi. These scapes are carpet dominated. One of the things that you'll notice is that these scapes are typically shallow to very shallow. For a good reason...

Anyways, there are alternatives. Especially grassy, stoloniferous plants like sagittaria, helanthium, lilaeopsis species. Especially the latter forms nice bushes in sand without CO2. They grow a bit taller than the typical carpets. If your tank has an average height, I would recommend this plant. You can create somewhat taller, but dense carpets.

Below is a non-scaped planted tank, without CO2 and inert sand. In the left front, you find lilaeopsis novea-zealandia. I need to cut the stolons, otherwise it'll take over the tank. I dose some minerals in the water, that's it. Imagine the whole substrate covered with this plant.

Leave some part open. Add some stones and wood. I imagine it can look great.

Note: there's a bit of Monte Carlo in the front, where the blue ramshorns are. In non CO2, the plants stays smaller, like HC with CO2. It takes ages before it covers this tank, but... it will cover if you allow it!

 

The idea of a carpeting plant is nice. If you have any type of bottom dweller, the practicality of it is questionable. I inject CO2 and have pretty good success with about any plant I've tried, but my cories and BN pleco are just too curious to allow any type of carpeting plant to get/stay rooted. I finally gave up on the idea. It does look cool though.

 

Java Moss would be the easiest way to get a carpeting effect, and doesn't "need" CO2. you'd keep it cut short to promote it growing out horizontally from where it's planted and eventually it covers things.

Think of it like tiling the bottom of the aquarium with java moss tiles. Gonna take a while to grow and fill in.

I was thinking of doing that with my 20 long bare bottom tank with a couple natural slate tiles, 12x12", or maybe an undergravel filter plate kit sized for the tank.. and still no substrate, it's a water column feeder anyways. maybe the undergravel filter plates would be a better option pulling the water and waste through the java moss....... nice flat green mat in stead of bare glass.

The java moss slate tile sounds like a pretty cool idea. Thanks for the suggestions. Picture-quality doesn't matter to me. I'm more trying to brainstorm how to keep my critters happy with live plants and put all that organic waste chemistry to beneficial use--for just 3 critters, they produce a lot of it.

Especially Monte Carlo has pretty deep roots. You can use a vacuum cleaner without any issues. Organic waste will not accumulate on top of plants; they'll reach the substrate. This is true for any carpet. Part of this, is that there's typically decent flow to distribute CO2.

So you can use a vacuum cleaner. Leave some distance at the edges to avoid, for instance HC, being sucked in. You can stick in the hose without any problems in established parts.

Other popular plants are marsilea and glossostigma species.

Anyways, there are alternatives. Especially grassy, stoloniferous plants like sagittaria, helanthium, lilaeopsis species. Especially the latter forms nice bushes in sand without CO2. They grow a bit taller than the typical carpets. If your tank has an average height, I would recommend this plant. You can create somewhat taller, but dense carpets.

Thank you for the tips and species suggestions. I'll have to look into those.