Planning a walstad. Need ideas.

[BusterBot28]

Howdy all! I’ve been planning on making my 3 gallon cube a shrimp breeding walstad tank and would like ideas on what y’all would(or have) used in similar situations.
Substrate- I have a planted tank but it’s not what I need for a walstad from what I’ve seen
Plants- I have some stem plants in other tanks but want ideas on easy to grow(no co2 or ferts cause it’s a walstad) plants that will really take over and be visually pleasing.
Any other random thoughts about it will be appreciated!

 

[grac3]

in my 2 gallon walstad, i capped the soil with regular black gravel, it was all i had at the time.

so here's mine, i have guppy grass, monte carlo, hornwort, giant duckweed and some pretty red one (idk the name). the red one grows super slow, everything else is crazy crazy. based on my new-er walstad, the ludwiga super red is growing fast.

 

[BusterBot28]

in my 2 gallon walstad, i capped the soil with regular black gravel, it was all i had at the time.

so here's mine, i have guppy grass, monte carlo, hornwort, giant duckweed and some pretty red one (idk the name). the red one grows super slow, everything else is crazy crazy. based on my new-er walstad, the ludwiga super red is growing fast.

What soil did you use? That really looks like a happy tank! Is it low light?

 

[grac3]

err haha my dad just gave me some garden soil he bought, never been used before so it was pretty clean, and i filtered out any thicker bits, if that makes sense?

and i wouldn't say it's low light, it gets 4-5 hours of sunlight a day and the tank light is on for around 10 hours daily.

here was my inspiration:

 

[BusterBot28]

err haha my dad just gave me some garden soil he bought, never been used before so it was pretty clean, and i filtered out any thicker bits, if that makes sense?

and i wouldn't say it's low light, it gets 4-5 hours of sunlight a day and the tank light is on for around 10 hours daily.

here was my inspiration:

That was my inspiration too!! So you did it like him? And it really does work? Did your soil have any fertilizer in it our was it more compost stile? I don’t want to nuke my shrimps accidentally .

 

[grac3]

yess! it really does work, just takes time and patience. i'm pretty sure it didn't have any fertilizer and my shrimp are super happy