# NPT and carpet plants? Pictures anybody?



## druxboyz (Aug 9, 2004)

Im interested in starting a 3g npt with soil and a toplayer of kitty litter. I have an excess of kitty litter from my previous project.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/photo-album/33984-druxboyz-planted-60-gallon-photojournal.html (Page 2's update shows the end result)

I have been looking through the forums and couldnt find any 'el natural' tanks with carpets such as glossostigma, riccia, etc. Is it possible to grow one ? Pictures please  Will those carpet plants' roots not reach the soil layer? Will very fine sand be ok as the layer above the soil?


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## druxboyz (Aug 9, 2004)

wow 54 views and no reply. :/ Has anybody even seen it possible? A yes or no would do. Either answer, I will attempt one anyway.


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## Revernance (Aug 20, 2007)

I currently have HC as a carpeting plant in my 10 gal NPT, so it's very possible. The plant struggled just a little in the beginning, but it is now green and 90 percent lush. 
The HC has dug its roots down to the soil substrate, but took about 1.4 months.
The only problem that with carpeting plants in an NPT is the mulm layer. Eventually mulm will accumulate and cover the carpeting plant. They appear to love the mulm, but too much will choke light from the plant. You usually have to vacuum (verly lightly) some of the mulm out but you still have to leave some for the plant to feed on! 

Oh, and I have used glossostigma in my 2.5 gal NPT. I did not have success with this because I had too much light (7.2 WPG). Too much light, I believe, depleted the soil layer way too fast. It was a newbie mistake on my part! You might have better luck with it than I did.

As for the sand, there has been some discussion on it. When you say fine, just how "fine" are you talking about? Try to use gravel around 1mm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember that some people have had success with sand though.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

They should be able to grow and thrive in a NPT, but I haven't seen any with the fullness of a high-tech tank's carpeting plants.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

I have HC doing well in my 40 gal NPT. 96W power compact lighting. It took agonizingly long for it to settle in, but a year in now and it has covered most of my foreground. I was using quite a bit of excel for a couple months this summer... probably made a significant difference. It didn't help that I only had a tiny bit to start with. It's a beautiful plant, and I'll keep trying to use it in other tanks.

I am using lileopsis in a 10 gal with 26W power compact, and it is slowly filling in over the past 5 months. It seems to be doing ok.

I have used eleocharis in many tanks including the 40 gal above. I like it but it never has fully thickened for me, and has gotten thread algae entwined in it pretty badly. The HC in the same tank seems to be able to outcompete that algae and not have those problems, another reason I am liking HC.

Like Schaadrak said, it will work, with a lot of patience, but very slow compared to high tech. Once it fills in, though, that might be a good thing (less maintenance).


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

My 40 gallon. Eleocharis and HC in the foreground. They've grown together in many places, but the front right corner is mostly HC and the left midground (between wood) is mostly hairgrass.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

10 gallon with lilaeopsis










And the 2.5 I set up this weekend (just HC and HM for now). We'll see how long it will take to fill in.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

nice looking tanks littleguy


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## Revernance (Aug 20, 2007)

WOW! littleguy, how did you get your hairgrass to grow like that in an NPT tank? do you have to vacuum everyday? I don't see mulm or anything, it's so clean! Any special requirements?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

it's actually pretty easy.. give it plenty of sunlight if you can.. In a low tech tank, it'll take longer than usual go fill out.

I found a trick to keep it clean and algae free.. No fish... Or very little fish. I have both hair grass and dwarf sag in a shrimp tank and it's going great... They don't do so good in my npt with fish.

Ammonia is the trigger for algae. The less fish, the better.


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## Dzidek1983 (Dec 13, 2007)

these are the pics of my friends natural tank

in front Glossostigma elatinoides

the tank is 5 months old

everything done like the book says

sorry for my english.. i'm from Poland 

http://www.roslinyakwariowe.pl/forum/download.php?id=7893

http://www.roslinyakwariowe.pl/forum/download.php?id=7892


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## NatalieT (Mar 20, 2007)

My tank has dirt with sand on top. I was able to grow some very happy glosso for a while, spreading all over; I also had some HC that was doing OK, but slow to get established. Sorry I can't post pictures, but I didn't take any at the time, and right now the carpet plants have died off (I let my dwarf sag get out of hand, and it smothered them).


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## Jeff.:P:. (Nov 20, 2007)

> Re: NPT and carpet plants? Pictures anybody?
> these are the pics of my friends natural tank
> 
> in front Glossostigma elatinoides
> ...


Sorry but you are not authorized to view or download this Attachment


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

Revernance said:


> WOW! littleguy, how did you get your hairgrass to grow like that in an NPT tank? do you have to vacuum everyday? I don't see mulm or anything, it's so clean! Any special requirements?


Thanks .

No, I have never vacuumed this tank. I actually have quite a high fish load, I believe.

I hesitate to make any general recommendations about light, stocking levels, etc. There are too many variables for me to make a definitive statement about what is contributing or not. I have mainly followed the general advice found in Walstad's book and on this forum from experienced members. My only advice is to try it, give it some time, and see how it pans out in your tank. What works in one tank might fail in another, and vice versa.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Interesting. I've been wanting to try HC.
Right now, I have e tenellus in most tanks as a foreground plant. it's gets taller than I'd like and would be too tall for a nano.

I'm working on growing out some other plants to try.
http://okcaa.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2040
Lilaeopsis and probably parviflorus and glosso


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

This is my 1st post on this site but I had to comment on how impressed and inspired I am by littleguy's 40 gal.

I've been keeping tanganyikans exclusively up until about a month ago when I discovered the el natural concept and became intrigued enough to set up a 3 gal el natural (my first planted tank ever). It has been doing well and as a result, I've been gradually mustering up the confidence to try HC in a 10 gal el natural to house the 3 RCS I have in my 3 gal along w/ some tetras.

My main interest has become housing small plant species in small tanks, and my ultimate goal is to have HC thriving in a small el natural setup. I'd love to hear any tips or experiences littleguy (or anyone else who has had similar success) might have about growing HC in an el natural tank, and would be very interested in the progress of the 2.5 gal w/ HC and HM in it.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

Thanks very much, I'm flattered! 

Little tanks are cool and I've set up a few. My only general advice is to try to find a nano with a lid. As cool as open topped tanks are, I will never again do it on any tank less then 5 gallons. Way too much water evaporation, constant maintenance keeping the water level up.

This has been a working experiment. I went 9 months with no filter whatsoever. I had a few outbreaks of green algae which I took care of with a temporary diatom filter, and some thread algae in the grass that wouldn't go away but wasn't out of control either. Santa got me a submariner uv clarifier, and I put that in to take care of the green water. To conserve the bulb and for other reasons, I'm only running the UV when I need it (its pump continues to run). So since the start of the year there has been constant water movement. I have played around with a variety of floating plants, and there was a couple months in there that I was using Excel. Since the new year I've been playing with DIY CO2. I'd like to not have to use it, but I do want to see how it affects things over a few months, so I can get a feel for what I'm missing if I decide not to use it long term. Those pics above were taken before the CO2 was running and just after the UV clarifier was added.

Anyhow, unless HC and HM are prohibitively costly are hard to get, I would definitely try them and see how you like them. That's what I try to do.... you learn quite a bit even if it doesn't work out.

I love little things too - hence my screen name. HC is one of those little plants I love. I just added a bunch of endlers to my 40 and a bunch of Heterandria formosa (smallest fish in North America) to my 10. My dream is to have a gigantic tank with hundreds (thousands?) of tiny fish and inverts.


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## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

This is a previous incarnation of my 80 with hairgrass as the foreground










My 2 Gal hex with HC










Both of these are soil tanks.


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## Revernance (Aug 20, 2007)

Beautiful tank bpimm!! I see two bolivian rams in there ! I love those little guys. How long have you had them in the NPT? How are they doing without constant water changes?


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## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

Revernance said:


> Beautiful tank bpimm!! I see two bolivian rams in there ! I love those little guys. How long have you had them in the NPT? How are they doing without constant water changes?


Thanks,
The rams have been in that tank for over a year, as for water changes, this tank is on a continuous water change system so it's not a strict El natural.


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

Your 2gal hex is very nice too, bpimm. The HC and wood go well together. Are you using any ferts / co2 in this hex or is it strictly el natural? What kind of lighting is that?


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## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

Thanks,

The 2 Gal hex is a soil substrate with CO2, it is also on the continuous water change system. 
No ferts and the light is a solux 4700K 35Watt Halogen bulb.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

> Both of these are soil tanks.


I was going to ask if you were injecting C02, but now I read above that you are. So other than the fact that you are using soil, there is nothing else that makes your tanks NPT correct? Someone else said they were using Excel...

Has anyone who is strictly following the Walstad approach, (no added C02, soil substrate, few water changes, no added ferts) been successful with any carpet plant.. ?? Is it even possible? I mean no offense to those who have showed their lovely aquariums, but could you have done it without the C02, without the automatic water changes, without adding ferts?


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

I am gearing up to try Marsilea minuta in a strict el natural setup as soon as I can get my hands on some. No co2, no ferts, not even a filter.


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## guppyramkrib (Sep 5, 2007)

Are the pictured tanks El Natural ??? or do they all use ferts and or Co2 with a soil substrate? Thanks


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

From what I understand, littleguy used Excel for a few months in at least one of his tanks shown in this thread, and bpimm is currently using co2 in the 2gal hex shown.

btw I forgot to mention that my el natural tank that I mentioned earlier in this thread has Lilaeopsis brasiliensis (not sure if this is really considered to be a carpet plant) and floating riccia (which many use as carpet plants) in it. Both are doing very well.


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## Esteroali (Oct 1, 2007)

I think the defining word here is "carpet". I have a "true" NPT.OK OK, I fess up I used Excel when it was getting started. Many of the foreground plants used as carpet do well in my tank, especially Hairgrass, and Lilaeopsis braz. I have about 3 wpg but these plants grow well but not so fast or well to become a carpet. Maybe I am not replanting enough but I guess that is the whole point of NPT.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

littleguy said:


> Those pics above were taken before the CO2 was running and just after the UV clarifier was added.


So I'm gathering that this was achieved without adding CO2, and I am definitely impressed. Most other NPT's I've seen are no where near as dense or lush as that. I'm wondering if that could be achieved by having a mixture of plants (like littleguy did with hairgrass & HC) form the carpet rather than a single species. Would each plant fill in the gaps left by the others?


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

It depends. in my 125, the sagitarria took over and the hairgrass is no longer. LOL I pulled the sag out of the foreground and planted tenellus. The sag still tries to take over and it gets like 1.5 foot tall, so I have to periodically pull it out of the foreground. I'm not happy with the tenellus especially in my smaller tanks as it gets like 4-5 inches tall in my NPTs. sometimes taller.

I've pulled almost all the tenellus out of my little 5 gallon bowfront and planted a short hairgrass. It looks happy so far and is spreading. It has 20 watts of 6500K light over the tank and gets some sunlight. I'm not adding anything to the water.

In my 5 gallon hex NPT, I pulled the tenellus and planted glosso. the glosso didn't take. perhaps cuz that tank is taller and it wasn't getting enough light at that level of the tank (it too has a 20 watt bulb over it and is getting some sunlight, but has crypts that block some of the light). 

The glosso I potted in topsoil in my 20 long is doing great and has spread to cover the entire surface of the pot. It has a 20 watt bulb directly over it (about 6 inches from the light to the pot) and gets some direct sunlight. no CO2 or water ferts. So with glosso it's probably the amount of light that's important.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

Robert Hudson said:


> Has anyone who is strictly following the Walstad approach, (no added C02, soil substrate, few water changes, no added ferts) been successful with any carpet plant.. ?? Is it even possible? I mean no offense to those who have showed their lovely aquariums, but could you have done it without the C02, without the automatic water changes, without adding ferts?


I have never added ferts and haven't changed more than 20 gallons of water TOTAL between all these tanks since I set them up. Yes 20 gallons of replacement water in 10 months. My experience seems to suggest that HC, hairgrass, and lilaeopsis grow just fine in an el natural setup. My 10 gallon tank above is straight up el natural and the lilaeopsis grows... slowly. My HC took a long time to settle in but now that it's established it grows fine. I have never had a problem with growing hairgrass in low-tech tanks, although I often get thread algae mixed into them, which is annoying.

The following pictures show the progression of the tank from setup to 5 months in. I kept a very detailed log of everything I did to the tank. I used DIY CO2 for the first 4 weeks, since I didn't have many plants for the initial planting. If I had a lot of plants initially I would not have bothered with the CO2. I'm not sure the CO2 did too much, since my diffusion method was poor and I had nothing in the tank to keep the water mixed.

For months 2-5, there was no dosing of any kind, no CO2, etc. Just fish food. El natural by the book, except I was unable to locate the tank near sunlight. Apologies for the bad photos, they were meant only for documenting progress when I took them.

1 week after setup (DIY CO2 running through wood airstone in back left, no water mixing):









2.5 weeks after setup (DIY CO2 running, green water setting in):









1 month after setup (CO2 removed on this day):









1.5 months after setup (no CO2, diatom filter used temporarily for 2 days prior to clear green water):









~5 months after setup (sorry for the crappy photos):


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Is that flame moss on the driftwood?


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

It's actually peacock moss I got from Roy Deki on this forum. He grew it in a high-tech tank and when it arrived it was very finely branched. In my low tech tank though, it didn't branch as much and grew longer. It actually grew like a weed - by far the fastest thing in the tank. It was a real pain to trim - not because of the frequency, but because all the cuttings sank rather than floated - getting into everything. Two months after removing it from the driftwood, I'm still pulling bits out of the tank. I could have taken the driftwood out of the tank to trim, but that stirred up the substrate and always made a big mess.


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

Any updates on your 10 gal lilaeopsis tank, littleguy? The lilaeopsis in my 3 gal has been sending out runners like crazy, so it's continuing to do well. I also planted some HC in that same 3 gal on Saturday and while it hasn't been growing as far as I know, more importantly it hasn't showed any signs of dying


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

My only update to the 10 gallon would be that in the last week I started getting green water for the first time. It's about 6 months old. Not sure why, maybe it's overstocked (3 dwarf platies, 10 H. formosa (tiny) and about 10 cherry shrimp). The plant quantity hasn't changed much at all since the picture, some more duckweed on the surface, that's about it.

That's great that you're having success with the lilaeopsis. I agree about HC, even if it doesn't grow quickly in an NPT, it doesn't seem to die off either. So I wouldn't label it as high-maintenance or sensitive, just a slow grower in NPTs.


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

Since my last post, BBA has been been spreading and proliferating onto the sides of the tank (previously it was only on my java fern and crypt). I decided to add a bunch of hornwort (I actually just put it in 20 mins ago) along the waterline to outcompete the algae and suppress its growth, but I'm hoping that the shade it creates doesn't inhibit the growth of my lilaeopsis and HC. I have a 13w screw-in CF about 3 inches over this 3gal, so I should be ok right? HC and lilaeopsis are moderate-light plants, correct?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

i'd say, cheat and add CO2 or excel... You tank is out of balance.

Any shrimps or snails in the tank. They might help.


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

The tank only has RCS and snails actually. My RCS and snails (pond and a few ramshorns) don't seem to be interested in BBA tho


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## ItsDubC (Jan 12, 2008)

I scraped the BBA off the side of the tank last week and w/ the hornwort growing like crazy, no more BBA has been able to manifest itself. The lilaeopsis is still doing great, and the HC is still not dying lol. I can't even tell if the HC has grown at all tho.

On another note, I noticed my very first shrimplet last night while thinning out the hornwort


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