Brian ÓI've decided to try my hand at the "dry start" method of growing plants in the new shrimp tank. Essentially, you grow the plants in place for 1-2 months without water in the tank. Since many "aquatic" plants also grow fully or semi-emerged, you can speed up the time it takes for the tank to fill out, while also not having to compete with algae. With much more available CO2 from the air, the plants grow much faster. Once they've grown sufficiently, you fill the tank with water and they'll (hopefully) stay alive but grow more slowly.
I want to stick with plants I already have instead of buying new ones, and I don't want anything too tall, so I've decided on H. pinnatifida, S. repens, and M tweediei (Monte Carlo), as well as V. montagnei (Christmas moss).
All Jonkman Microblog content and data are available under the