Plants

Live plants are not only good for the organisms in the tank, but are also a key part of shrimp keeping. The plants in your aquarium serve more than just decorative purposes in a shrimp keeper’s tank. Many times plants provide cover for baby shrimp or shrimplets during the first few days after they are born. Plants like mosses and hornwort are great examples of cover for shrimplets as they are dense and provide lots of surface area for them to graze on. If you keep fish with your shrimp, the plant cover is necessary for shrimplet survival rate as many fish tend to eat baby shrimp.

Though plants are necessary, not all plants are the same in the aquarium hobby. Most aquarium plants are categorized in to low tech and high tech. Low tech plants require much less maintenance and money to maintain luscious growth. Low tech plants usually only require a strong enough light and some substrate to plant your plants in. Some good examples of low tech plants are, mosses, crypts and vals, and ferns. These plants can just be submerged and planted and the only care you need to do for them is just regular trimmings and regular light periods. High tech plants on the other hand usually require much more. They usually require aquasoil or a substrate that promotes plant growth as well as a CO2 set up. CO2 helps plants grow better underwater and usually costs a lot more money to maintain and manage. Along with CO2, high intensity lights and some times fertilizers are also required to maintain high tech plants. With the combination of all these conditions, plants that grow under high tech conditions flourish.