5.5G planted nano
 

I thought I was moving away from FW but now I'm thinking of starting a 5G planted nano with shrimp only. I seen some pictures and they are very nice.

But my only experience with FW plants were the plastic kind so I need some help. I know that people have a Co2 bottle but I would like to do without it.
What equipment would I need to start a 5G planted nano? Filter, Light, suppliments, substrate to make this happen?

Light will be your biggest issue to get away from using CO2. For lower light plants (a. nana, a. barteri, java fern, java moss etc) go for around 2 watts per gallon

I guess all I need is a light. This should be fairly cheap compared to my reef!!

also it would be good to use maybe some fertilizers, like flourish excel and such

Should be okay as far as fertilizer if you feed the shrimp?

well if you want to get technical it will depend on what type of plants you want to keep. I have a 90 gallon discus tank that I DON"T run Co2 on. I have 1 48" Hagen Glo fixture and I am trimming the tank weekly. I keep a. nana, a. barteri, amazon swords, jungle val, Hornwort, Rotalla, Ludwigia...other stuff..

I have a bottle of flourish iron. I picked up a desk lamp with a 13w 6400K bulb. I bought Onion, grass and some other plant. I don't know anything about plants so I just bought 3 kinds to learn with. I have a bottle of flourish iron and I'm going to get some excel.

lighting will be fairly simple on a tank that size a couple of 13w cf bulbs would let you grow a variety of plants
I would recommend a quality substrate such as flourite or eco-complete these substrates IMO allow your stem plants to root and also adds nutrients to the plants

avoid excel unless it is a heavily planted tank required huge ammounts of CO2. Iron will help if you are keeping red plants. Best bet, get Flourish. That's it, it's just called flourish

Well I must be blind because the 5G tank I have is actually a 2.5G tank. Anyways I changed the name of the thread. I also went and bought a piece of driftwood for the tank which was really cheap it only cost me $2.50 which is a nice change from my costly reef.