[itsonlybarney]

The company I work for is moving office in a few weeks, and I'm thinking of spicing up my new desk with a little FW nano tank. I had a betta once before, but thinking I may just go with a planted tank this time, maybe add a few shrimp.

I guess my first & biggest question is, do I need filtration for a planted tank? Do I need to cycle the tank?

I own a tank similar to this (Small Tank) which has a UGF but I found the power head far too strong for the small size of the tank. Would the flow be bad for shrimp?Would I need to run the UGF for a planted tank?

Otherwise I may purchase a tank similar to this (Small Tank) if filtration is required.

What sort of plants would you recommend? I'm thinking something along the lines of Amazon swords or similar.

 

[JDM]

I'd go with the second, a nice clean line glass tank. The only issue may be with no lid you will have evaporation and mineral deposit lines around the top... just needs a little more maintenance cleaning and topping off.

You don't need a filter with just plants and you certainly don't need to cycle it... even if you are going to add shrimp or a betta with the plants. The LED "bonus" may not be adequate for plants but this may be OK if there is enough ambient light already. Even just setting up a desk lamp with a 6500k CFL would be enough.

Low light plants would be best, crypts are my favourite. Swords woul be too large, 28l is around 7 gallons and change. You can get all sorts of sizes of crypts and colour variations, greens, browns, little reddish... a dwarf lily would be nice too... one of those ones from a bulb but it would have to be a dwarf.

Watch what you do electrically for this though. There is typically no GFCI on office outlets and if it is a floor outlet, this would be critical to provide. If it is a wall outlet, a drip loop would suffice.

Jeff.