Opinions on lighting?

[SugarBassJoe]

My water sprite had taken off while I away on vacation, its pretty much taken the upper third of the tank (10G halfmoon style tank), while I'm loving the extra cover for the fry and shrimplets, it almost completely blocks the light to the bottom of the tank, hard to tell in the picture but the bottom look likes it getting most of its light just from the ambient light in the room, and I think my tiger lotus is suffering for it. My question is should I go ahead and thin out the water sprite, or is there another way to get more light to the bottom of the tank? Its also an aesthetic thing for me I would like to brighten the bottom up to see everything better. 

[nabokovfan87]

You could try some sort of floating divider that opens up a spot of light to the bottom of the tank. I don't think this works with floating stems as well as floating plants that tend to be a lot smaller.  You could try to suction cup it to the side and tie it with something too.

[SugarBassJoe]

On 10/25/2022 at 12:24 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

You could try some sort of floating divider that opens up a spot of light to the bottom of the tank. I don't think this works with floating stems as well as floating plants that tend to be a lot smaller.  You could try to suction cup it to the side and tie it with something too.

Thank you, that suction cup idea might work, I think id have to make a floating divider several inches deep to get through to the bottom of that mat.

[Patrick_G]

Plants like water Sprite don’t mind being trimmed, and you and re-plant the parts you cut off. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Patrick_G

[SugarBassJoe]

On 10/25/2022 at 1:31 PM, Patrick_G said:

Plants like water Sprite don’t mind being trimmed, and you and re-plant the parts you cut off. 

I'm not worried about trimming the water sprite if I decide to do it, but I'm hoping to avoid trimming it, while it shades out most of the light it provides my guppy fry and shrimp excellent cover. It mostly is an aesthetic thing for me, I want some more light so I can watch the adult fauna below it, kind of a "cant have your cake and eat it too" situation for me.

[Tanked]

I wish I had your problem!   Water Sprite was one of my first plant failures.

Being stem plants, a single piece of thread or fishing line may be enough to corral the Water Sprite and remain mostly invisible. My Hornwort was kept at bay with surface agitation from a side mounted HOB filter.  A small pump might accomplish the same thing.

[SugarBassJoe]

On 10/26/2022 at 5:08 AM, Tanked said:

I wish I had your problem!   Water Sprite was one of my first plant failures.

Being stem plants, a single piece of thread or fishing line may be enough to corral the Water Sprite and remain mostly invisible. My Hornwort was kept at bay with surface agitation from a side mounted HOB filter.  A small pump might accomplish the same thing.

It didn't really start growing for me until I tried floating it, even then it was tame until recently. Going to try the thread, see if I cant tame it into a ring around the tank.

[TOtrees]

On 10/25/2022 at 5:03 PM, Joey1991 said:

I'm not worried about trimming the water sprite if I decide to do it, but I'm hoping to avoid trimming it, while it shades out most of the light it provides my guppy fry and shrimp excellent cover. It mostly is an aesthetic thing for me, I want some more light so I can watch the adult fauna below it, kind of a "cant have your cake and eat it too" situation for me.

Take the "little bit at a time" approach. Imagine how much would be the most water sprite you'd consider removing, like the max that you'd consider. Remove about 25% of that and see how things shake out over a couple days. Does it improve the light to the bottom? Does it reduce cover for wee things? Based on your observations, you can take another 25% again and monitor again, and so on. You might find that the small critters don't need as much cover as you think. Or not. 

But I can say this with certainty: doing nothing won't change anything. 😛 You will neither have nor eat cake.