Stem plants in Betta tank

[Scaperoot]

    I recently re-scaped a 5 gallon prior to adding a new Betta (Jin Sakai). He's in here with a small group of Otos and some Ramshorn snails. I'm wondering if this setup can sustain these stem plants. They look great, but I'm wondering if the small bio-load will prevent them from thriving. There are root tabs in the sand. Should I dose EG? I'm trying to avoid an algae explosion. The tank is in a room that gets indirect sunlight for most of the day (South Florida). I only turn on the light for about 2-3 hours in the evening. I'm ok with switching them out for Crypts or even plastic plants, but I love the look of the tank right now. When I checked parameters two days ago, there were no nitrites or ammonia, and Nitrates were less than 10 ppm. PH was about 7-7.2. 

[Jovius]

It is probably fine. I’ve got more plants on 3 zebrafish and a dwarf gourami and I never used root tabs. I’d just watch the plants and see how they do. You could always plan to not fertilize, but change your mind later. 

[Lennie]

Personal opinion, but I would keep the tank of a halfmoon betta simple. They are basically bad at swimming. Many of those plants will be obstacles to swim through all the time, and taking a lot of swimming space from a small tank like a 5g.

I would still do a plantsd tank but with only a few plants and provide no place for it to force itself to swim through or will feel like obstacles or limiting the already limited swimming space

[Scaperoot]

On 7/24/2024 at 2:01 AM, Lennie said:

Personal opinion, but I would keep the tank of a halfmoon betta simple. They are basically bad at swimming. Many of those plants will be obstacles to swim through all the time, and taking a lot of swimming space from a small tank like a 5g.

I would still do a plantsd tank but with only a few plants and provide no place for it to force itself to swim through or will feel like obstacles or limiting the already limited swimming space

This is a bad photo, but the stems are in two of the corners only. I do agree that there shouldn't be too many obstacles for him. I'll keep an eye on it to make sure they don't impede him. Thanks! 

[PonyPlantedTanks]

I have a 10g betta tank so thr bioload is basically nothing in there lol. I do have to keep on top of root tabs and fertilizers but it works out. Stem plants generally don’t need a ton of root tabs, just good water column fertilizer (Easy Green). I think you could totally make it work! Plus, more healthy plants = less algae

Dosing a little easy green won’t cause an algae breakout. As long as you don’t go to town on overdosing it like crazy you shouldn’t see any algae 🙂