2g Pico Bowl - Need suggestions

Hi. I've been a member for several years, but I've been busy with school for some time and now I'm hoping to get my feet wet again.

I have a standard 10g reef tank that's been set up for about a year (link in signature). My Dad has been caring for it while I'm in school and I will be moving to another nano SW tank soon.

In the meantime however, I'm excited to delve into the world of planted tanks. My sister kept them for a few years and it always interested me. So here I am. I found a glass bowl at a garage sale a couple weeks ago and thought it would be perfect for this. It's just over 2 gallons.

My questions: I'm not exactly sure what plants I want yet. I'm leaning towards maybe an Iwagumi style setup, but this isn't set in stone. I like dwarf baby tears (still doing my research). It will be medium-high lighting.

For substrate I will use SeaChem Flourish black sand. I will also be getting SeaChem Flourish Excel CO2 supplement. Should I get iron and potassium as well, or no? I'm assuming this will depend on the plants I pick. I will be using hard tap water so I will be getting dechlorinater as well.

Sorry for the long speech. Here is the tank as of now.

 

Reserved.

 

Honestly, it may not be necessary to dose much of anything. I have a 45 gallon planted aquarium that is slam packed and I haven't dosed in probably 6 months. I have a load of fish in it that fertilize for me. My tap water is contains nitrogen molecules (iron too), so I replenish all I need during water changes.

I think a handful of cherry shrimp and maybe some well fed Endler's livebearers, or the like, may do the trick in a 2 gallon tank.

 

That's good news to me.

I really wanted cherry shrimp, but my sister said they can be fragile when it comes to water quality (while I've also read they make good beginner shrimp). So I'm not so sure. I would like something at least to keep the plants happy with poo waste. Maybe some small snails.

 

Your lighting and how much excel dosed will determine if you will need supplements along with your water. Potassium and iron are always good to have on hand. K can be dosed very heavily without causing issues.

 

I will say this tank was set up with fish for 12 years before I planted it. My gravel is very nutrient rich, so my experience may be different than most.

My cherry shrimp breed like rabbits (noticed a bunch of them were pregnant today). I can't speak on their difficulty. I just plopped 5 of them in and they took off like wildfire. I don't feed them, they scavenge all day. My tank is algae free thanks to them. I had a bad case of algae on my plants before they took care of it. But again, my experience nay be different.

I dosed carbon, nitrogen, potassium, iron etc. weekly when I first set up. Now I'm in a maintain stage.

I use one 6500 k T-8 bulb, BTW.

 

Just saying- HC isn't that easy to care for, no algae can grow on it, and it likes high lighting plus co2.
I'd do Dwarf clover, awesome little plant, similar to glosso but easier to care for, IMO that plus a bit of dwarf hairgrass or other similar plant would be neat, shrimps are cool, not many fish (Maybe a small betta)
PC/CFL will work great, high light planted tanks have a similar PAR at the bottom to a softie tank.
Look into other scapes as well, look at the aga aquascaping contest, lots of ideas there