sirdarksol

Okay, so I have a new idea (to me, I'm sure others have thought of similar things) for anchoring plants to wood. The three biggest issues that I run across are that I can't tie thread tight enough, that fish disturb the plants, and that the currents disturb the plants. All of these add up to a very hit or miss situation regarding plants.
So I'm setting up a temporary, dedicated anchoring tank. No filtration, nothing except for two pieces of Mopali (swahala) wood and the java fern and java moss that will be attached. I'll do daily (gentle) water changes, just to keep the amount of decaying plant matter to a minimum. Because there are no fish, I'm just using sunlight as the illumination for the tank.
So of course, I'm looking for anything that I might have missed in my idea.

In addition, rather than tying stuff, which I'm really bad at, I'm planning on just weighting the stuff down. Unfortunately, I've thrown away all of the little lead strips that my plants have come in, or I'd use those.
The thing has to be narrow, so that it doesn't cover anything except for part of the stem. My wife has a bunch of forceps from the hospital she works at. I would presume that these are made of stainless steel, and would be perfect for this kind of thing. Does anyone know if I'm correct in this?

atmmachine816

I'm not sure about the forceps but I would like to think if you leave the plants in the tank with no proper lighting they will have less of a survival rate and that if you put light in there that they would attach faster. Kinda like more light faster they can grow and roots can attach. Have you thought of rubber bands?

sirdarksol

These plants are actually getting more direct lighting than I would normally put in a tank. They're in a path that gets several hours of direct daylight with about 10 hours of indirect daylight (thank you for pointing it out, though. If I hadn't put them in light, you're right, they'd be screwed). Without fish in the tank, I don't have to worry about maintaining temperature, and I really don't have to worry about algae too much, since the tank's only going to be there for a few weeks, and there won't be much in the way of phosphates for algae to grow on, just the output of whatever pond snails hitched a ride from the original tank to the temporary one. Because of these two factors (not having to worry about temperature or about algae), I figured it was ok to break a cardinal rule and put the tank in direct sunlight.

And I have thought about rubber bands. I had originally dismissed them because I thought the wood was too thick, but now I'm wondering. I'd have to get just the right size, though. Too tight and they'll kill the plant (or at least cut it in half and letting it go, defeating the purpose), too loose and the plants won't maintain contact with the wood, defeating the purpose. I think I'll have to give that a try, at least on one or two bundles, just to see if it works.

atmmachine816

You could get small piece of netting and use rubber bands to hold that down and wrap the netting around the plants roots, that way the rubber bands pressure isn't bothering the plants roots. Only thing I would be worried about the natural light is it's not the right type of light, spectrum and all. Might want to add a little liquid fertilizer to put some nutrients in the water column though.

sirdarksol

I like the netting idea. I think I'm going to have to use it (or a variant of it). Especially since the mopali wood is pretty smooth, this will help the plants find anchor space.
Thank you for the fertilizer idea, and I've got some stuff from a failed hydroponic tomato experiment. As long as I don't leave them out too long.

I've found that sunlight is the quickest way to get plants (including water plants) to grow. The biggest problems are that it messes with water temp and it encourages algae (which isn't really a concern, because the tank won't last long enough for a serious algae bloom)

Allie

We use the stretchy/metal clip(they wrap it around the bottom of the plant that the aquarium plants come with around here...I also use them to weigh down cucumber for my plecos. Once the plants root....we take them off.

atmmachine816

I use the aquaclear bags, if you need a type.

sirdarksol

Yeah, unfortunately, as I said, I've thrown them all away. They were my first thought.