Nimbus_uk

Hi all,

had my tank running fairly happily now for about a year, fish all seem stable and had no 'losses' for a few months. I've been thinking for a bit that I'd like to start introducing some 'live' plants to replace the plastic ones, and give my guys a nice place to live.

I've tried a few plants before, but they always seem to die very quickly, and in some cases, when I've added new fish and plants at the same time, its killed a lot of the fish. I suspect this was due to there being to many changes at once.

I'd like to end up with a fully planted tank, with lots of healthy plants for the fish to play in, and of course to look 'nice'.

Can anyone give me any advice where to start ?

Currently my tank is a 55gallon (190 litre jewel trigon model ), corner tank, with a gravel base, and at last count about 25 various fish, mostly neon tetras, phantom tetras, zebra danios, a few catfish and a pleccy

I chatted to my lfs but just ended up more confused with what I really need.

Do I need something to inject CO2 ? And how much !

Do I need to feed the plants somehow ?

How many should I start with, and will they grow easily ?

Is there anything else I need to know ?

Cheers all,

Toby

joy613

You need to figure out how much light you have then go from there. The more light you have the more likely you will need CO2. Depending on the plants you get will also depend on how you feed them,there are root tabs and there is liquid fertilizers for plants, I use iron in my tanks with the plants that is suppose to turn red. This is a good site to learn about plants http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide.php . Make sure you do your research before going to a store to get your plants some stores sell plants that aren't aquarium plants but are more like bog plants that will actually die off in a few weeks or months. I try to get as many of mine as possible from forums since you can ask the seller questions about their set up if you need to. I check out plants the same way I do fish research before buying. Remember what works in one tank might not work in another for some unknown reason I have found this to happen to me.

GuppyTeacher

Here are some great places to go to learn about using live plants. Just adding light to an aquarium will not allow plants to go. You have to have the right spectrum or light temperature. You do not need to inject CO2 into the water to get plants to grow. The plants will grow more if you do add CO2. If you want a great book to read look up Diana Walstads Ecology of the Planted Aquarium. Using her methods you can develop a very low maintenance naturally planted tank. You don't have to be concerned with overfeeding since the uneaten food becomes fertilizer for the plants. I have 3 naturally planted tanks and I love them! They might not look real pretty but they do look like little cross sections of a lake or pond you might find in the wild. The fish seem to like the tanks as well.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/

http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/plant_care.html

http://www.plantedtank.net/

HatchetHaven

You've already been given some good links, but I found this link useful:

http://www.aquatic-eden.com/

This place is good for supplies:

www.AquaEssentials.co.uk

And this place is extremely good, use it to work out what kind of plants you want to grow:

www.Tropica.com

And, to design your tank...

www.TheAquaTools.com

FL isn't the place to ask about Planted tanks... I found that place called 'The Planted Tank' to be very good. Whever you inject CO2 or what kind of light you want are to do with what kind of plants. Not all plants need CO2 and 3 watts of light per gallon - but a lot do!

sirdarksol

Some good advice (except for the "FL isn't the place to ask about planted tanks." We aren't the only place, but we've got plenty of knowledgeable members )

First of all, two questions that we need to know the answers to before we can really go into depth.

#1, how much light do you have going into the tank? If you aren't sure of the wattage of your lights, tell us the length and type of bulb (standard fluorescent is my guess), and we can look it up. Divide watts by 55 (the number of gallons in your tank) and you've got wpg, which was alluded to above. The more I study lighting, the more I realize that this concept is about as concrete as the "one inch per gallon" guideline for fish. That's to say, it isn't concrete at all. Different types of fluorescent lights have different levels of efficiency, and halogen and incandescent bulbs are entirely different, so watts per gallon is only so useful. Still, it's a good starting point.

#2, what kind of substrate do you have? Gravel, sand, etc...
If you have plain gravel, this will make rooted plants more difficult, but not impossible, to keep.
You can also gently remove as much of the gravel as possible and replace it with Eco-Complete, which is ready to add to a tank straight from the bag (no rinsing required).

Even with a low-light, gravel-substrate tank, there are options. My two favorites are Java fern and Java moss (and its relatives). These plants are tied to either rocks or driftwood (there's a fake rock made specifically for rooting things like Java fern), rather than planted in the substrate. They require little light, no added CO2, and make beautiful additions to nearly any tank.

HatchetHaven

I meant you get more responses at sites specializing in Planted tanks.

Nimbus_uk

Thanks for the advice so far all

I had a feeling it wouldnt be as simple as just throwing a few plants in and waiting..

looks like I've got some reading to do !