Plants/Planting help

So my plants just came in the mail early. I got 4:

Jungle val
Crypt wendtii green
Buce
Anubias Nana petite

Can someone give me a quick run down on how to plant them. I was confident but now that they're here I'm scared of messing it up lol

I know jungle val needs to just be put into substrate spaced apart

Crypt wendtii is the same (I think)

I planned on trying the anubias and buce on some driftwood

Should I try to get a portion or two out of certain plants?

 

jungle vals grow quick and spread fast. i would plant them in the back leaving room for runners. Vals also do wells with added ferts and root tabs. Vals do better in gravel or substrate, there hasn't been much success seen with them planted in sand. Flourish Excel is the only fert known to harm Vals.

for crypts, once you plants them, do not move them/ uproot them. Crypt roots like the attach to substrate and the more its messed with, the more stressed it will become and have a chance of dying off. So try to decided a permanent location and not bother it too much. crypts are also very very sensitive to any paratermeter drops, especially pH. they will go through the melting process as well. Crypts also do very well in gravel or plant substrate with root tabs.

All anubias have Rhizomes. this is the mother base the stems & roots sprout from. it is crucial you do not bury the rhizome, roots are okay but grow better exposed. Once the Rhizome starts to rot, the whole plant will rot and there is no saving it, you'll have to toss it. Anubias are one of very slow growing plants. They also are prone to algae growth from lighting and they thrive in the shade.

Both your Jungle Val and Crypts will experience "melting" when added to a new tank, Anubias wont melt so much. Dont be alarmed or throw away the plants when you see the leafs detortating. Most all new plants will experience melting. Its just the plants way of settling to new water parameters. Although ferts and CO2 isn't a dire need, they do help out tremendously .

 

jungle vals grow quick and spread fast. i would plant them in the back leaving room for runners. Vals also do wells with added ferts and root tabs. Vals do better in gravel or substrate, there hasn't been much success seen with them planted in sand. Flourish Excel is the only fert known to harm Vals.

for crypts, once you plants them, do not move them/ uproot them. Crypt roots like the attach to substrate and the more its messed with, the more stressed it will become and have a chance of dying off. So try to decided a permanent location and not bother it too much. crypts are also very very sensitive to any paratermeter drops, especially pH. they will go through the melting process as well. Crypts also do very well in gravel or plant substrate with root tabs.

All anubias have Rhizomes. this is the mother base the stems & roots sprout from. it is crucial you do not bury the rhizome, roots are okay but grow better exposed. Once the Rhizome starts to rot, the whole plant will rot and there is no saving it, you'll have to toss it. Anubias are one of very slow growing plants. They also are prone to algae growth from lighting and they thrive in the shade.

Both your Jungle Val and Crypts will experience "melting" when added to a new tank, Anubias wont melt so much. Dont be alarmed or throw away the plants when you see the leafs detortating. Most all new plants will experience melting. Its just the plants way of settling to new water parameters. Although ferts and CO2 isn't a dire need, they do help out tremendously .

I really appreciate this. Perfect run down for me. I just finished the planting. Everything went well, the anubias isn't in shade though so it might be prone to algae.

My only other question is the use of root tabs. I plan on buying seachem flourish tabs, how should I place them space wise.

My plants are pretty spread out, jungle val set spaced apart in the back, crypts in midground/foreground.

Should I just put 1 or 2 in the middle of them all? Or would I need to do more specified placement for them to benefit

 

you can always move the anubias as it really shouldnt be buried. you can even float if youd like, if not, make sure it is placed in a piece of driftwood or tied/glued down to a rock. The only glue thats best tested for aquarium use is "The Original Super Glue : Gel" make sure its the gel kind. there are youtube videos on this method, of not you can use clear line or twine





I use Seachem's flourish tabs as well and from my experience, they take a while to fully dissolve. A good week and they are still there.They come in a decent size pack of 10. I do believe they work really well for my amazon sword, crypt lutea and vals. I do recommend them. imo they can be big enough to cut in half for smaller rooted plants. I would give each plant a single one, especially the crypt as they are big root feeders. What I do before planting is I stick the root tab about 1in deep in the substrate and then push the plant & roots right ontop to make sure they both stay and that way they absorb all the minerals

 

you can always move the anubias as it really shouldnt be buried. you can even float if youd like, if not, make sure it is placed in a piece of driftwood or tied/glued down to a rock. The only glue thats best tested for aquarium use is "The Original Super Glue : Gel" make sure its the gel kind. there are youtube videos on this method, of not you can use clear line or twine

View attachment 683863 View attachment 683864

I use Seachem's flourish tabs as well and from my experience, they take a while to fully dissolve. A good week and they are still there.They come in a decent size pack of 10. I do believe they work really well for my amazon sword, crypt lutea and vals. I do recommend them. imo they can be big enough to cut in half for smaller rooted plants. I would give each plant a single one, especially the crypt as they are big root feeders. What I do before planting is I stick the root tab about 1in deep in the substrate and then push the plant & roots right ontop to make sure they both stay and that way they absorb all the minerals

I tied it with fishing line loosly to the top of my driftwood kind of like that. Once it fully roots I'll cut the line.

I will follow your advice on the root tabs and maybe cut them in half each for the plants. Thank you

 

I love vals but would suggest that you avoid "jungle" vals since they can grow as high as 4 or 5 feet high. There are other val that wont grow but 12 to 24 inches. As said earlier vals can grow quickly and in a high tech tank they can take over. You will want to plant them in an area that you can easily reach so you can clear some out as they spread. Also I wouldnt recommend vals in a multi layers substrate like gravel capped dirt or topsoil. The reason is that as you remove the excess vals, the roots will drag out the lower substrate and cloud up your tank.

 

I love vals but would suggest that you avoid "jungle" vals since they can grow as high as 4 or 5 feet high. There are other val that wont grow but 12 to 24 inches. As said earlier vals can grow quickly and in a high tech tank they can take over. You will want to plant them in an area that you can easily reach so you can clear some out as they spread. Also I wouldnt recommend vals in a multi layers substrate like gravel capped dirt or topsoil. The reason is that as you remove the excess vals, the roots will drag out the lower substrate and cloud up your tank.

I do have gravel substrate so there's a plus there. I was going to get Italian Val but I heard it propogates much faster (runners) and also saw this in my research. I'd rather have to do more pruning rather than more searching for runners.

 

Vals do better in gravel or substrate, there hasn't been much success seen with them planted in sand. Flourish Excel is the only fert known to harm Vals.

Vals are fine in sand, but they need fertilizers there. Also Flourish Excel does not harm vals. Vallisneria tends to melt when planted, and will grow back. In my tank (40 gallon) I have tons of vals, and I doce excel. Just keep it steady, don't stop suddnely and then start again, and they grow really well. I have to remove some runners every week, so it wouldn't take over my tank.

 

you can always move the anubias as it really shouldnt be buried. you can even float if youd like, if not, make sure it is placed in a piece of driftwood or tied/glued down to a rock. The only glue thats best tested for aquarium use is "The Original Super Glue : Gel" make sure its the gel kind. there are youtube videos on this method, of not you can use clear line or twine

View attachment 683863 View attachment 683864

I use Seachem's flourish tabs as well and from my experience, they take a while to fully dissolve. A good week and they are still there.They come in a decent size pack of 10. I do believe they work really well for my amazon sword, crypt lutea and vals. I do recommend them. imo they can be big enough to cut in half for smaller rooted plants. I would give each plant a single one, especially the crypt as they are big root feeders. What I do before planting is I stick the root tab about 1in deep in the substrate and then push the plant & roots right ontop to make sure they both stay and that way they absorb all the minerals

Ha we have the exact same plants. I have Jungle Val and have to trim them every 3-4 days or they are soooo long. My Crypts I move all the time. None even melted. Maybe it has to do more with your water.

 

Ha we have the exact same plants. I have Jungle Val and have to trim them every 3-4 days or they are soooo long. My Crypts I move all the time. None even melted. Maybe it has to do more with your water.

Mine haven't melted yet but I just planted them so. I also believe they were grown submersed in good water quality so maybe it matches my water. Then again it's been 3 days so

 

Yeah I purchased mine at my lfs so they were probably grown submerged.

 

Yeah I purchased mine at my lfs so they were probably grown submerged.

How do you trim your Val's?

 

I trim them at water level with a pair of scissors

 

Ha we have the exact same plants. I have Jungle Val and have to trim them every 3-4 days or they are soooo long. My Crypts I move all the time. None even melted. Maybe it has to do more with your water.

My crypts are fine too, its just ive read many times on here and other fourms,like ThePlantedTank, saying not to move Crypts around too much or it causes them to die off somehow . Im not sure, maybe it happens or not but just letting OP be cautious

 

My friend just told me because crypts melt anyway I should just cut off all the leaves.

It's been a few days and honestly my crypts only melted a bit so far so I'm not sure how long it usually takes. Should I just cut off the leaves to help promote growth.

 

I would wait it out and see what happens. Crypts are known for melting but it’s not guaranteed.

I added a Crypt Spirals last weekend and I had a few leaves melt and already a few sprout. But I just let it run it’s course and didn’t even mess with the melted leaves until they basically fell off.

 

None of my crypts ever melted so far I would wait

 

Definitely wait. I’ve never had new crypts melt on me, only after they were well established and something changed did they ever melt.

 

I got a few crypt plants myself 20 days ago. Some leaves melted but not many. A few already are having new leaves spout. All I did is cut the melting leafs stem at the base.

 

So I'm new to live plants and recently got since cryptocoryne, buce, anubias Nana petite and jungle val.

My tank is a 55, cycled and when I tested today with API I got pretty much 0 on everything and very little nitrates. I know my plants are using the nitrates but I'm wondering if not being enough is an issue. I usually feed once a day so I might kick it up to small portions rice a day. Is having 0 nitrates bad for my plants.

For the root feeding plants I placed 4 flourish root tabs in. My second question is, Is there such a thing as too many root tabs?

Thanks for the help, I'm new to plants lol

 

With almost no nitrate I wouldn’t worry about adding too many root tabs. I would look into dosing an NPK macro nutrient solution if you’re seeing issues with growth. Root tabs should handle that plant stock though.

 

With almost no nitrate I wouldn’t worry about adding too many root tabs. I would look into dosing an NPK macro nutrient solution if you’re seeing issues with growth. Root tabs should handle that plant stock though.

The only plans using the water column are the buce and anubias. However, I do plan on adding more and from my research I think I might be able to not use liquid ferts but again I'm not sure. Maybe I'll add an extra root tab when I plant some more crypts

 

I have just gotten into plants myself, and realized that root tabs are not enough in the long run - no NPK. I'm about to buy some ThriveC for my plants. Thrive will give some nitrates too, it's a complete all-in-one fert.

 

I have just gotten into plants myself, and realized that root tabs are not enough in the long run - no NPK. I'm about to buy some ThriveC for my plants. Thrive will give some nitrates too, it's a complete all-in-one fert.

Hm I see, how often would you dose. I've considered that one on amazon

 

I wouldn’t worry if they are too low since you can assume the plants are helping contribute to that.

I would still dose an All in One just to cover all the bases. Take what they recommend on the bottle and start with half that and see how your rank responds and go from there. A lot of the liquid ferts will recommend dosing and then doing 50% weekly water changes. that’s based on the assumption that you’re over dosing so they’re plenty of nutrients available.

But if you start with smaller doses and watch your nitrates and how your other plants respond you can dial this is based on what your seeing in your tank and do water changes at the amount and frequency you please.

 

Hm I see, how often would you dose. I've considered that one on amazon

What Cody said. I don’t do 50% water changes weekly, I usually do 30%, and I don’t want to change things too much too fast for my fish, so I’m going to do a very small amount. If the bottle says 4 pumps a week I’d probably do 1 pump to start. If the plants start looking deficient, I’ll increase the dose.

 

The cool thing with plants is that they really do speak to you lol. You can tell a lot just by watching your tank and making adjustments to lighting and fertilizers.

Sadly sometimes it goes the wrong way and your scraping algae all night! or pruning the leaves off the plant that started to die because you thought you knew it all - Or so I've heard that's how it goes

 

I'll add some more plants and see what happens.

 

since you dont have a lot of water column feeders you may get enough fert leaching from the root tabs in the substrate to take care of their requirements without dosing the column

 

Flourish tabs are over 70% inert filler material, and contain no significant amounts of macro nutrients that plants need in relatively large quantities (NPK).

Root tabs will leach out into the water rather quickly, they are not made of material that is meant to degrade slowly in submerged applications. Plants can only utilize nutrients in soluble forms anyway (meaning they have to uptake them with the uptake of water). All plants will use nutrients from wherever they can, wherever they uptake water, meaning "heavy root feeder" and "water column feeder" is not really true / is a myth / is an "old school" way of growing planted tanks.

As long as you supply plants with nutrients in plant available forms, doesn't matter how, they will use them and thrive (assuming carbon and lighting needs are met of course).

The root feeder vs water column feeder myth has been debunked many times, I have personally used both methods and have seen 0 benefit of once vs the other.

I agree with many of the posters above, dose a small amount of an all-in-one fertilizer such as Thrive to start. Watch the plants. If you wish to use root tabs, go with the DIY Osmocote+ root tabs, they contain way more nutrients that aquarium specific, generic tabs.

You can increase the amount of fertilizer dosed as you obtain more plants and as your existing plants accelerate in growth.

 

Flourish tabs are over 70% inert filler material, and contain no significant amounts of macro nutrients that plants need in relatively large quantities (NPK).

Root tabs will leach out into the water rather quickly, they are not made of material that is meant to degrade slowly in submerged applications. Plants can only utilize nutrients in soluble forms anyway (meaning they have to uptake them with the uptake of water). All plants will use nutrients from wherever they can, wherever they uptake water, meaning "heavy root feeder" and "water column feeder" is not really true / is a myth / is an "old school" way of growing planted tank

Try growing amazons, vals and other heavily rooted plants without some type of substrate fertilizer and see how poorly they grow, if they will grow at all and see how flawed your statement is that column feeder vs root feeder is an"old school" way of thinking.

 

Let’s stay civil on these forums guys. Fish keeping has no set in stone ways of doing things. More than one way to skin a fish, haha. I’ve heard it’s old school and I’ve heard it’s essential. Test it out yourself with what is best for you and go from there!

 

At the risk of being uncivil lol I would also point out that if there were no need for nutrients in the substrate, because plants can get all they need from the water column then we could all just plant in plain gravel and have great success. Anyone who has ever planted in a dirted tank, a tank with an active substrate or used some type of substrate fertilizer has seen the difference in growth. Even stem plants like anacharis will try to put roots down into the substrate.

 

Try growing amazons, vals and other heavily rooted plants without some type of substrate fertilizer and see how poorly they grow, if they will grow at all and see how flawed your statement is that column feeder vs root feeder is an"old school" way of thinking.

Unfortunately for your ego I have actually tested that, multiple times. If you would like to see evidence of tank grown in fully inert sand / gravel, with no root fertilization please let me know, I would be happy to show you dozens of tanks and hundreds of species (swords, crypt, vals etc. included).

At the risk of being uncivil lol I would also point out that if there were no need for nutrients in the substrate, because plants can get all they need from the water column then we could all just plant in plain gravel and have great success. Anyone who has ever planted in a dirted tank, a tank with an active substrate or used some type of substrate fertilizer has seen the difference in growth. Even stem plants like anacharis will try to put roots down into the substrate.

Actually, we can grow any plant in plain gravel or sand, so long as we meet their needs by dosing the water column.

Of course anyone who has a dirted tank or a tank with active substrate will experience a boost in growth, you are supplying the plants with many times more nutrients than a simple dose of Thrive would.

For example, you can create CO2 by giving yeast sugar. They live a happy life and produce CO2.

What happens when you give that yeast granulated sugar, and sugar cubes? They produce more CO2...

Same with planted tanks. Give them some water column ferts in sufficient and controlled amount, and they can thrive. Give them some water column ferts in a sufficient and controlled amount plus an inconsistent, uncontrollable amount of ferts in the substrate and... you guessed it, they could grow bigger and faster (but not necessarily any healthier than the water column dosed tank).

Think about it this way, plants do not have the ability of selecting which nutrient they uptake, they uptake water and whatever is dissolved in that water is brought in with it. Weather that be through the roots or leave / stem tissue, it does not matter.

Most of the plants we grow have the ability of growing submersed and emersed along river / lake / pond banks and edges. The main purpose of it's roots is to anchor the plant in place to allow it an actual shot of living. The added bonus is the roots being able to uptake nutrients.

I have nothing against feeding the substrate, nothing at all, all I'm saying is it's not necessary for success, and that API / Flourish tabs are made up of mostly filler, non-plant nutrient compounds and contain no macro nutrients. I would recommend to use Osmocote+ tabs, dirt, calcined montmorillonite clay, or an active substrate instead, if one would want to fertilize the substrate.

 

Try growing amazons, vals and other heavily rooted plants without some type of substrate fertilizer and see how poorly they grow, if they will grow at all and see how flawed your statement is that column feeder vs root feeder is an"old school" way of thinking.

I encourage you to take a look at this for an example of a huge crypt growing on just water column fertilization:
Crypt tank lighting

Root feeding is a myth, to a certain degree. Plants are opportunistic and feed from anywhere. If you only have water column nutrients, that's where they'll feed. Only substrate nutrients, that's where they'll feed. Have both, they'll feed from both.

In order to sustain a so-called 'root feeder" on just water column nutrients like in the example above, more dosing is required. A lot of the time people are scared of dosing so they under dose their water column and an under dosed water column alone cannot sustain most plants.

The reason gravel is not very successful is because it's literally small rocks. No plant wants to grow in that, and I argue the structure of the substrate is almost as important if not more important than the nutrient content. The gaps in gravel are huge and aren't good for healthy root growth. This goes for both aquatic and terrestrial. The reason soil substrates do better for plants is not just the nutrient content. It's the structure, compact enough for roots to anchor well but not too compact to crush them. It is porous, allowing for huge amounts of surface area for symbiotic bacteria to grow, and in terrestrial contexts, for symbiotic fungus to grow. This is what makes soil or dirted tanks so successful.

If water column nutrient needs are met, plants do not need substrate fertilization to grow. No plants are obligate root feeders, and very few are obligate water column feeders (only those without roots). Big root systems likely evolved for anchoring the plant in fast moving waters. And yes, evolved to take up nutrients, because some of these waters are pretty devoid of nutrients. But heavily rooted plants does not equate to heavy root feeders. Now, plants do love to root in soil, because there are nutrients there! Plants want nutrients. It's just not an absolute requirement.

Another example:
So-called "Heavy Root Feeders" - Fact or Fiction?? - The Planted Tank Forum

This experiment has someone planting identical species on two sides of a tank, one side with plain sand and one side with sand + fertilizer. They planted both "root feeders" and stem plants. The water column got EI fertilization. On page 4 there are some pictures of the results. The plants that got both root and water fertilization grew better. But the plants without root feeding didn't do too bad. They still grew quite well, including the "root feeders," just slower. Also, the stem plants without root feeding also did not grow as fast. Both "root feeders" and stem plants prefer both sources of nutrients.

The conclusion should be that "root feeders", like any plant, can take in nutrients perfectly fine from the water column and survive on it alone if dosing is adequate. However, the more nutrients available, the better plants will do.

Some more sources:
How do aquatic plants absorb nutrients?
Root feeders liquid fert

 

So I'm new to live plants and recently got since cryptocoryne, buce, anubias Nana petite and jungle val.

My tank is a 55, cycled and when I tested today with API I got pretty much 0 on everything and very little nitrates. I know my plants are using the nitrates but I'm wondering if not being enough is an issue. I usually feed once a day so I might kick it up to small portions rice a day. Is having 0 nitrates bad for my plants.

For the root feeding plants I placed 4 flourish root tabs in. My second question is, Is there such a thing as too many root tabs?

Thanks for the help, I'm new to plants lol

Sorry to write an essay on your thread! To answer your question, there is no such thing as too many root tabs as long as they are not leaching into the water column too rapidly

To feed your buce, anubias, and all your plants, I agree with posters who recommended an all in one such as Nilocg Thrive. Having 0 nitrates isn't the best, and can lead to nitrogen deficiency.

 

Sorry to write an essay on your thread! To answer your question, there is no such thing as too many root tabs as long as they are not leaching into the water column too rapidly

To feed your buce, anubias, and all your plants, I agree with posters who recommended an all in one such as Nilocg Thrive. Having 0 nitrates isn't the best, and can lead to nitrogen deficiency.

No problem lol, a lively debate is always good. I'm still deciding what plants I want to add, I don't want a carpet necessarily but I do want some plants that can create some lower territories for my Bolivians. Maybe a bunch of crypts is the way to go.

I also came across a post that said it's possible to place plants in pots of nutrient rich soil, then place them in the gravel. This makes it so that the plants have a little nutrient rich substrate but doesn't require me breaking the bank to fill the entire tank with nutrient rich substrate.

Has anyone ever done this, is it worth the effort and would I use plastic or small terracotta pots

 

No problem lol, a lively debate is always good. I'm still deciding what plants I want to add, I don't want a carpet necessarily but I do want some plants that can create some lower territories for my Bolivians. Maybe a bunch of crypts is the way to go.

I also came across a post that said it's possible to place plants in pots of nutrient rich soil, then place them in the gravel. This makes it so that the plants have a little nutrient rich substrate but doesn't require me breaking the bank to fill the entire tank with nutrient rich substrate.

Has anyone ever done this, is it worth the effort and would I use plastic or small terracotta pots

That's definitely possible! I personally haven't done it, but others on here have. If you use terrestrial soil, make sure you pick out large pieces of dirt debris that float, and then cap the dirt well with sand, otherwise it'll just spread into the water column. Terracotta, plastic, either would be fine if they're clean.