plants???

[Kevccoy]

I have some gravel in my tank and was wondering if any live plants would grow on it, or if I wanted to go live, should I take it out and do something different for the bottom?

 

[IT-FishGuy]

My experience

From my experience I started with standard gravel, the plants didn't do so good so I switched to Flourite which was great for the plants, but was a friggin mess to swap out, because it's clay gravel and will basically look like a mud puddle if you are not careful. I obviously wasn't. I stressed out all night and thankfully all the fish made it as I only had one tank.

If you have fish already in there then you can do one of two things. Take them out bag them up and switch out the gravel taking care to keep the mud puddle thing to a minimum. BEFORE doing that, research on what types of plants you want to have, then look at their requirements. Like high lighting or low lighting requirements. Then look at their requirements for nutrients, I.E. Iron etc.
Once doing all of that then you can look at the maker or Flourite's website where they list the percentage of nutrients provided by the gravel.

Lighting is done by taking the tanks capacity and getting a light that will offer 3 times the capacity in watts. So if you have a 30 long you should have 60 watts of light over the tank. You might be able to get away with a little less since the tank is not that deep, if it is deep then you need to up the wattage.

If you don't go the gravel exchange route then you'll need to add the nutrients to the water every so often.

The key to keeping plants is to keep the nutrients balanced and have the proper lighting.

 

[mudraker]

You can also create an awesome planted tank with your existing substrate with a lowlight planted setup, which I totally recommend for beginners going into planted tanks. The initial investment is less costly and you can decide later if you want to expand (start emptying your wallet) into higher a higher light aquascape.

Look online for lowlight plants like crypts, anubias, christmas moss and java ferns. You can grow these with little fertilizing and no CO2. If you get the planted tank fever, you can always expand.

 

[mgamer20o0]

there are a ton of plants that dont even need substrate so yes its possible. when i started i just used pea gravel from lowes and was able to grow a ton of plants.

 

[Kevccoy]

if I add a few low light plants as suggested, is there a fertilizer i will need to add to the tank on occasion? and I was doing some research and wanted to add... 3 - anubias congesis(in back area) and 2 - java fern in mid ground is this to much to have without a co2 setup?

 

[Kevccoy]

also, while I was at LFS looking at plants, the roots seemed to be deeper than my gravel(between 1/4" and 1/2") will I need to add gravel, and if so, will that cause a "Cycle" in the tank?

 

[Goxgetxfat]

I've had no problem growing plants in my gravel. My tank sits near the sun, simply to increase the production of algae as well as give my plants some light. I've never had a problem with a "dead" plant. I'm sure there MIGHT be things better for them, but so far it's worked great for me. My pet shop sells a specific kind of gravel that you can get for marine plants that are high in nutrients, but I'm not sure if that's good for the fish.

Even at my pet shop, the marine plants are displayed in gravel.

 

[Bigzmey]

You don't need to change gravel if you want to add javas or anubias. They grow better if they are attached to rocks or wood, anyway. If you have fish in your tank you don't need to fertilize them. Maybe, once in awhile with trace elements.

 

[Tabbykat9698]

All of my plants are fine in gravel. I do have awesome high output lighting and I use root tabs to fertilize.