ground cover plants...

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Japola44

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
491
Location
Denver, CO
My 55 gal tank is pretty barren at the momment i have one large peice of fake driftwood, 2 java fern plants(only one is really thriving), 2 pretty large hornwort plants, and about 5 stems of Anacharis. I like the way it looks but all of this is in the center of my tank and hopefully i will someday get more plants across it all. I want it too look like a jungle. Any way to the point of this topic...
I was looking at plants to buy only and i found some lowlight carpet plants. Now this would look soo cool tohave covering al or the majority of my tanks bottom. Here is what concerns me...
Sand substrate means it has to be stirred. So, i get MTS, but won't those up root plants?
Another problem is keeping the tank clean. When the floor of your tank is covered in plants do u vacum it, or do you just let the plants utilize all the crud as fert?
Also, i feed frozen blood worms and sinking pellets, would the plants make it dificult for the fish to find the food?

My 55 gal tank will have about 1.5wpg (i am making adjustments on the light strip at the moment) No CO2 injections, and has a sand substrate.
here are some plants i was thinking about using as ground coverers:
http://www.floridadriftwood.com/product.asp?0=208&1=216&3=246
http://www.floridadriftwood.com/product.asp?3=850

any other low light ground cover plants?
Will this work?
Suggestions
plant ideas
TIA
 
Those plants look alright, but I don't have any personal experience with either of them. You still vac the gravel but you just dont push it down hard on your plants you just don't want to pull them up or disturb the roots. This will get most of the waste off the top. If you have some thick groundcover established then it will take care of the junk that reaches the roots. I have 5 Corys in one of my tank and they really dig through the groundcover if they smell food. I think they do a great job of cleaning up. Thats all I got.
 
Simply from the www.plantgeek.net plant guide I'd say you'll have better luck with the second plant (Marsilea minuta). It requires a bit less light, and seems to remain shorter, which is probably going to be the problem in a low light setup.
The other thing is they probably aren't going to grow or spread very fast at all; so a good solid carpet will take some time.

JMO, I haven't actually grown either of these... hopefully someone around here has.

You could also try some of the smaller varieties of anubias (nana, barteri, etc) which grow slowly, but well in low light. Cyrptocorynes are good in low light as well. Both of these would probably be a little tall for a 'carpet', but are still cool. :)

Good luck!
 
thanks for the advice. I might get a ballest for my light strip and try to overdrive my NO bulbs for the 55gal. But i'm not sure how much u can overdrive them... I think i will try out some ground covers in my 20 gal first it has 2wpg of spiral CF plus a gravel substrate. I will keep you guys updated on it if you would like.

I am going to go to petsmart tomorrow to pick up some more hornwort and anacharis, maybe some other plants.
 
Any of the Marsilea species should make a good low-light ground cover. I would recommend the smaller (M. minuta) species. I've grown M. quadrifolia and, when it reverts to its submersed form (like all of the water clover species), will not have multiple leaves per stem but will put up single spade-shaped leaves on runners. In my experience, M. quadrifolia looks much like a super-sized version of Glossostigma elatinoides but does not get as thick. I haven't grown M. minuta, but it looks like it would make a much finer, more dense carpet than my experience with M. quadrifolia, although I think you would like either one. When I kept M. quadrifolia it was very low-light tolerant, in fact I think that stuff would almost grow in the dark :)
 
Never had a problem with MTS uprooting plants. plants will root fairly securely, and MTS are rather small.

More likely a pleco, or other larger fish would uproot plants vs. a snail.
 
ok thanks again for all the advice. I'm going to pets mart today to pick up some bulbs for the strip my glass canopy and some plants. I will post a pic when its done, I will go aheadand order some of the ground cover plants for my 20 gal if i like it i will just transfer it to my 55 gal. Thanks for all the help. :D
 
Just keep in mind that mariselia will be extremely slow to grow in and make a carpet. I've had some in a 29 since August and it doesn't really look any more carpet-like than it didafter a month. I'd estimate a year or more to grow in and make a carpet. YMMV
 
Just keep in mind that mariselia will be extremely slow to grow in and make a carpet. I've had some in a 29 since August and it doesn't really look any more carpet-like than it didafter a month. I'd estimate a year or more to grow in and make a carpet. YMMV

I think i will wait on the ground cover plants, at least until maybe i upgrade my lights and get co2 so i can get something a bit nicer. Until then i will just stick with lots of low light plants. Thanks for your help guys!
 
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