Plants that are common enough and will like horribly soft water?

[humdedum]

I am having trouble with plants, and i suspect water hardness. A, n, n all zero. Not enough nitrates for plants? Fluorescent lights. 2o long with one platy, one female betta, six zebra danios, two cory cats (small one-inch ones). I've tried hornwort, moneywort, and only the amazon sword is thriving. Strange. I saw corkscrew val at the petshop. Is that not good for this tank?

 

[timwag2001]

with that many fish in a 20 gallon tank i find it odd that you have no nitrates at all. what kind of test kit do you have?

 

[musicman]

First of all, a couple of questions to help us help you with your plants...

How many watts of flourecent light do you have?
Are you using any fertilizer?
Do you have a CO2 setup in your tank?
How soft of water is horribly soft?

I have had luck with Java Fern, it has thrived and reproduced in my tank with a little as 2 watts per gallon. It is a hardy plant, it shouldn't care about water hardness too much.

 

[humdedum]

I use my Tetra test strips 60 second kind, and double-check with the petstore's kind. I only have 20 watts. No fertilizer. No Co2 and the bio-wheel does such a strong current it probably drives out any co2 anyhoo. Soft means like 3 or below. The petstore kinda looked at me and went, "dH is zero." In my area we have horribly HARD water, and i kept seven platies. Then we got a water softener, and one platy surviving now.

 

[Purrbox]

There's your problem. Water softeners don't actually make the water softer as far as plants and fish are concerned. They just replace the hardness with salt. The salt is not good for plants. Bypass the softener for your aquarium water and you'll have much better sucess.

 

[musicman]

You have a low light aquarium. The general recomendation for aquarium light for plant growth is 2 - 5 watts per gallon. Many plants wont accept 1 watt. With that amount of light and no fert or CO2 I wouldn't expect many plants to flourish.

I agree about bypassing the softener. Platies, as well as most live bearers, like the water on the hard side.

 

[humdedum]

Water softener was my parent's choice. 6 platies died from the change, and the remaining one isn't perfectly finned now either. Should i just go for hard water from outside (gradually, of course!). Now this is bad for angelfish, isn't it? They're spawning, but will they stop if they are in hard? Will they survive in terribly hard water?

 

[jay942942]

Vals, Crypts, Java Ferns, Java Moss and Japanese Moss Balls will be all great.

 

[humdedum]

Okay. I guess I'll try corkscrew val.