Questions about plants

[Ben K]

Okay. I would love to use real plants, but I am curious as if the plants I think are real are the true real plants. The ones I am thinking are the plants that you get at the LFS that come in a small bundle tied together with a small metal clip and come form a tank of water. Are these the right real plant or am I confused?

 

[rich311k]

I moved this to the planted section.

Yes those bundles are real plants. What kind of plants were they? What size tank and how much light do you have?

Welcome to AA!!!

 

[mr funktastic]

if u give us the information on your tank like lighting and gravel and test levels we can suggest plants and get pictures to help u in finding them. we can also help u choose the right plants for your current set up or help u in upgrading to get better plants.

 

[Purrbox]

Occationally plants that aren't true aquatics are sold that way as well, so you still need to be careful with what you're buying. I would recommend writing down the name of any plants that you see at the LFS that you are interested in, then researching them to ensure that they are a true aquatic and that you can provide them with the proper conditions to survive and hopefully thrive.

 

[garth7]

ditto on what purrbox said....

I would say that when you are doing your research, make sure these type of plants can grow from stems. I purchased some not too long ago and the stems now have roots.

Just my 2 cents.

Doug

 

[Ben K]

I haven't really set anythign up professionally yet. Usually I just add tap water, let it sit overnight, then add cheap fish to the tank before I add expenisive ones to it. I have never really had any problems with sickness or deaths.

But I am thinking of setting up a real nice lookign tank and I want to do it all professional like.

This is the setup I am looking at. It will be a crab and fish tank. As for filters and such, I am still looking into things. any suggestions would be nice.

What I am looking for:

30-50 gallon tank
Crab contents: 2 halloween crabs, at leats 3 gold fiddle crabs, possibly other FW crabs if I can find them
Fish: unsure of yet. Possible fancy guppies

Note sure of filter, lighting, and other stuff. Like I said, this will be my first professional quality tank.

You might be able to help me with the setup of the tank as well. Do you think crabs would be smart enough to figure out how to get from the bottem of tank to the top dry land? The dry land will be 4' deep, giving the halloween crab somethign to dig in. Do you think 4" would be enough?

Also, seeing as the dry land will be blocking off any source of light from above, is there plants can live in this shadowed area? This dry area will have a surface area of 12"×8" roughly. Also, I run into the same problem with the "platform/step" in the middle of the one side of the tank. It will be about 12"×4". And the same problem with the "stairs" that go from floor to platform to platform. They will be about 3" wide I am thinking.

When thinking abotu this, I am also come up with another question. If I wish to put any plants on the "stairs" or the underwater "platform", what should they be and how deep of gravel (or whatever I use) should I have? Is 1" good enough? Also, what type of gravel do you think would be best for this type of tank?

Another thing, how would you make the surface of the "stairs" non slip so crabs won't find it hard to climb? I was thinking of either gluing a gravel or soemthing to the surface of the glass (if I use glass) stairs. I am also thinking of possible making a tray like stair, so I can put an inch of sand or soemthing for plants to be planted on stairs. If I did this, do you still think I would need to glue a layer of gravel to the glass?

Okay, so a refresh for this post. Here are the questions I have:

1) Do you think crabds will be smart enough to find their way from bottem of tank to dry land at top?

2) Will a 3" 'stair' be large enough for a full grown halloween crab or will he tend to fall off due to be too large? (Not sure how large they become at full size)

3) Will a deepness of 4" of sand on the dry land area be enough for halloween crab to borrow in?

4) Will a area of 8"×12" be enough dry land for two full grown halloween crabs?

5) How would you make the surface of the stairs not slippery so that crabs can climb it? Would you glue gravel or would making a tray like stair(so that sand or gravel doesn't fall out) would be enough? If I go tray style, should I still glue a layer of gravel to glass stairs?

6) Whats the best type of glue to use? Silicon or something?

7) Are there any plants that would fair well in a location where they wouldn't get much light due to a stair or platform above them? What about on the stairs, which will plenty of light, what would fair there?

8) On the bottem of the tank, how deep should sand or gravel be?

9) What is the best planting sand or gravel that would work in my type of tank?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[happygirl65]

Occationally plants that aren't true aquatics are sold that way as well, so you still need to be careful with what you're buying. I would recommend writing down the name of any plants that you see at the LFS that you are interested in, then researching them to ensure that they are a true aquatic and that you can provide them with the proper conditions to survive and hopefully thrive.

I second this advice, as a newbie to plants myself I purchased two very lovely plants and put them in my tank, research revelaed they were actually bog plants and would only live submerged for a short time. I returned them asap before they died.

 

[epicfish]

PetCo/PetSmart are notorious for selling non-aquatic plants as aquatic ones....just post names/pictures of ones you're interested in, and we call tell you whether they're aquatic or not. =)