to plant or not to plant: update

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Yao

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Oct 6, 2005
Messages
80
Location
Michigan
I posted last week asking for advice on whether I should add plants to my fairly new tank. Thank you everyone who responded!

Just a few more questions. My tank is cycled and I have 3 angels, 3 gouramis and 3 corycats in a 20g long. I'm thinking about adding amano shrimp (see my post in general discussion.) I kind of want to add plants now.

How do I plant a tank with fish already in it? Am I going to have to take them all out and change rocks, etc? I haven't read the "getting started" yet... :oops: I'm looking for suggest some basic-low maintenance inexpensive plants that I can add to my tank? Also maybe a list of supplies/general cost and tips would be appreciated. Thanks guys! :lol:
 
You could get some nice Cryptocoryne (cheap, all kinds of variations), some Echinodorus (little more expensive, but NICE), some bunched plants for low light e.g.Limnophila sessiliflora (cheap, too).

You can buy these at www.aquariumplants.com. They have excellent customer service there, great quality and good prices. Don't buy from www.aquaticplantdepot.com. They are absoloute %#@%! I had one order from them, that was worse than someone can imagine and it took me forever to get my money back!

Some people here in the forum also like www.azgardens.com. Personally I have never ordered there, so I can say nothing to it.
 
And at tips I would look what kind of store policy they have and try to contact them and ask them a few questions to find out how they are (helpful?, friendly?). I should have done that before I ordered the first time, but oh well...
 
I'd suggest you read the stickies then. They contain almost everythign you need to know to 'get started'.
 
You can plant with fish in there. The plants and fish won't mind. :)

I have a 20 long with 30w NO with anubias and marimo (cladorpha) balls: slow growers, only regular pwc (no dosing), super easy tank. 1.5wpg also grew hornwort and anacharis, two easily available fast growing plants that will help your bioload, and the gouramis will likely appreciate some floating cover. Java moss and java fern are other popular choices for cheap/low tech/low maint tanks. None of these plants care about substrate. HTH
 
Back
Top Bottom