Help me up my planted game.

[Ulrichsd]

I have 2 tanks and a turtle pond that I'm looking to add some plants and liking for suggestions. All 3 have a sand substrate.

1. 60 gallon with angels, cory cats, and black skirt tetras.
It has about half a dozen Amazon swords and a few anubia nana ange drift wood. I add root tabs but the Amazon swords don't grow too much and pick up a light film of algae. Wondering if co2 would help? Any surface plants that would do well in the high flow of 2 aquaclears?

2. 20 gallon African dwarf frog tank.
This one just has just drift wood. The anubias survived but would get uprooted so I moved them. Any surface plant that wouldn't interfere with them getting air?

3. 60 gallon baby pool with cooter turtle and 2 gold fish.
I think anything in the water would get uprooted, but I want to get some plants that would be in planters out of the water that would maybe hang into the water that would be edible? Maybe some planted decorative grass to make it less sterile looking. I'm going to replace the black plastic with sticky tiles.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Dallascowboys16]

I have 2 tanks and a turtle pond that I'm looking to add some plants and liking for suggestions. All 3 have a sand substrate.

1. 60 gallon with angels, cory cats, and black skirt tetras.
It has about half a dozen Amazon swords and a few anubia nana ange drift wood. I add root tabs but the Amazon swords don't grow too much and pick up a light film of algae. Wondering if co2 would help? Any surface plants that would do well in the high flow of 2 aquaclears?

2. 20 gallon African dwarf frog tank.
This one just has just drift wood. The anubias survived but would get uprooted so I moved them. Any surface plant that wouldn't interfere with them getting air?

3. 60 gallon baby pool with cooter turtle and 2 gold fish.
I think anything in the water would get uprooted, but I want to get some plants that would be in planters out of the water that would maybe hang into the water that would be edible? Maybe some planted decorative grass to make it less sterile looking. I'm going to replace the black plastic with sticky tiles.

Any suggestions? Thanks!View attachment 315912View attachment 315913View attachment 315914

In tank 1, the amazon swords are most likely struggling because of the thin substrate layer and the fact that it is also sand. They need like 2 or 3 inches of substrate to really thrive and sand typically does not work well with them at all even if you add root tabs. I would recommend adding a little more sand and then doing some jungle Val or water sprite just to have something growing. In my experience, floaters almost always fail with power filters on the tank so I don't really have an recommendations there.

In tank 2 some dwarf water lettuce or salvinia would be a good floating plant to add. just thin it out every now and then so it doesn't totally cover the surface.

In the turtle tank I would do a peace lily or some Japanese sweet flag in a pot with gravel with the roots fully submerged in the pool. They are bog plants that live with roots in water and foliage above. I keep riparian plants in my tank growing out of plater boxes in this way and they do really well.

 

[Ulrichsd]

In tank 1, the amazon swords are most likely struggling because of the thin substrate layer and the fact that it is also sand. They need like 2 or 3 inches of substrate to really thrive and sand typically does not work well with them at all even if you add root tabs. I would recommend adding a little more sand and then doing some jungle Val or water sprite just to have something growing. In my experience, floaters almost always fail with power filters on the tank so I don't really have an recommendations there.

In tank 2 some dwarf water lettuce or salvinia would be a good floating plant to add. just thin it out every now and then so it doesn't totally cover the surface.

In the turtle tank I would do a peace lily or some Japanese sweet flag in a pot with gravel with the roots fully submerged in the pool. They are bog plants that live with roots in water and foliage above. I keep riparian plants in my tank growing out of plater boxes in this way and they do really well.

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I will increase the substrate in the first tank and take a look at those suggestions for the other two. I like the dwarf water lettuce.

Thanks!

 

[earhtmother]

If those are Aquaclears on the ADF tank Water lettuce and most floating plants won't thrive or like the flow. You can try using a couple of *barriers* to make an area in between the filters to keep the lettuce away from them or one large one across the front of the tank. Havent tried the one in the pictures but I've been told and actually seen how well it works.

 

[Ulrichsd]

If those are Aquaclears on the ADF tank Water lettuce and most floating plants won't thrive or like the flow. You can try using a couple of *barriers* to make an area in between the filters to keep the lettuce away from them or one large one across the front of the tank. Havent tried the one in the pictures but I've been told and actually seen how well it works.

Thanks, there are 2 small hob aquaclears, but I keep them on the lowest flow setting. I ran this tank for about 6 months without filtration doing weekly 80% wcs. I've read different things about frogs and filtration/vibration, but I switched back to filtration to switch back to the ease of biweekly water changes.

I do wonder if I were to do a heavily planted tank if that would be enough biologic filtration that I could get away with removing the filters and still keep a biweekly water change schedule. I feed the 3 of them a total of 6 reptomin pellets a day (broken in halves) and once every couple of weeks a cube of bloodworms. I think they would prefer the scattered light that would come from surface plants and I'm sure they would like to get rid of the vibrations from the filters.

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Dallascowboys16]

Thanks, there are 2 small hob aquaclears, but I keep them on the lowest flow setting. I ran this tank for about 6 months without filtration doing weekly 80% wcs. I've read different things about frogs and filtration/vibration, but I switched back to filtration to switch back to the ease of biweekly water changes.

I do wonder if I were to do a heavily planted tank if that would be enough biologic filtration that I could get away with removing the filters and still keep a biweekly water change schedule. I feed the 3 of them a total of 6 reptomin pellets a day (broken in halves) and once every couple of weeks a cube of bloodworms. I think they would prefer the scattered light that would come from surface plants and I'm sure they would like to get rid of the vibrations from the filters.

Thanks!
Scott

The frogs would be more than ok without the filters and would probably actually prefer it. Get an air pump and throw an airstone in there for some water movement/aeration and you should be golden.

 

[Ulrichsd]

The frogs would be more than ok without the filters and would probably actually prefer it. Get an air pump and throw an airstone in there for some water movement/aeration and you should be golden.

Just ordered some dwarf water lettuce off ebay, when it gets here I will remove the filters and add an air stone.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[earhtmother]

If you don't feel entirely comfortable without filtration, do what most Betta owners do and put use a sponge filter.

 

[Ulrichsd]

If you don't feel entirely comfortable without filtration, do what most Betta owners do and put use a sponge filter.

I did run it without a filter for a long time and the frogs seemed fine. I was just concerned what would happen if I went too long (more than a week) without wc.

Good idea though, a air stone-sponge filter might be a good solution to keep the tank cycled.

 

[earhtmother]

I would still be doing a 50% water change a week. Mjne get a min of 50%, larger if it has been longer than that

 

[Ulrichsd]

It has been an exciting week! The dwarf water lettuce came and I added it Thursday and turned off the filters. It looks good.

Also worth noting that I got some eggs today, you can see them on the driftwood in the 1st picture. It is only the second time since I've had the frogs in 4 years and both times were during or following a power outage. I thought it was maybe due to the filter vibrations, but that last picture of mating is from last Sunday after the power was back on and saw this a couple more times throughout the week. However, the outage (3 days before) killed my heater and the temp dropped to 68f and I didn't notice for another few days. So I wonder if maybe 78f is too high for spawning? Or maybe it is the temperature drop that is a environmental response?