HOB & plants questions

[cJw]

Greets! It's been a while since I've posted and now I've finally gotten my lighting up to "very low" (1.0 wpg) and have started considering plants.

While sketching out a rough idea of what plants I want were, I realized I hadn't taken my HOB flow into consideration. Part of the reason I wanted to plant my tank was to conceal the HOB intake and heater, so how close can I plant while still maintaining a good intake flow?

As it is right now, I've a handful of stalks of anacharis in the tank and already realize I should have planted earlier. The color and appearance is so superior to fakes.

I was planning on trying to slope the midground/foreground plant heights somewhat from one side of the tank to the other, while keeping the background plants fairly tall, but then wondered about what problems the filter's outflow would cause with the plants that are nearest to it.

Wow, wordy... um...

a> How close can I plant to the HOB intake? To the heater?

b> What about the outflow?




tia-

 

[Jchillin]

A nice hardy stem plant can go a couple of inches in front of the intake. As far as the HOB is concerned, if you keep the water level high to reduce the surface agitation you will lose less CO2 and you can place any stubborn (read: loves current) plant underneath and to both sides. Anacharis is one such plant...it will bend and sway with the current.

I have the visi-therm stealth and due to it's casing, I was able to place jungle vals, hornwort and anacharis directly in front and to the sides. It didn't interfere with the heater and didn't interfere with the plant's health. This came in handy since I have two, one on each side of the tank.

PS - WB!

 

[czcz]

Anubias around HOBs works nice too. The leaves are tough and will not move much with the current, and you can plant it close to the intake or outtake. Since they also grow somewhat slow, you do not need to trim regularly before leaves get sucked into the intake and such. High current on and around the leaves also seems to prevent the algae so common with the plant. You can attach it to rocks and driftwood terraced up to hide the intake if wanted. You may even be able to attach it to the intake tube, if you really wanted. Generally, very tough plant.

Still, like Jc, I find many plants like current, and like seeing them adapt to the flow. Even flimsier plants like Hygro polysperma variants will grow against current.

HTH

 

[cJw]

Ack, my reply got deleted; thanks for crashin, firefox. :|

Anyway, thanks for the replies, guys.

@ Jchillin : I'm planning on stacking java'd rock up high enough to conceal the intake, but it's still good to know 2" is a working rule of thumb. PS - TY.

@ czcz : Anubias attaches well to wood/rock? Can't say I remember seeing/reading that anywhere... maybe that would work amongst some java moss on my lace rock.

btw, I was wondering if anyone's had any luck/good results combining Java moss and ferns on the same rock/wood... anyone? I didn't really see any pics online of any such thing, yet it seems like a fairly obvious thing to try. :|

 

[Jchillin]

I did try it and basically, the moss seemed to want to constantly get entangled in the ferns roots. It seemed to be drawn to it like a magnet. I ceased the experiment for fear that it would deter the ferns ability to drawn nutrients (sorta like gladiators).

 

[cJw]

I did try it and basically, the moss seemed to want to constantly get entangled in the ferns roots. It seemed to be drawn to it like a magnet. I ceased the experiment for fear that it would deter the ferns ability to drawn nutrients (sorta like gladiators).

That's good to know. I suppose then that anubias wouldn't do any better amongst a clump of java moss. :|