how to anchor

[Guest]

I have had a planted tank before but I have always had trouble. They would turn brown then green and so on. I THINK i have 20 watts(that's as much wattage as i could get for the size I needed!). I need to know how to anchor the plants because the ones that are just bunched together always fell apart and disinegrated!!! What do I do?

 

[Purrbox]

When buying bunched plants, remove any rubberbands or plant weights tying them together at the base. These will eventually cause the stems to rot if left on. Take each stem and individually push it into the substrate. You may have to replant a few times with particularly fine stems or rambunctious fish. Eventually they'll stay put long enough that they'll have a chance to grow roots and anchor themselves.

If you haven't already, you may want to read the stickies at the top of the forum. There's lots of great information in them that will give you a head start if you decide to keep plants again. My best advice is to plan out as much as possible in advance. It's much less frusterating than constantly figuring that you need something else and watching your plants deteriate while you wait for a new supply to arrive.

 

[malkore]

First off, do you even have enough light? It sounds like a lack of lighting for the plants you're trying to keep is the problem.

Waht size tank? 20watts of light.

When you get bunched plants with a metal band, or a rubber band, you have to remove that part and plant each stem separately. Specific plant species determines the spacing of the planted stems. But leaving it tied in a bunch will rot the stems and cause them to float up.

But I suspect a lack of adequate light is why they completely die/disintegrate.

 

[Guest]

I always kept the metal bands on the plants. Now I understand. I have a 20 gallon tank. How do I get more lighting? I tried to find a light bulb( a fish and plant one) that fit my aquarium but had a LOT of wattage. The problem I found was the a 24" bulb only has 20 watts!!!( it was either 20-25 watts..can't remember and I can't look at it cause it is in storage at the moment). There were no bulbs in my size with more wattage .

 

[malkore]

On a fluorescent bulb, every 12" of bulb is 10watts. Thus there's no 24" bulb that's 60 watts. The max is 20w rating.

Your options are to get a different light fixture with more bulbs, get a different light fixture that uses a higher output bulb (compact fluorescent), or rewire your fixture with a higher output ballast, and push more watts to the bulb, which makes it produce more light, but it burns out much faster (a 4x overdriven bulb needs replacing every 4-6 months).