Plants for dummies?

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gimmethatfish

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Messages
138
Location
Michigan
Hi all.

I'm taking my first stab at a planted tank. I have 3 little plants in my 10g tank, but I wouldn't consider it "planted."

I went to my excellent LFS who recommended and sold me a number of plants and wrote some very good advice about them on a piece of paper which I promptly lost...

So I was hoping for some help. I will be setting up a 54 gallon corner bowfront tank. I have Caribsea eco-complete substrate as well as Caribsea instant aquarium peace river - small pebble/gravel. I have Seachem flourish which I used in my 10g. I am happy to dose carbon and iron as needed, but I'm not sure which I need or when. I have also looked into the DIY CO2 diffusers, which I may do eventually. I currently have a 65W 10K powercompact fluorescent tube which I need to replace - with what?

So my plants - anubias, java vern, amazon sword, brown cryptocorynes, a gigantic bunch of hornwort, and moneywort. I also have some unidentified thing which I will post a picture of.

Can anyone give me some general advice? The tank will have a school of danios from my 10g to start out with, but I will add more fish. I just have no idea what I'm supposed to do to trim/prune these things when necessary. Do you just cut them with scissors where you need to prune? Pull the leaves off? I know not to bury the anubias rhizome - should any of the rest not be buried? I felt like I was in a good place when I left the fish store, but now I feel lost and confused without my little piece of paper :(

img_2826500_0_112fcb0f7447c38804962e0bc2784dea.jpg
 
Some helpful tips.

Welcome to the dark side of the force Gimme. (planted tanks).
With a nice sized tank of 54g I suggest some real cost saving and effective options.
Look at Green Leaf Aquarium's PPS-Pro or EI Dry fertilizers. For $30 plus the cost of three nifty dosing bottles you can have good balanced nutrients. This pack would last you about a year. Next, DIY CO2 is a challenge on a tank that big. Hard to maintain a consistent ppm level that the plants can use more than the algae. Until you could go to a good pressurized system, you could dose liquid carbon daily. You can buy Metricide 14 by the gallon on Amazon for about $20. Many people use it with beautiful results in here.
You would dose about 1ml per 2-5 gal. each morning. It dissipates from the water in about 24hrs. A gallon on that size tank would last at least six months.
Next is light. This is the keystone of the planted tank. A 54g is pretty tall so you need to look at what plants you want to grow and get a strong enough light for them. I'll attach a couple of info links about lights. Good luck and enjoy the journey. Also, welcome to AA. OS.
Lighting an Aquarium with PAR instead of Watts
PAR vs Distance, T5, T12, PC - New Chart
 
Thanks so much OS for the advice and the links. I will definitely look into a pressurized CO2 system as well as the nutrients you suggested.

I built a styrofoam background with kind of a layered rock look, and I built in several plant ledges of varying heights, so really none of the plants except the very tallest really need to be on the bottom of the tank. I put little recesses in the ledges to hold a scoop of substrate in hopes that the little plants will be close up to the light.

I will probably be back with more questions. Thanks again!
 
There are a couple more things... first the plant in the picture is not an aquatic. It is a type of Palm that I can't think of the name right now. It can grow with it's roots in water but if the entire plant is submerged it will eventually rot and die. Unfortunately many fish stores sell these bog plants and don't list them as such.

Secondly if you buy Metricide 14 Day Solution as a carbon source which is a good idea as it is much cheaper you need to be aware it is twice the strength of Excel. You can use the Metricide 14 straight from the bottle at half the strength OS listed or you can dilute it at a 1:1 ratio with distilled or RO water and use it at the amounts OS listed.

As for pruning the Hornwort and Moneywort can be clipped at any height and the tops replanted. Swords and crypts have to be carefully pulled apart if desired. Crypts are generally easy to do but swords can be much harder. Java ferns will often grow new plantlets on old leaves which can be removed once there are adequate roots and attached in other places. Anubia's can be divided by cutting the rhizome being sure to have leaves and roots on each cut section.
 
Thanks so much for the great advice!

I was worried about that with the plant in the picture. I got most of my plants at the Best Fish Store EVER, but there is a smaller one right around the corner from me that I stopped at just to by some flake food, and these were in the planted tank for 99 cents each. Their fish don't seem to be that well taken care of (even a newbie like me can see it), but these plants looked really healthy and I figured it was only 3 bucks so no real loss.
 
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