Soil/substrate

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Thanks for the help thought much appreciated, people at lfs aren't much help so this is pretty much the only place I can find info and other online sources
 
That is a good question , but I ve seen many forum members post pics of plants that were semi aquatic . Just a guess but was it from a large chain store?
Besides reading info on here, the best thing you can do is find a good local fish store & figure out which employee knows there stuff & use them exclusively for helping you. I prob went to half a dozen before finding a good one, it s an hour drive but I won t go anywhere else. I walked in with a lonnnnggg list of questions & said, ok- who has the patience for a beginner. PM me if you want some key questions to ask. Also, do you have a liquid test kit?
 
Yeah Petco I asked what care they should be given and they just pretty much said it didn't need anything other then light.

I've had fish for a few years now but didn't realize how overwhelming plants were some harder to care for then fish. But yes I do everything seems to be fine but my ph which is high but that's how all the water is in my area
 
My ph runs high,too.
Yeah, plants add a whole new dimension but I watch them as much as I watch the fish.
 
Depending on the plants that you end up with, for lo/med lite you ll need to add Co2(liquid Excell) daily, ferts like Flourish & iron weekly and root tabs at least bimonthly for plants like swords. If you read any & all of Rivercats posts, you ll be way ahead of the game in no time. She s wicked good with planted.
 
Alright I'll keep that in mind and thanks for the help again ill pm you if I have any questions if that's ok. But what are root tabs?
 
They re like hard little fertilizer 'pills' that you push into the substrate. They do slow release. I use the Seachem brand.
 
I'll confirm the plants with the white striping in the leaves aren't a fully aquatic plant. They may hang on for a while in your tank but they will eventually die. I had the same problem with mondo grass that I bought from petsmart. I'm not sure why they market them as fully aquatic but it really bugs me.

For some nice low maintenance plants try java fern, anubias, bolbitis, or some cryptocorynes. The crypts will need root fertilization.
 
Yeah I've been reading for the past 15 minutes that none of them are aquatic plants but bog. I bought them as "combo plants" didn't look at the actual names. But one of them is "lucky bamboo" a house plant. The others I forgot the names but not aquatic plants. It bothers me because I asked and they said they'd be fine fully submerged and lowly lit but to find out all of them will rot within a few months and that's why everything I tried with them was unsuccessful
 
One word of advice, take chain store employees' advice with a grain of salt. Even if they seem to have a handle on things, they still don't necessarily have enough experience with the different particular plants to know the difference.

Some of them get away with labeling semi-aquatic/bog plants as fully aquatic because they can survive submerged for quite a while. On the farm lists I can say that dracaena (that striped ribbon plant), lucky bamboo, and spathiphyllum (brazilian sword?) are all listed as terrarium/bog plants and are separate from the actual aquatic plants.
 
Don't put anubius rhizome under substrate or u will kill it. Best put it on driftwood. With elasticband.

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