Where to buy plants?

[Karackle]

Ok so this is probably a silly question but here goes:

How do people feel about buying plants from PetSmart or large chain petstores? I have a really nice LFS that is amazing and i've always gotten healthy fish and plants from them, the thing is, they mostly have plant species that cater to 20gallon+ tanks, but I am working on newly setting up my 5.5 gallon, and PetSmart has some smaller plants, better for a smaller tank. I've had bad luck with fish from big petstores in the past, should i worry about the plants? If I'm putting them in and letting the tank cycle for a while before I put in any fish, should i worry about getting plants from there? I'm not trying to badmouth PetSmarts, in fact the fish actually usually look pretty healthy at the one near me, I can't help taking a peak when I go in for Dog and Gecko supplies! But since I have the nice local family owned fish store, i like to go there for my fish supplies, but like I said, petsmart has some better plants for a small tank.

So....thoughts?

thanks!

 

[Purrbox]

The biggest problem with buying from PetSmart is getting plants that are actually still healthy. The second problem is that like most LFS they probably have some non aquatics mixed in with the aquatic plant. As long as you can buy healthy plants and know your plants well enough to avoid non aquatic plants, you should be fine buying from them.

Since you like your Mom and Pop store so much, you might be better off seeing if they can special order in some of the plants you are looking for. It's possible that they can get ahold of what you want, but there isn't enough demand to carry it on a regular basis.

 

[Karackle]

Hahaha....wow, I can't believe i didn't think of that! They've offered to special order me hoods and various random objects before! Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll check that option out first! But the plants do seem relatively healthy at the PetSmart...some of them anyway...i figure if i get there when they're recently delivered i'll have a better shot at healthy ones

But i'll check on special orders first! Again, thanks for the suggestion!!!

 

[squawkbert]

You will benefit by doing the research up front, deciding what plants you're interested in, then setting about sourcing them. Once you look into it, you will probably come to the conclusion that the majority of plants available at PetSmart are not suitable for small aquariums, require high light etc. All I would expect from PS, for a small planted tank, is some background stem plants. Boards like this, AC, APC etc. are frequently the best place to get a wide variety of foreground, midground and stem plants. Even with commonly (PS) available plants, you'll get more plant for less $ from people who are already growing them and hate to toss their clippings intot he trash.

Good places to find out what plants will fit in with what you have (with respect to lighting etc.): AquariumPlants.com Largest online sales / service site for the live aquarium plants & aquarium products community. Aqua Botanic Aquarium Plants Sales and Library PlantGeek.net - Plant Guide

 

[Karackle]

Great, thanks! I'll look into those sites when I eat my lunch later and see what I can find. My local PS actually DID have some nice foreground plants that looked healthy when I was there last week though (they had baby tears and another i forget the name of) which was why I asked the question. However, they're part of the "assorted potted plants" shipment and apparently they don't get the same things every week. So we'll see. I'll definitely do a little more research though and see what i think looks good! Thanks again!