Thinking about giving some live plants a try

[donttaptheglass]

I am thinking about trying out some of the simpler live plants in my tank just to give it a go without going into too much depth (read: expense) of extra equipment.

Looking through here, it seems that Java moss, Java ferns and Anubias is the way to go for this first trial.

Anyone care to look through my fish stock and see which of these might have problems with the plants (or vice versa).

Planning in the near future to change my painfully bright white gravel to black Tahitian Moon Sand. Anything I need to mix with the sand to help the plants, and if so, is it still black to maintain the color I'm looking for?

Just looking for suggestions as I haven't decided that I'm going to do it yet.

 

[nitrous]

if you have the funds you can go for flourite by seachem but it you want just an easy not into too much depth like you said you can just do regular sand and some fertilizers and what kind of lights do you have?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

If starting with low light plnts, then regular gravel is just fine. No need for plant gravel, unless you are going to fully outfit the tank with higher lighting plants and heavy root feeder plants like swords. Java moss attaches to driftwood and rock, so no need for gravel there. Same with java ferns, just attach to rocks or driftwood. Anubias I believe can be planted or tied. Anacharis is planted, but no special requirements there, as it pulls it's food from the water column.

I just have regular aquarium gravel in my 26G, and the plants I have in it is java moss, L. repens, and clover. I also have a couple banana plants and a marimo ball in there. And I can't forget the hornwort either. So if you are going to just start with the basics, stay with what you have for now. The current gravel in the tank will have plenty of nutrients. Then later, if you decide on doing more with the tank, then maybe you can start looking into other substrates like Eco Complete, Flourite, etc.

As for sand, it's not really recommended for plants. But for the plants you mentioned, there's no real planting, so sand will do just fine. Most of those plants are tied to driftwood and rocks, etc. If you were interested in other plants, then maybe get some flourite and mix in with the moon sand, to help keep it from compacting too much. The only problem that I can see happening is the sand settling to the bottom leaving more flourite on top.

 

[Jchillin]

DTTG - I'm a low-light affecionado. I have quite a variety of plants in my 75 gal amazon tank. Take a look at my sig pics and see what can be done without all the bells and whistles.

As far as your existing inhabitants that are not well suited, the apple snail will more than likely chomp on them and your bottom dwellers may find your plants very comfy to lay down on.

 

[donttaptheglass]

As for lighting, I just have the one 48" 40W florescent bulb, trick is, with that bright white gravel I have in there the tank looks 5 times brighter than it probably should. Whether thats good or bad for the plants, I don't know, but with my living room blinds open at night you can land an airplane on our street by it. Part of the reason I want to change to the tahitian moon aside from the fact that I think the fish will stand out better against it.

Great pics JC, and after looking at them, I have two questions:

1) Did I see onions in there?
2) Did that Apple Snail split that tube in half??!!

I am for sure going to stick with the simple, low light, low maintenance plants when I do it. I am going to look through what they have at the LFS today (I have an Angel to take back that my first Angel did not appreciate me adding).

 

[Zagz]

After seeing all the beautiful planted tanks members here have, I also tried some liveplants. A lot of mine are floating, some are planted. So far so good. I think you will really like how your tanks look with plants.

 

[Purrbox]

You could also try Crypts. They are another great plant for low light tanks.

How big is the tank? Depending on the size of the tank, that 40W bulb may not be enough for even low light plants. If that's the case and you are fairly technically apt, you could try ODNO to get the lighting into acceptable ranges. It's a fairly inexpensive way to get more light over a tank with your current fixture.

If your snail is a Pomacea Bridgesii, it will leave the plants alone. Other types of Apple Snails will turn a planted tank into a buffet, making short work of it. Check out AppleSnail.Net to identify yours.

 

[BillD]

Substrate doesn't have to be black or white. Red Flint offers a nicely coloured natural pool filter/aquarium sand, as well as various sizes of gravel. The pool fiter sand and aquarium sand are the same grain size so are probably the same product. This is a natural coloured product, made up of various coloured stones. You can view their product line at http://www.redflint.com/products.htm . I have some of their gravel and like the overall colour very much. It is more likely to be readily available to you than it is to me.