To pot or not to Pot....here is a question

[yogias]

Hi all, I have taken the plunge and gone for real plants over fake, with limited success. The plants that i put in my angel tank have been all but devoured, so I have decided not to replace them! some of the plants in the Community tank have been eaten by my Silver Dollars, but they have left the majority alone. This brings me to my Discus tank....I have a variety of plants in there, some bought from LFS (potted) and some bought via Ebay (not potted, just weighted). Now the problem that I have is, is it better to leave the potted plants in their pots or remove them? I use sand as substrate in the Discus tank and im concerned that their will not be enough grip in the sand to hold the plats firm, even when they have established good root systems. My concern is mainly because with the un-potted plants, i have had occasions where they have been uprooted by the Discus. Is there a preference as to what you guys would do?

[mellowvision]

the pots kind of suck, the "rock wool" or fiberglass that they are packed in is a constant eyesore and can start to break down and break off... but you might consider a few other options if you decide to remove them from the pots:

1 repot in decent substrate and plant the whole pot... you could have little ceramic pots full of eco-complete or something... wouldn't allow much root growth.

2 try dwarf sag. nothing in my tank has roots quite like the dwarf sag. Yesterday I was weeding, and grabbed 3 or 4 leaves of the sag and pulled hard, the leaves pulled out of the plant before the root even budged. the stuff is an anchor.

[Plecosterone]

Plants anchor themselves very well in sand. When I try to pull mine out I have to do it very slowly and move them from side to side to make sure they don't break off. The roots systems spread out very well. Sand is an excellent substrate for plants IMO.

[Mgamer20o0]

i would take off the pots and the weight.