my tank and some questions.

[bchbm2022]

I have had my tank set up for a couple of months now. Its a 36 gallon bow front tank. It was converted from a saltwater to freshwater. Saltwater was too costly. I have a rena filstar xp1, for lighting i have a 65 watt 6500 k/10,000 k compact flourescent bulb, and a 65 watt actinic which i will be replacing with another 6500k/10,000k bulb. For substrate i have plain gravel with first layer pure laterite mixed in. I have a nice piece of mopani driftwood. My plants include a great Amazon Sword plant, an anubias barteri, as well as some anachris. My fish include 5 glow lite tetras, 5 von rio tetras, a very old black skirt tetra from my old tank, and a very old gold barb. Both the black skirt tetra and gold barb once had some partners but they have since died. I also have a peacock eel. And i have 2 emerald green cory cats. The eel used to be in my dad's 100 gallon tank but it was always gettin beat up by the other fish. I know they might go for smaller fish but i have been watching it and it hasnt harmed any of my smaller tetras. If sometime i find a fish missing with no other explanation, the eel will go back in my dad's tank.

On to my questions.
1. My amazon sword has runners with plantlets growing off. they are getting bigger and healthy looking roots. When will I be able to plant them and how do i go about getting them of the main plant? Do i just cut them or carefully pull them off?
2. Also, i really like stem plants like anachris and i want others like it to make like a jungle. What are some other fast growing, easy to care for plants like anachris.
3. Finally, what are some easy plants that make some ground cover? I know java moss can do that.

Oh i also dose with flourish and have root tabs in the substrate. I will be adding CO2 soon. So far my plants have been doing great and are very green except for one bunch of anachris i got from petsmart because it must not have been under the light.

[hamsterman]

1. can't help you =P
2. other fast growing easy to care for plants to make your tank look like a jungle can be: cabomba, myriophyllum, water wisteria, basically any vallisneria, many types of hygro., different types of ludwigia, bacopa, hornwort, and more I can't think of right now.

3. easy plants for groundcover maybe dwarf sagittaria?

[bchbm2022]

Thanx. Wisteria looks pretty cool. I know sometimes they have them at petco. I will only buy plants the day they get them in so they dont have time to kill them. Other than that I wont buy anything from petco ever again. Bad fish experiences. Thats where i got my Amazon Sword Plant and my Anubias. They were the best looking one there so i snatched them up before others could. I love planted tanks. Now i just need to get a few more so i can get my artificial plant out of there. I also think that the Von Rio Tetras are so cool. They remind me of Firefish because they have the yellow coloring on the head, then red in the back. Firefish were my favorite when i kept my saltwater tank.

[bchbm2022]

One thing that has been annoying me with this tank tho is the fact that when it was saltwater, some kind of algae or whateeve was growing in the tubing of my filter and i guess i didnt clean it out good enough, so now its all dying off, getting clogged in my filter and clouding up my tank. I have been gettin a lot out by cleaning the filter and it seems to be almost gone. I also tried using Waster Control by Nutrifin and it really seems to be helping clean it up also. The cloudiness really has gone down since i started using it. I wont post any pics until the cloudiness goes down. I also dont like the placement of my amazon sword plant but the roots have established themselves and i dont wanna pull it up and break the roots so its gonna stay. Maybe having some other plants around it will help make that spot look better. All the older leaves covered in diatoms are dying off and the brand new leaves are really green and good looking.

[rich311k]

1. Once they have a few leaves and roots you can pluck them off and plant them or give them away.

2. wisteria, lucens, cabomba, moneywort, pennywort, bacopa species, r. rotundifolia.

3. hair grass. I have it growing well in the same tank with 130 watts of light.

You can just uproot the sword and move it. They are tough plants it wont hurt it. Remove the old leaves don't leave them to rot. That plant is going to get huge so trim it a lot to keep it under control.

If you go the full 130 watts you will need CO2. By the way a 36 gallon planted tank is one of my favorite things.

[bchbm2022]

thanx. i was unsure about what to do with the plantlets on the runners. Alos, i know about trimming it al back. I did some research and found out just how big they get so I will definately be doing some trimming. I also do plan to get some CO2. Just waiting to get some money for christmas.