Do plants NEED fish (or ammonia) to live??

[dwarfbunnie]

Right now my 5 gallon is planted, cycled, and empty of fish... The betta that was in it died not too long ago. My ludwigia, anubias, and java fern didnt do too well without fish. The ludwigia totally rotted and the ferns and anubias got brown leaves. Do plants need fish to survive? Nothing has changed other than the fact that there's not a fish in there right now. The crypts in there are doing fine without fish for the time being.

In about a week I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks. Should I wrangle some fish from one of my other tanks to put in the 5 gallon for those 2 weeks? I don't want to come home to a horrible, rotting, mess of plants... The crypts in there are doing fine without fish.

I'll eventually get shrimp and a betta for this tank but I'm not sure I have time to buy some RCS, get them settled, then get a betta and make sure he's healthy before I leave. My fish sitter doesn't know much about fish, other than how to feed them, so he wouldn't know what to do if they got sick or something.

[barbuto]

I do believe that plants need nitrates and nutrients that they receive from fish or the waste of organic material. not 100% though.

[vidiots]

If you are adding fertilizers, no fish are needed. If your not adding fertilizers you'll need some sort of organic material like fish waste to break down to provide nutrients for the plants.

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[vidiots]

in the short term shouldn't be an issue, as plants can linger for weeks without nutrients before they start to decline.

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[dwarfbunnie]

I forgot about the fact that the whole point of fertilizer was to give extra nutrients. I ordered some flourish excel that should be coming any day now. If that were dosed to the plants while I'm gone they'll be fine? Just to be safe... :)

[vidiots]

Flourish Excel only provides a carbon source, you'd also probably have to dose the rest of the flourish line to go completely fishless for any lenght of time, such as Flourish Nitrogen, Flourish Phosphorus, Flourish Potassium and regular Flourish (Trace Elements). Of them these 4 would be more important than the Excel to dose.

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[jpappy789]

Vidiots is correct...you have some time before the plants become nutrient deficient assuming you got them in good condition.

Excel is basically liquid carbon and while it is an essential element for plants, they need others. You have your typical NPK nutrients which are known as macro nutrients because they are needed in large doses. There are also secondary macros (calcium, sulfur, magnesium, ect.) and traces that are needed in much smaller amounts but are still necessary for healthy plant growth. One thing to keep in mind though is that for a lot of aquarium plants, you can find these elements right within your own tap water.

If you are keeping basic low light plants you can probably get away with dosing flourish and flourish excel. Regular flourish is technically a trace fert but it also contains some NPK. Seachem also sells the macros in liquid form. If you have higher lighting and some more demanding plants, try www.aquariumfetilizers.com (http://www.aquariumfetilizers.com) for some bulk dry ferts. Its practically the same as dosing liquid ferts but its cheaper.

[dwarfbunnie]

would some shrimp add enough waste to feed the plants? By some I mean like 10-20.

EDIT: All my plants are for low light.

[vidiots]

Shrimp do create a small amount of waste, not usually as much as fish, asuming your talking about Red Cherry Shrimp or something similar. They are good to have in a plant tank as they also eat some algae.

[jpappy789]

I agree, shrimp dont add that much bioload.

Most likely you'll have to add some sort of fert even with fish.

[dwarfbunnie]

I guess there's no getting around moving some of my tetra into the 5 gallon. I was trying to avoid it cause they are just so FAST. :P Can't get to the store right now to get betta.

[jpappy789]

Your plants should be fine...they might not be in the best condition when you return but I imagine they would bounce right back. What do you have in terms of lighting? If you haven't already, put them on a timer for about 8 hours a day.

[psyche]

In the absence of fish a little fish food can tide the plants over.

[dwarfbunnie]

I know the light is over 5 watts but i don't remember how much over... I'll have to check that. And I have my tanks on timers to be on from 3pm to 10pm. Everyone's saying that the plants will be fine... but I'm still worried. My ludwigia rotted and was getting fuzzy.... I'm still afraid of that happening to other plants while I'm gone.

[jpappy789]

Any pics of the ludwigia?

[dwarfbunnie]

Nah, I already took it out of the tank.