Another suggestion solicitation!

ChicoRaton

ChicoRaton

Se?or Member
Jun 5, 2004
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Idaho, USA
www.hazy8.com
Hello. I just got my new 55 gal set up, and am making a general community tank. I was going to stock it with african cichlids, but even though I love them, I know I'd be dissatisfied with that soon enough... I always walk through a pet store and go "OO that'd be cool in my tank!" so I'm setting it up as a peaceful semi-planted community. My question is this... my main goals in adding plants are (in descending order of importance)
1) remove nitrates, phosphates, etc from water to slow algaiegrowth and promote fish health
2) look good
3)... actually that's about it.

I'm looking for suggestions of plants that accomplish both of the above, i.e. not a few bunches of floating hornwort. that accomplishes 1 quite well but fails miserably on 2. My substrate is plain ol aquarium gravel, lighting is fairly low, I believe it's a 60 watt 50/50 bulb. so about 1wpg.

Also, I was thinking of putting some sort of "centerpiece" plant in a clay pot filled with a good substrate like laterite and gravel. how do you think this would work?

Thanks in advance,
--chico
 
Well, the potted idea will probably work fine, so long as the pot is big enough to accomodate the growing roots. I remember reading an article at the krib about a guy who did it in all his tanks. Sorry I can't be more specific, it was almost a year ago.

I think that stem plants, like hygrophilia sp., may be the solution to your quandry. A friend of mine grew some sunset hygro. quite successfully in her 20g with 24W NO lighting, so about 1wpg.

I'm not sure exactly how well they will do at being nutrient hogs in that lighting. Obviously the lower the light = slower growth = less nutrients.

However, if you can set up a barrier at the top of your tank, say with airline tubing and suction cups. You could cover part of the top with floating plants like salvinia or duckweed to act as nutrient sinks and have some slow growth plants like java fern/moss in the tank to look nice.
 
Chico,

You have low light and a relatively deep(surface to substrate) tank. This will call for almost entirely low light plants such as Java Fern and Moss, Anubia, and Cryptocoryne.
Happy's suggestion for Hygro is a good one, I guess, but they will not use nutrients very well at that lighting IME. I tried growing them in a 55 with 80 watts(NO) and they didn't do particularly well. Kind of stringy and stunted looking.
The way to keep algae down is to balance the plant mass, fish load and nutrients. The right combination will grow plants and starve algae. Many of us dose N and P, hopefully in the right amounts to aid the plant growth. They are not your enemy in the fight against algae. Find out how much your plants need to grow well and no more, and you will have a relatively algae free aquarium.
CO2 injection would help, even at that light level.

Len
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll start with djlen's suggestions. I already have some java moss that is taking over my 10 gallon. I like happychem's suggestion of the barrier at the top of the tank. I'd never thought of that before. I was thinking about making a sump for my tank at some point, so I think whenever I get that done, I will make a planted refugium brightly lighted 14-18hrs/day and filled with hygro or something of the sort.

As for CO2, I never knew it would work in a tank with that low of lighting. I always thought you had to have some serious 24-bulb- hood to get any effectiveness out of CO2. I'll have to put together a 2-liter bottle with yeast setup some time.

Thanks again for the suggestions, and I'll let you know when I get this all put together and growing.
 
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