planting for the wrong reasons?

[montanaxvi]

I have a 50 gal with a medium red tiger oscar, a jeweled cichlid, and a rhino pl*co. The tank is fairly new only having fish in it the last week or so. Currently I have no live plants in the tank, but I am noticing a ton of "crap" if you will floating around and sitting on the bottom looking nasty. I am hearing that Oscars can be messy fish to keep, but I do not know if this is from the pl*co, oscar or cichlid as all I ever see the pl*co doing is hanging out under a ledge or rock with a string of fecal matter coming from him. I heard from someone at work that planting my tank would help solve this problem as the plants will "eat" this stuff up as fertilizer thus keeping it from building up in the tank.

Current filtration system is a TopFin 610264 Power Filter 60, for aquariums up to 60 gallons

with an undergravel system that has one riser with nothing but an air stone on the side that the filter hangs in, and on the other side is a Penguin Powerhead Model 1140 - 300 gph

I am feeding the pl*co usually at night one or two algae disks dropped through a tube down to one of his favorite spots so the oscar and cichlid do not attack it as it falls, with the oscar and cichlid getting a small amount of cichlid pellets dropped in when I get up in the morning some of which float and some sink (the cichlid won't touch em, and the oscar only hits em as they fall so the floaters usually end up breaking up and getting sucked to the filter) and I will buy a dozen feeder guppies about once a week (the tank has only had fish in it for about a week now so I have only bought a dozen guppies to add in)

Am I looking to live plants for the wrong reasons? I like the way the artificial plants I have currently look, but I just notice lots of poo on the tank floor and want to do something about it. Also I know this is the plant forum, but does this filtration setup seem sufficient for what I have or is it not enough?

[RTR]

You can't have live rooted plants with an Oscar (which is also a Chiclid), as they will dig them up or just tear them up.

Do you vacuum the gravel at water changes?

You should not use an airstone and a powerhead on the same UG plate, if they are on different plates, it is okay.

What is the nitrate level in the tank and in your tap water? that is the easiest measure of whether your tank mantenance is sufficient.

[biogirl361]

it would be a lot cheaper and easier to just do the gravel vac more often. growing plants is expensive and takes a lot of effort (in my short experience). plus plants can end up making a lot of mess themselves (dead leaves, algae) especially when you are first getting started.

[montanaxvi]

PH 7.2
Ammonia is showing at less than .5-1 PPM according to the test kit I have, it is a very very faint yellow. I know no ammonia is the thing I need/want, but this is just a tiny tiny bit yellow so it does not fall into the 0 PPM but less than the .5-1 PPM-----any suggestions advice on this?
Nitrite (does not have Nitrate test solution in the kit) reads at .25 PPM.

anything else you need to know?

Also having the jewel and oscar in there, NO live plants are recommended at all? I will really have my work cut out for me on this one then if the pl*co and "beasts" will make that much of a mess, but i am up for it. I have yet to do a water change/gravel sweep because the fish have just only been in the tank about a week I will probably do one on Monday since I am off work.

Thanks for any input/info

[djlen]

As previously stated, drop the idea of keeping live plants with the fish you are keeping.
What they don't devour, they will rip up.
A weekly water change is a must for fish of the size and nature that you have.
I suggest that you go with plastic plants, and be prepared to 're-plant' on a daily basis, especially when the get larger.

Len

[daveedka]

Your tank sounds a little familiar to my set-up. plants will not be easy or do well as mentioned. there are some options, but they wouldn't be the best options for fertilizer use therefore as said plastic will probably work better. With a pleco and an Oscar both in there, you will have an inordiate amount of fish waste. as you have seen the pleco is a factory. Oscars are messy eaters, and can foul a tank very quickly but this is usually with uneaten food, not as much with solid waste. I would set the UGF up on reverse flow Powerheads with intake sponges. Revers flow UGF set-ups are far superior with messy tanks. the waste does not settle deeply into the substrate with reverse flow and therefore is easier to vacum out of the tank. Remember that large amounts of waste only produce large amounts of nitrate if you leave it in the tank to be processed. My tank is usually full of poop, but my nitrate levels stay very low due to maintenance and waste removal.
dave

[montanaxvi]

good advice, never thought of putting the powerhead on reverse flow to keep it from all settling and getting sucked deep down into the gravel. Will do some scouting at the lfs tomorrow since I am off work for a nice gravel vac, it really is a pain in the *** to drag out a 50 foot python just to vac and clean

[daveedka]

Here is a link to one of RTR's articles about UGF's and RFUG's etc. IT spells things out really well for these highly underrated filters.
http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/rtrrfug.shtml
Let me know if you have any questions.

IMHO the penguin reverse flow set-up is really nice, inexpensive and dependable. The only powerheads I use these days are penguins because of that. I use far more flow than most folks, because I like what a high flow RFUG does to my tank. it still creates almost no current, but little or nothing ever settles in the substrate. For a 50g tank I would go with two 1140's at least. (most people would reccomend 2 660's instead) the reverse flow kits are available from Big al's online.
HTH
Dave

[montanaxvi]

2 1140's?

I have a hard time fitting in anything except the riser with air stone on the side the filter hangs on. I was looking at changing out the PetsMart TopFin filter that is there now for a nice Penguin with BIO-Wheel, the tank is a bow front glass so the cross brace in the middle leaves me very little room on each side with just about enough for a nice sized filter and that is it. I really wanna keep this tank as nice as possible, I am loving this Oscar he is a BEAST I can hand feed him (for now) and he will crush anything that comes into the tank (besides the jewel cichlid)

It kind of upsets me that I cannot live plant it, but if I can set up a nice filtration system to help keep the pl*co and Oscar poo under control that would be great.

dave feel free to PM with any hints/tips/info I am off work tomorrow and heading to the lfs to see what they have in the way of filters. Or do you think the current filter is fine?