Going with live plants after 3 months

sly2kusa

sly2kusa

Lover of Esox
Jul 25, 2006
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Just would like to get some input as I am a newbie at the hobby. I started off with plastic plants, but would like to remove them and go with live ones. The considerations here I know are the CO2 and also the Nitrogen exchange.

My tank was cycled at the end of July, but has had a few hits as of late from a run of meds that was being used (Ich and Antibotics). I'm preparing to come down off of these this Friday, and was wondering about the Pros/Cons of removing the plastics, and go with live plants (is this a good idea? What ones would be easy to start off with until I understand how to care for them properly? etc...).

I have a 90g tank with 2 Emperor 400's and a couple of extra air pumps in there currently, but that is all.

Any ideas or recommendations would be great.


Thanks
 
air pumps are no good for plants. It removes the co2 from the water.

Plants are a bit more complicated as you have to dose macro and micro nutrients. You need to play around with your dose until you stop getting algae but your plants grow.

It's worth it but theres still a lot of work you need to do.
 
Yes I've heard that any kind of surface agitation es no bueno for plants in a Fresh Water system.

I think I am going to invest the $300 or so dollars on a full blown CO2 system, and go with a powerhead towards the bottom to keep things circulating. I've heard that while it doesn't do anything for discouraging parasites and bacteria/fungi it does alleviate the need for alot of worry over your Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate levels.
 
There are many low-light plants that don't require C02 or fertilizers (beyond daily feedings of fish food). Low lighting in your case sly would mean 90-135 watts of fluorescent light over your 90 gallon tank.

Easy low-light plants that don't really require supplementation of anything are:

Anubias nana
Java ferns (there are several kinds)
Java moss
Cryptocoryn wendtii 'green'

Other possibilities: Hygrophila siamensis 53B, water sprite
 
Ms.Bubbles said:
There are many low-light plants that don't require C02 or fertilizers (beyond daily feedings of fish food). Low lighting in your case sly would mean 90-135 watts of fluorescent light over your 90 gallon tank.

Easy low-light plants that don't really require supplementation of anything are:

Anubias nana
Java ferns (there are several kinds)
Java moss
Cryptocoryn wendtii 'green'

Other possibilities: Hygrophila siamensis 53B, water sprite
Click to expand...


Thank you Bubbles! That was the other thing that I had been told (that I was gonna need more light), but it sounds like these should do the trick. Will they give the same parameters benefits of those in a full blown CO2 system?
 
reiverix said:
How much lighting do you actually have on your tank just now?
Click to expand...
yes, the need for extra CO2 comes when you have high light (lots of light equals more photosynthesis). If not, the added CO2 is not going to be used and may end up suffocating fish.
 
Great questions guys - unfortunately all I know is that I have one long Florescent bulb and the wattage??? Well - I'm going to have to see if I can get some specs because I cannot see anything on the bulb itself that tells me this, and there was nothing in the packaging initially when I got it (I checked that first because I wanted to estimate backery backup power for it from my UPS).

Now - with that in mind - is this single bulb going to be good enough for the plants that Ms. Bubbles recommend? Also - how salt tolerant are these species of plants? I plan to use 1tsp of salt per 10g of water to hopefully aid in both the discouraging of potential parasites/bacterial, and also just to aid the gill function of my fishies.
 
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Also - I just spoke with the guy down at the LFS and he said that I would need a Full Spectrum light to go with live plants (and that the Flourescent bulb in there now will do no good).
 
I'm no pro with plants, but I'd be willing to bet that the fluorescent you have is more than capable of keeping at least some java ferns/moss alive. The sales dude sounds like he's just trying to score some commission off ya! Whether or not you need a new set of lights will likely depend on how ambitious you want to be with your choices of plants. So really, it's your call-- how challenging do you want to make this? lol.

Head over to http://www.plantgeek.net and browse their library of plant profiles-- they'll tell you about all the different requirements each plant needs. When I started out, I wanted to ease myself into plant keeping, so I just searched around for every plant that was labelled as being easy to care for, and had low light requirements. I wrote their common names and species names on a big list, and then hit the shops just to see what was available in my area. From that point, it was pretty easy to figure out what I actually needed to keep the tank healthy-- I had a nice short list of plants, and knew all of their requirements. Since I stuck with plants that only needed a low wattage, I was able to stick with the lights that came with my tanks, and I have no need for CO2 systems. If you want more of a challenge, and want to keep some of the more extravagant plants out there, then by all means go for it-- my point is, though, that with careful planning and arming yourself with knowledge, you will save yourself a lot of money by buying only what you need, and not what the sales person wants you to think you need.

ETA: I think I have all of the plants Ms. Bubbles reccommended, actually, and I'm running a ten gallon. Like I said, I don't use CO2, and my light is a single 15 watt fluorescent strip bulb. The plants also appear to be salt tolerant, or at least none of them were harmed when I used salt to cure an ich outbreak.
 
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