Friend Told Me Not To Get Plants - Reasons True?!

[H2OGarden]

A friend told me to not get plants for my betta tank. She said ALL plants carry snails, and that her husband has lost every plant to them. She said even if you don't see them in the beginning, about a month later, they'll be a swarm of tiny snails at the bottom of your tank eating the stems of plants, which break off at the bottom and float to the top.

She said keeping a planted tank is really hard and expensive.

Is any of this true?

 

[angelfishlover]

Well if you decided to keep those very demanding plants then yes its expensive. But its not very expensive unless you decided to invest in things such as CO2. For me basic plant set up are substrate(If you get those plant soils then its better),root tabs and/or fertilizers and lighting that is at least 1watt per gallon. With CO2 it will be better as it can grow quickly.

Certain plants such as the Anubias and Java Fern are good plants to start out with Once plants have adapted to their environment,have fun plucking the plants as they start to overgrow the tank

About the snail problem,certain LFS have snails on their plants but some also do not have any snails on their plants. Look for LFS that has plants free of snails or you could get from local aquarists. Another way to solve the snail problem is to buy certain fishes that eat those snails. One problem is that some of these fishes can grew too big

 

[Khemul]

No. Your friend needs to figure out why her plants keep dying.

Snails can come in on plants. Even if you don't see them, the eggs may be attached. But unless you get very unlucky (ie: store is overrun by Cana or Marisa snails...which would just be weird since they wouldn't be able to keep plants long enough to sell them) the snails won't eat healthy plants.

All plants need is nutrients (which fish and water changes can supply) and lighting (which can be done very cheap).

 

[dundadundun]

it's hard to get plants without snails... that part is true. there are ways around that, but none are 100% foolproof as either the eggs aren't affected or too much can damage the plant and you're limited to what you can do.

however... it's pretty unlikely that the snails were their problem. typically your aquatic snails are going to be your cleanup crew and only eat dead or already dieing plant material. chances are their water and/or tank were not ideal for the plants they chose (or any plants for that matter) in the first place and they didn't know what to do to fix the situation. it's not that uncommon, actually. planted tanks are tough if you don't have the right info and resources. once you know what to do and where to go, it's easy peesy, baby.

expensive is relative as well. there are options and many of them are actually cheaper than what most folks would pay to have a tank without plants. for example; organic potting soil and play sand combined is much cheaper per volume than aquarium gravel from your LFS and it's a great substrate mix for rooted plants.

what your friend was experiencing sounds like issues at the root level. maybe her plants were planted too deep. maybe they were grown emergent and were transitioning, but when she saw all the leafs rot and float away she gave up or dug them out and threw them away. maybe she used inert soil with crypts, swords or vals and didn't have excess nutrients in the water column/didn't root feed/etc. and the results she got were inevitable since she didn't know. hard to say for sure, really without being there, testing, seeing, etc..

 

[NB_Aquatics]

Ask her what she is smoking...

 

[fshfanatic]

That is just plain ignorant. I have kept planted tanks for yrs and never had a snail problem. If you dip your plants you shouldnt have an issue.

 

[jpappy789]

Typical "pest" snails eat dead plant matter...and I like them for that reason.

The benefits of having plants FAR out way any actually negative hitchhikers you may encounter, IMO.

As dun said there are other more likely reasons your friend is experiencing this problem.

 

[H2OGarden]

Thank you guys!

I was feeling kinda down about this since I have been busily choosing plants, lights, soils, equipment, etc. for the past week. It was a letdown to think any planted tank would be doomed to snails no matter what.

I'll try to pass this info on to her. I just pray my tank turns out out all right.

 

[jpappy789]

IF snails become a nuisance (pretty much only visual, IMO) then there are simple ways to bait, trap and remove them manually.

 

[happypoet]

None of it is true. It can be tough to be 100% certain a plant is snail free, it's not impossible. Most kinds of snails that are found as hitch-hikers do NOT eat living, healthy plants. They will eat dying/dead leaves, which is just one of the many things they do that are good for the tank's ecology. Finally, if you stick to easy plants it is neither hard nor expensive. All of my tanks are planted healthily, and all of my tanks have stock lighting and I don't mess with CO2 or anything like that.