Plant Questions

[Mongrel]

I have a few questions on Live Plants. I see other tanks with live plants and they look beautiful. I would like to try to grow live plants.

1) What type of lighting would I need?
2) What would the temp. need to be in my tank or does it not matter or does it depend on the plant.
3) What is a good place to start to do some research?
4) What type of plant would be a good beginner plant for a 55 gallon?
5) Would I need any additional equipment besides what is in my tank? (go to my site to see what I have)

Mongrel's Place

 

[OrionGirl]

1) What type of lighting would I need?
Depends on what kind of plants you want. Many options, from 1.5 watts/gallon and up. Low light plants such as anubias, java fern, african fern, some crypts, and java moss will do well in low light conditions.

2) What would the temp. need to be in my tank or does it not matter or does it depend on the plant.
Tropical temp for most commonly available plants. Some will thrive in lower or higher temps, but most will be okay anywher from 75-80.

3) What is a good place to start to do some research?
Lots of places--what kind of research are you talking about? Buying resources? Substrate guidelines? Spend some time looking through this forum--lots of good advice from the people here. And, some great links for other reliable resources.

4) What type of plant would be a good beginner plant for a 55 gallon?
Anubias. Several varieties, bright green leaves. Attaches to wood or rock, grows slowly in low light levels, easily cleaned, attractive.

5) Would I need any additional equipment besides what is in my tank? (go to my site to see what I have)
Besides a light upgrade for higher level plants, CO2 and flourite substrate. Problem with plants is you upgrade the lights, so CO2 is the limiting factor for growth. So you add CO2, and then you need more ferts. Then you need more light, more CO2....It's a spiral. You need to decide how much you want to devote to plants. Planted tank with fish, or a fish tank with some plants?

 

[djlen]

ABSOLUTELY!!!!
Len

 

[aquatix02]

to put it simply, aquatic plants require the following:

1. quality and bright lighting.
2. proper substrate with high cation ability and root fertilizer
3. carbon dioxide gases
4. liquid trace elements

in general, if you purchase good quality flourescent lights (for eg. Arcadia brand, 1-2W/gallon) meant for tropical freshwater tanks, use a 3-inch depth of 1-2mm sized gravel substrate mixed with flourite (plant growing substrate), add fertilizer tablets into the substrate and add liquid fertilizer in small amounts daily (during a fish feeding time), most plants would be able to do well.

however as pointed out by Oriongirl, if you want a real overgrowth of plants in the tank, CO2 will be essential as its effects are very obvious within a short period of time. as CO2 units are expensive, DIY sources or an increase in the number of fishes in the tank may also help.

EDIT: as for plants, Anubias and Java Fern are the common and popular hardy plants. if you're planning on starting a planted tank, its often better to only use 3-5 species of plants otherwise it may look too cluttered.

 

[telecubby]

only caution with flourite is it has alot of abrasive rusty bits of iron essential to plants whereas if you use a cleaning magnet 2 fast & it comes apart the magnet that falls into the substrate will pick up shards of iron that can scratch your glass if not careful ! most magnets float now for that very reason note to self : get a float magnet !! :dance2: :rant:

 

[kveeti]

3) What is a good place to start to do some research?

Do you mean research on picking plants?

Tropica:
http://www.tropica.com/default.asp

Great place, except the plant pictures are drawings. Still good for research. Depending on what you’re after, you can pick a list of plants from there and then look them up elsewhere for more/other details, i.e. I make lists of all “easy” and “lower” light plants.

Interactive Water Garden:
http://www.aquahobby.com/e_garden.php

Real photos and peoples’ experiences. Unfortunately, not a huge inventory.