Planted tanks

F

Faramir

The twit from over the pond.
Nov 20, 1998
738
0
0
Chesterfield UK
I'm not putting this in the Plants section because it's not a question about plants per se.

I've always planted my tanks, unless this is impossible or undesirable - large cichlids, African rift lake environments. It improves water quality and beautifies the tank. Granted, they can be buggers to keep alive, but I've never begrudged the odd fiver or so for new plants if a particular species doesn't make it (Hygrophila would grow in the bog, I reckon!)

I get the impression that most folk don't have planted tanks - or use plastic plants. Is this correct? Do other UK posters wonder if this is a UK/US difference, as planted tanks seem to be the norm over here, or always used to be?
 
All of mine are planted. Even the small Tanganyikan tanks have an Anubia or 2 and a few Crypts. I think most people that don't have planted tanks don't realize the benefits to the fish or simply think it's too much work.
 
I put in my vote for the "too much work" belief. I've only ever had plastic plants - don't need high light output, fertilizer or pruning sheers. I'll also admit to ignorance in the live plant realm. I don't really know how much work is involoved, though I suspect that given the appropriate species, I could continue with my regular flourescent lighting and no fertilizing which would result in less pruning maintenance. I plan on upgrading my 55 to a 90 next year and am going to research this because I do believe live plants can be beneficial to the fish and are more beautiful!
 
I've got my 29g planted. I don't find the plants to be any extra work and to my mind it just 'looks right'.

FWIW - I've also got a rather heavily planted apartment, so I guess plants in the fish tank just seemed a logical extension.
 
I used to get the odd Amazon Sword or 2 to kill, but otherwise used plastic for years. I just started planting my tanks in June. And, like beviking, I was (and still sort of am) ignorant of the finer details. When I started researching for planting, I knew I did not want to have to pay $ for retrofitting my old canopy or go to CO2 or do too much work. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, so obviously I opted for low light plants. I've always loved my fish but now I love my tanks, too. I would never go back to plastic.
 
2/3 of my current tanks are heavily planted. My malawi tank would be heavily planted too, cept we all know how many cichlids are around plants.
I consider myself pretty lazy, and yet I still keep a couple of heavily planted, high light, regularly fertillized, co2 injected plant tanks. After the initial startup, I find maintaining a plant tank is like maintaining a FO tank. Dose every other day with fertillizer and keep the water level up (due to evaporation from high lighting). The weekly maintanence is simliar with a FO tank. 40-50% water change and instead of a gravel vac, I just do a little bit of trimming. My 70 gallon plant tank takes about the same amount of time to maintain as my 66 gallon FO tank. One more thing, if you find that a high light setup is too high in maintanence, switch plants. Move from fast growing ones, to slower ones.

HTH
-Richer
 
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