Too much? Too little?

[Sunny]

Hi! Since we are getting a brand new 10 gallon today we have been debating how many plants to put into it. My husband is voting for less, I am voting for more. Is there such a thing as too many or too few, reasonably speaking?

What about live plants vs. artificial?

 

[anonapersona]

$ vs time vs algae

You have to balance the money vs time vs algae issues.

It is best to plant the tank heavily, add lights and CO2, do not add fish for a few weeks, then add some algae eaters (shrimp and otos) but no food, then add fish and fish food. Takes about a month or more. This will get you started with no algae at all.

As you add less plants or add fish too soon, you get more algae issues. If you have poor lighting or too much you may have algae issues.

But, if you plant heavily, pretty quickly you will be trimming plants and so that might be seen as money wasted.

So, how cheap are you? If you are patient, and frugal, you might want a moderatly lit, no CO2, soil based tank. You will probably work through some algae issues but it is a low maintainence approach.

 

[Sunny]

I guess I'll have to really check our pet stores out. I was planning on medium gravel for the tank, which is what the book I have suggested. I didn't realize that we'd have to wait this long to get the fish, but I want to do it right. Is it advisable to add new plants to the aquarium after it is established and has fish in it?
What about artificial plants? This book I have is saying that the real looking artificial plants can eventually accumulate algae. What do you think?

 

[Captain Hook]

Artificial plants are the easiest when it comes to maintenance and look pretty good. Real plants cannot be beat for realism and health of the tank.

Lighting and substrate (gravel, sand, etc.) are important when it comes to plants. It will be good to decide these things but I guess you must first decide if you want live plants.

Either type can get algae on them by the way...not just artificial. If you get enough real plants at the start you can begin adding fish right away.

 

[Sunny]

What about cycling? I just learnt about this on another thread. Okay, I am so new here that may sound completely dumb, but I don't understand all the steps. Most materials just say: get the tank, set it up, get gravel and plants and add fish. With cycling it sounds a lot more complicated than that. Please bear with me, this is my first aqaurium.

 

[djlen]

Sunny -
Here's a link that will help quite a bit:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/articles.htm
This site is like a bible for many of us in a number of areas.
If you scroll down you'll see a page on setting up a planted tank.
I suggest you read the others as other questions come up.
And bookmark the page for future reference.

Many of us use a substrate call Flourite, by SeaChem. It's expensive, but can be mixed with cheaper gravel and have pretty much the same affect. If you don't want to spend the money for it, just check it out for size of the pieces of gravel and buy something similar. It's a good size for plants.

You want to plant heavily, give them a chance to get growing and then add fish. The fish will produce ammonia and nitrItes, but the plants, if you plant heavily, will use them for food, thereby protecting the fish(just a couple of fish to start in a 10 gal.). We call this instant cycling.

Len

 

[happychem]

It's pretty easy to pack a 10g with plants, and relatively cheap. Heck, how close are you to Houston? I'm sure that next time anona's throwing out handfulls of stem plants she could send some your way. Not that I'd put the words in her mouth, I just noticed that you're both from texas and folks around here are always really awesome about helping each other with plants. Sorry if I overstepped anona.

Read as much as you can, Chuck's site is definitely gospel and has lots of invaluable resources. Without that calculator, I'd have to figure amounts out myself!

It's definitely a $ vs. time and effort issue. Although a 10g is really cheap to set up. A single bag of fluorite will go a long way. Else just some filter sand (about 2-3mm diameter) is dirt cheap or free if you ask the right people (quarry).

A single 2L bottle of yeast CO2 is plenty for CO2. Hmmmm, Tom was right, maybe we are a little plant crazy on this board.

Decide how much time and effort you want to invest. Then add lighting accordingly. Post back with what you've decided, along with hardware specs, and you'll find tons of suggestions about how to proceed.

 

[Sunny]

Hi, Guys! Thanks for the info! For now we got the following items in the tank and it looks perfect I think. We bought a large chunk of driftwood which looks like a mountain with holes and nooks for the fish to go into. Then we got two pretty medium small sized rocks and pebbles, and about 4 bunches of different real underwater plants. The tank looks more or less full and the only thing it is missing is fish. There's only a small frog living in it now.

I saw something that caught my eye in Wal Mart the other day. They had 3-4 dry Lily bulbs and it says on the package that you just drop them into the tank, they root themselves and will eventually produce flowers on the surface. Have you ever had experience with them or is this a gimmick?

Happychem, we live closer to Dallas, but have a lot of relatives around Houston.

 

[Starry]

Sunny - Those "lilies" are quite neat, especially for beginners. Not all of them will sprout, but a few of them should. They grow very fast and very large, but die back within a few months and go dormant. They usually don't resprout after that unless they got really good care and good fertilization while growing. They're usually one of two different types of plants - Aponogetons or Tiger lotus. The tiger lotus is like a water lily, but likely won't flower unless you have an open tank. The Aponogetons easily and often send up flower stalks, though the flowers aren't very showy.

 

[slvrcvc]

what a coincidence I bought 5-6 of those dry bulbs of Apogenten at walmart yesterday to try them on my son's 10gallon.

I already see 3 of the 6 sprouting in 1 day! we'll just see how they turn out. If the other 3 bulbs don't sprout within 4-5days take them out so they don't end up rotting in the tank. At least thats what I plan to do.


there is another thread on this subject at

here