# Plants-- minimum effort try?



## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I've kept fish for a long time and tried plants for a while--once was enough. Now I'm thinking of trying it again. Just to drive myself crazy, perhaps?  
I have a fresh 70 gallon tank ready to do something. Fish yet to be decided but leaning to New World cichlids for this. Water will be hard with a PH 7.5-8.0 Thinking a plant or two might be something to try but I really do not want it to become a job in itself. Can someone give a me a short rundown on what a minimum plant try might be? Not wanting to start full blown but just maybe one. I will be DIY lighting and I can arrange it where I want so tell me how far off I might be if I try this idea. I'm thinking of maybe a plant in some type planter/pot on a bit of builtup ground under a light. The ground, etc. is not a question right now but I'm wondering if one or more of the mini-twist CFL lights would get me enough of the right type light for any of the common plants. I can do seperate lighting if needed for longer time for the plant. This would give me a light end and dark end. I really don't want the normal brightly lit tank but might like to try the plant. You can see this is not a real well thought out thing so any real specific info will help. Would it work, what plants, what plant soil, etc. would be really helpfull.

Thanks. :fish: :?


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## gnomemagi (Jun 13, 2009)

Try some java fern - stick it on a piece of driftwood and the roots will grow into that. They are very low light plants (1 watt per gallon would probably suffice) and not very picky when it comes to nutrients, although a liquid fertilizer would probably be appreciated.

If you manage to kill a java fern, then you can rest comfortably knowing plants are not for you.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

*PfunMo*

The best TTanganyikan tanks I've owned have at least one planted section.

I love crypts or other rooting plants and I use nylon pillow stuffing to make a "planter". I take the nylon floss, flatten it out, pile fluorite into it, plant the plants then use a bit of fishing line to take the edges of the floss and bring it up into a bowl.

For the DIY lighting, you make spot lights (or buy CFL spotlights) and shine them right down onto the planted section. The rest of your substrate (in my case aragonite) is pile up against the floss to fully conceal the material. I prefer material that gases and water can pass through freely as it's healthiest for the plant.

Side benefit, you end up with movable crypts without crypt melt!!!

Interested?


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## TKC747 (Dec 5, 2008)

Hi thanks for all that info about breaking up slate in another thread, I'll try to return the favor here. Fogelhund, one of the administrators is well known for planted aquaria with africans. He even has Vallisneria in his tanks. His secret is basically to plant *Alot* of plants all over the place so the mbuna get tired ot digging things up. If you lose one planting, you'll have several more as back up. That's how I understand he has success with planted tanks


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Thanks to all of you. It is great to have a place where we can share information. While most of us admit we don't know everything, there sure is a pile of good info here on the net if we can just get across what we need and find the correct person to answer. Sometimes it just takes several people saying it different ways to make the old light come on.  
I like the idea of filter floss for planting. Got a tub full of that. Still have quite a few questions on planting but I'm getting some good websites for plant choices. While the tank is vacant is a good time to play with the things I don't know much about. I'm finding plants are not too expensive so I may just go with working a few in while I wait for inspired thinking on some decor items. The hard alkaline water is here and I don't plan to challenge that so finding the correct fish and plants is needed. I will have a good amount of rock and wood so there will most likely be a period of stained water to go through. I'm sure I need to do some searching for plants to meet the water. I'm living in new teritory so I'm still finding my way with what rocks and wood are to be found. Kind of a good excuse to go out on a treasure hunt. Cool enough now that I don't come back feeling like a piece of toast.... :roll:


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Number6 said:


> I love crypts or other rooting plants and I use nylon pillow stuffing to make a "planter". I take the nylon floss, flatten it out, pile fluorite into it, plant the plants then use a bit of fishing line to take the edges of the floss and bring it up into a bowl.


I'm going to have to try this. :thumb:


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## jeaninel (Nov 1, 2009)

Anubias are practically indestructible and they are a really easy, low light plant and usually left alone by fish. I have Anubias Nana attached to my driftwood.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Anubias seem to be coming up as a choice for me also. How do you attach them to your driftwood? I have a large piece that I've hollowed out and made holes through. The reason for the holes was to let more water flow under and around to help keep grung collections lower and to let fish in/out if they wish. Now I'm thinking of fitting some plants through the wood. Any suggestions there? :-?


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## Samson (Nov 22, 2009)

I kept vallisneria in the tank but the jakobfrebergi male did not like it so much.
Every morning I had to push them back to the sand and eventually they died away. Jake 1, me 0.


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## jeaninel (Nov 1, 2009)

PfunMo said:


> Anubias seem to be coming up as a choice for me also. How do you attach them to your driftwood? I have a large piece that I've hollowed out and made holes through. The reason for the holes was to let more water flow under and around to help keep grung collections lower and to let fish in/out if they wish. Now I'm thinking of fitting some plants through the wood. Any suggestions there? :-?


I tied mine onto the driftwood using cotton thread. Eventually the roots attach themselves to the wood and the thread will disintegrate.


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## Floridagirl (Jan 10, 2008)

I, too, have a black thumb. So far, Anubias and Java fern have lasted for 6+ months in my tank... 1 watt per gallon.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Thanks for that info. I will go with a few to see what happens. Meanwhile can someone explain the watts per gallon theory a bit? I know we are talking how much light gets to the plants but that would seem to have so many variables that a rule setting it by tank volume would be pretty useless. It seems like one bulb near a plant might give it enough light even if the rest of the tank is dark or am I missing something here? Is there some way the tank volume changes the amount any given plant receives other than the distance from light bulb to plant? In the dark, here.. :-?


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## gnomemagi (Jun 13, 2009)

It is a fairly broad rule. I'd lump it in the same category as the 1" of fish per gallon rule.

Tank depth, how the well the light gets into the tank in the first place (reflectors, etc.), and plant position all play a role, as do numerous other factors. So you are right there.

A two light four foot light strip with T8 bulbs would do fine for a general low light plant setup on a 90g. I would start there. You can find a basic one at Lowes/Home Depot for $10, then $4 or so per bulb. Cheap and it'll get you started. Incadescents are old technoloy and for low light you don't have to worry about t5/HO Flourescent/metal halides.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

gnomemagi said:


> It is a fairly broad rule. I'd lump it in the same category as the 1" of fish per gallon rule.


 so would I... it has more holes than swiss cheese as far as I can see.

It really breaks down when you aren't planning on lighting the entire tank from end to end. 
In your case, where you don't want a bright tank, that "rule" would just block you from identifying what your plants really need.


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## lmhollist (Aug 7, 2009)

PfunMo said:


> Anubias seem to be coming up as a choice for me also. How do you attach them to your driftwood? I have a large piece that I've hollowed out and made holes through. The reason for the holes was to let more water flow under and around to help keep grung collections lower and to let fish in/out if they wish. Now I'm thinking of fitting some plants through the wood. Any suggestions there? :-?


I'm planning on trying that too (have a few pieces of driftwood with some natural knots and holes and such). I think there's more than a few ways to go about it ... wedge the plants into the holes, tie them in, or stuff them in there with rock wool to hold them in place (you know, that nasty stuff that comes with the plants when you buy them from the store?). When I bought a planted piece of driftwood from Petsmart I noticed that they had basically drilled a hole into the wood, put the plant in and filled the remaining space with some rock wool ... don't know if that was the best method or not ... my fish destroyed the plant less than a month after I got it, but at least the rock wool stayed in and wasn't all over the tank.

I've been told (if you do choose to tie your plants down) to either use a lightweight fishing line (or just clear thread) or cotton thread without any dyes in it. At least with a lightweight fishing line you don't have to worry about it disintigrating and polluting your tank.

Anyway, I also have extremely hard, alkaline water, and if you don't include destruction by way of fish, my plants have all done extremely well. So far I've had the most luck with Amazon swords and other broad leaved plants. Also seen some excellent growth with "onion" plants, wisteria and banana plants (they grow these cool lily pads). I haven't had any luck at all with any sort of red or purple-hued plant, I don't think my lighting is strong enough.

As far as other plants I've tried, hornwort (kind of messy) and anachris have both done well, but it seems I have to trim them constantly to keep them from taking over my tanks. I tried duckweed once to create a sort of low light, shimmery look but I couldn't maintain it with a decent surface agitation, it just got sucked up into my filter (at least it was free from the landscape store ... apparently some people consider it a nuisance  ).

Good luck with your plants! So far (and I'm going on 6+ months with the majority of my plants), I haven't had to do much to keep stuff growing, fish poo seems to cover what they need for nutrition in my tanks. Maybe I'm wrong for not being too serious about caring for my plants, but they seem to be flourishing without much meddling.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Imhollist and I are on something of the same page. I have the wood and I like to keep it somewhat as I've seen in lakes on the bottom. I wanted more holes in the wood so went to spots that were natural defects in the wood and enlarged them rather than simply drilling holes which look like holes drilled.  I also wanted to remove as much interior wood as possible to cut the leaching and make the floating less of a problem. Quess I'm about to get enough of the questions worked out to start. Then we can learn as I go. Good thing there is an ample supply of plants. :lol:


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## lmhollist (Aug 7, 2009)

Just a thought. I purchased driftwood from a local guy and he used a power washer to spray out the dead, rotty stuff. May be a good way to blast out some of the interior wood to create a type of hollow log or branch. How will you get it to stay down? Seems like even with soaking it would be too light to rest on the bottom.


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## BoostedX (Mar 1, 2009)

To prevent the wood from leaching just boil it. That takes all the "tannies" that make your water that color. If you have carbon in your filters it will also take the tannies out.

I just got back into plants. I went to a fish auction and some guy was set up with a decent amount of plants. I told him i have killed everything i have owned (plant wise). He hooked me up with some plants that the said i couldnt kill.. So time will tell. Right now they are getting used to the tank so they do not look that good at all. But they should come back here in a week or two.


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## webgirl74 (Jan 30, 2009)

I'm glad someone started this thread cause I've been wanting to give plants a try again myself. i figure I'll start out small and then try some plants in my 55 gallon if all goes OK. So I've got a standard 20 gallon that I'm wanting to set up for a pair of Kribs. Want some rockwork/wood and low maintainance plants. Thinking of starting with Java fern/moss and see how that goes. I just have the stock light in the canopy, which just happens to be 1 watt per gallon. Should I switch that out to a special light tube? Or is that unnecessary with Java fern/moss, anubias, etc? And, I'm assuming that I only add plants after the tank is fully cycled. Best to put the plants in first and then add fish, or the other way around? Sorry to hijack this post!


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Just be aware that plants can introduce snails and other pests into your tank. If that bothers you, be sure to treat and possibly quarantine the plants before adding them.

In my first go-around with plants, I added three untreated java ferns to my tank and ended up with pond snails and some type of unidentified round worm. The worms will die off or get eaten, but the snails arenâ€™t going to be so easy to get rid of.


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