Are freshwater plants easy to get up and going?
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Salt in general is not good for plants unless you are getting plants that are brackish water.
Live plants otherwise are not exactly difficult to get started but it can be expensive and time consuming. You will need to spend to have an appropriate light for growing the plants, plant food, and substrate, and then invest in plants.
Live plants otherwise are not exactly difficult to get started but it can be expensive and time consuming. You will need to spend to have an appropriate light for growing the plants, plant food, and substrate, and then invest in plants.
I have a 22 gallon tall hex tank, the filter is an aqua clear 50. The lighting is whatever came with the tank and as for fish, I have 6 danios, 1 glo-fish, 1 oranda, a cory cat, a whip tail cat and a snail.
Hmmm doesn't sound too bad. Why is it time consuming? I thought I read where the plants live off the wastes of teh fish, not true?
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Sorry I missed this post. I think the Oranda might cause problems with plants and not sure the light will support much. I might try some Penny Wort or Water Sprite but the rest probably wont last long.I have a 22 gallon tall hex tank, the filter is an aqua clear 50. The lighting is whatever came with the tank and as for fish, I have 6 danios, 1 glo-fish, 1 oranda, a cory cat, a whip tail cat and a snail.
Penny Wort or Sprite... got it, I will look in to it. Would a different light be better for the plants? Why would the oranda have an issue with the plants?
As for the salt, long story here:
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f13/hello-all-maybe-you-guys-can-6636.html
Short story: I bought a green spotted puffer that wasn't right for my community tank.
Too bad, he was pretty.
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Oh no, that part is absolutely true!Hmmm doesn't sound too bad. Why is it time consuming? I thought I read where the plants live off the wastes of teh fish, not true?
I'm just saying from my experience. I just converted a 10 gal tank into a planted tank, and it's taken a lot of time for me to research and learn about what substrate I needed, what plants I want, how to pick out a light, what fertilizer do I need, whether or not I need Co2 injection, then going out and buying all this stuff (which was kind of all over town).
It took me 2-3 hours to wash all the substrate, and then I had to plant, refill the tank, and so on.
It's been very time consuming, but it's also been very fun. :fish-in-bowl:
Yeah the salt was a one time thing, I shalln't be doing that again.
Are the plants bad for the gold fish, I take it?Hmmm so maybe when I start my tropical freshwater tank as you suggested, I will start it with plants?
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Off Topic - Archer, why are you opposed to putting aquarium salt in freshwater tanks? I've read from several different sites and talking to people in stores (not big box stores, I don't trust them) that a small amount of salt is benifitial for fresh water aquariums. I use it in all my tanks and haven't had any issues with it.
On Topic - Live plants can be fairly simple and cheap to grow (the floating moss balls Petco sells) to ridicoulously expensive and time consuming. You have to figure out how you want to do it. If you change your light bulb out to a bulb for growing plants you might be able to just put in a moss ball and have it grow. Or maybe some floating plants like frogbit. They seem to grow pretty fast in my tank so they might be able to stay alive even with your fish eating them.
On Topic - Live plants can be fairly simple and cheap to grow (the floating moss balls Petco sells) to ridicoulously expensive and time consuming. You have to figure out how you want to do it. If you change your light bulb out to a bulb for growing plants you might be able to just put in a moss ball and have it grow. Or maybe some floating plants like frogbit. They seem to grow pretty fast in my tank so they might be able to stay alive even with your fish eating them.
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Aquarium salt hurt plants and inverts, and I only use it to treat rather than for therapeutic uses. If the fish are fine without it.. then I dont use it. I dont get fancy with my tank. If I had salt in my tank and ich appeared, I would either have to add more salt or decrease salt to interrupt the osmosis pressure to pop the ich cysts.
Stock lights are not usually the right color spectrum anyway. You will need a fixture that can hold 5000K - 10,000K color spectrum bulbs and more watts. Ive noticed when I first grew water sprite, they just grew and died and grew and died because not enough light were hitting them, and new plants just spawned from the dead leaves, it was a never ending cycle. They never reached more than 3 inches.
Try Java fern or Anubias Nana. These plants are immune to goldfish.
Stock lights are not usually the right color spectrum anyway. You will need a fixture that can hold 5000K - 10,000K color spectrum bulbs and more watts. Ive noticed when I first grew water sprite, they just grew and died and grew and died because not enough light were hitting them, and new plants just spawned from the dead leaves, it was a never ending cycle. They never reached more than 3 inches.
Try Java fern or Anubias Nana. These plants are immune to goldfish.
Can I buy those bulbs for the lid I already have, do you know? And if I DO get a different light, what plants would you guys suggest then?
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Can I buy those bulbs for the lid I already have, do you know? And if I DO get a different light, what plants would you guys suggest then?
It would be difficult to get bulbs that fit, but you can try to look.
Plants you can grow would depend on the certain amount of watts you have. The more watts, the more variety you can grow.
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