A Little Plant Advice?

[Spishkey]

i have just three plants in my aquarium at the moment, one is growing so fast, it is growing up out of the water, so i have sunk it back down with rocks but its still growing fast, can i trim it if it gets too big?


my other two plants seem to be going downhill. one very fast.
the leaves seem to be decaying and going see through??

(will try and get a pic shortly if needed)

i have a few small snails in there, could they be killing them or is it possibly something else?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes it's fine to trim the plant, as with garden/house plants different species require different pruning methods, if you can get pics of all the plants we can advise the best way to do this.

the one's that are suffering, do you know what species they are? if not can you post a pic.

a lot of the time lfs's sell houseplants as aquatic plants so you may well find that you've been sold plants that should never be under water.

 

[Spishkey]

am just uploading some to photobucket for you

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with MW.

Splishkey, you might also be interested the the bits we were just discussing with Simon, over in his "Does cycling kill off plants?" thread.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Spishkey]

i shall have a look at the other thread to thank you.


instead of making a seperate thread, may i also ask here, does anyone have any tips to look for/check for when buying a second hand tank? i need another one for fry and wondering what i should watch for?

whole view of the tank so you can see where the plants are positioned

plant that is doing well

two that are not so good, the big green one just has a few see through leaves the second spikey onehas lost over half its leaves and most of its red/pink colour.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the pink one belongs in a pot not a fishtank...... that's a houseplant

the other is a type of sword, you can try getting some root tab fertilisers which are like little pellets of fertiliser you push into the substrate under/near the plant.

the one that's doing well you can prune just by cutting down the stems, if you cut the stems in half you'll then have two plants, re-plant the cutting and that should grow too

 

[waterdrop]

The pink and white one doesn't look like an aquatic plant - perhaps a marsh or outdoor garden border plant. Does it stand up on its own out of water? Seems almost universal that LFS sell these non-aquatic plants...

Look that the used tank doesn't have calcium buildups on the glass that might be very hard to remove. Ask for some sort of guarantee for your money back if it leaks! Maybe measure the width and find out if you'll be able to fit a standard top and/or light if you will want to do this and if you have the time..

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Esfa]

if i was buying a 2nd hand tank, i'd want to see it filled up before i bought it.

 

[Spishkey]

i thought that pinky one looked like my dragon plant

what a swizz!!! may toddle off and complain next time i pass. so is it best to take that one out? the leaves flop when i take it out of the water not stand up, its really droopy and squidgy

i have three types of plant food here, two that you shove under the plant and one that you pour in the water. will give the plant a little cone this evening. how often do i feed it one?

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I currently have one plant I suspect might not be an aquatic one but the approach I'm taking is to leave it in there and frequently prune any outer dead leaves and watch for new shoots from the crown. I would take the same approach about the pink/white one and see how it goes. I don't know about the frequency of feeding under the roots, will be interested to see if you get any answers to that...