Annoying Situation! Please Help!

[mrsblack10272]

Ok so about a month ago I changed my several year old gravel to sand! YIPEEE! As most of you probably remember.

For the last year or so I have been having silk plants in my tank instead of the unrealistic plastic ones. Till last week it was so far so good ... since then its gone down hill. My plants have started to fall apart and I have taken most of them out for now but left in my caves and rocks etc.
I have been looking at prices of silk plants today and as I am sure you'll agree its ridiculous! The only cheap ones I can find have massive post and packaging costs.

So no.1 All my fake plants fall apart and break. Material is coming off the silk ones I have now and the fish were trying to eat it. I don't want this to happen

No.2 the price of having to replace plants after a while and get more for other reasons (e.g. restocking with timid fish) is getting too pricey.

No.3 I am bored of an unatural looking fish tank!
No. 4 I am also fed up of water quality fluctuations and have been told live plants help with nitrates/nitrites?

Soooo there lies my problem. How can I change to live plants with the minimal amount of effort? (I have an illness which prevents me from doing much work)

Is there any way of adding the 'plant substrate' without having to remove all sand first!? Can I maybe take out the fish and shift sand to the side with some water still in and then put it down before placing sand back ontop?

Also would live plants damage my heater if they got too close and vise versa?
Thankyou so much x

 

[onidrase]

I've never used live plants, but when I was interested in them, the LFS (that's the part where you probably don't want to take my word for it) said you don't really need special substrate for the plants, but it does help them grow. They said to just make sure the roots are nice in deep into the substrate and it'll do work from there. But advise from a person who uses live plants is probably better than my word.

Now what I came to comment for, n regards to worrying about the heater harming the plants, I have a feeling it might, but you can invest in a heater guard, they cost like 4 dollars from what I've seen, it keeps fish and plants from touching the heater, while still heating the aquarium. It's kinda like putting a cage over it.

 

[Noahs ark6]

If your not going to have realy heavily planted tank, you dont realy need plant substrate, just some good root tabs and fertiliser like tropica plant nutrition plus. Start of with some easy to care for plants (see what stock your lfs has and go from there)

 

[BigbruiserAl]

You dont need to add anything to have a basic well planted tank, here mine before and after in 6 months, pure sand and no tabs or liquids added

 

[Brett_dale]

as said, no need for special substrate but in theory it does help with growth (just trying that on a new tank)
This was my first planted, sand substrate and after the first month of dosing with liquid ferts i stopped, was fine ever since with weekly water changes.

plants in there are
java moss tied to a smallish root
amazon sword
cabomba (slowly removing as it has a habbit of melting on me, grows fast and nice but keeps breaking of in sections and blocking my filters taking the larger pieces that broke of sees them re-grow fast not sure if this is a allelopathic reaction)
water wisteria (grows crazy needs trimming to keep it more bushy n lush or it can get leggy)
java fern (planted in substrate and growing well/producing runners)
pygmy chain sword planted a few small grass like things and theve spread out with lovely little tufts all over the tank.

 

[mrsblack10272]

Wow thanks for all the advice and great pictures!
I have to say, its SUCH a relief that i don't have to take all the sand out again!!

So my next question is this, what's the best fast growing plant that doesn't need 'special substrate stuff'

Thanks x

P.s. 'Brent_dale' just out of interest what fish do you in have in the tank picture you posted?
P.p.s. I know there are articles on the internet about this but how do you attatch a plant to a log/rock/terracotta cave?
What would be the best type of plants to do this with?

And what fish should i stay away from regarding eating plants?!

 

[eaglesaquarium]

"Best" has a bunch of definitions and it depends who you ask what answer you will get.


Anacharis needs no special substrate. (Heck, it will grow even if it is allowed to merely float around the top of the tank.) Most stem plants will be faster growing than the broader leaf varieties.


I just trimmed my anacharis and went from having a few long stems to have a handful of bushy stems (just bundled them together. These grow pretty much no matter what you do. They may melt back a bit before they get acclimated, but they will come back with a vengeance. I am not sure there is actually a way to kill the stuff! It will grow in just about any conditions, without any special anything from you. Just make sure it gets about 4-6 hours of light a day and voila... live plant.

 

[mrsblack10272]

Ooh thanks. I assume Anacharis are background plants? What are your thoughts about java fern? Are they a foreground plant and how do they grow. Apparently kuhlis loaches like java fern a lot

Oh nd what sort of prices am I looking at for plantation these days? Thank you x

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Prices will vary according to size of plant, and vendor.

Anacharis can be placed anywhere in your tank. It is the bunch of stuff to the extreme left in my sig pic. Java fern is the plant in the middle of the plant (the taller one).


Java fern usually prefers to be attached to something else in the tank. Mine is superglued to a piece of slate and a little sand is kind of kicked over it. It is very undemanding. It propogates by producing "plantlets" on the end of the leaves. It is kind of strange to see, but it will do this! This means that if you are worried about price you can merely buy one and wait for it to produce offspring. It will take some patience, but they will come and you can then cut them off and attach them to something else.

Anacharis can also be propogated. Just cut the stem, and bury the cut off part into the substrate and it too will grow.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Eagles, isn't that elodea on the left? Looks just like my elodea. Grows like a weed (literally) and is very undemanding. I also have pennywort which is very easy and grows fast. (middle of photo), I don't do anything to these plants except trim them when they start to get out of control.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

It goes by both names.

Linky

What's in a name? Plenty. In the case of discussing the plants here, the common name "anacharis" used to be a valid genus name for some of these plants; and is a moniker still often used. The correct scientific name for most species of "anacharis" is Elodea ("Ell-oh-dee-ah"). Egeria is another recent (1961) erected genus for a similar plant (the one of most interest to aquarists) that produces 2 to 4 flowers (Elodea only 1), that have large and deeply white petals (versus small and colorless), and are pollinated by insects (elodeas is done via water).