Basic Set Up

[JonesyJ666]

Whats the bascis set up for plants? By that i mean, so i need to put fertilazer in the tank for the plants? if so what kind? i'm as a loss on how to provide them with the food they require

 

[carflo647]

I do not know much because I got a lot of snails in my tank once cos of plants so I recommend you to only have 2 if you have a 10 gallon if you have a 20 gallon you can have 4 and so on...........keep the plants in the little pot they come in and then after about 2 or 3 days after they get used to the water take them out of the pot and put the plant in the gravel (bottom of your tank)like you would with a flower and soil and leave it to grow.i don't know about all the special stuff but I do know that there is some special gravel that you can use to help the plants grow. I hoped I helped

 

[sawickib]

Whats the size of your tank? DO you want low tech plants that just need light? Do you want to have planted plants?

Low tech you could get some driftwood or rocks and attach java fern, anubis and java moss to it with fishing line or string. Could also get banana plants which you bury a little bit but not all they way or it will die, java fern needs its roots to be completely free.

You could have more high tech plants and get specialized plant gravel like eco-complete, florite, or floramax, I think you need 1" or 3" of gravel for plants i cant remember. You can also get C02 fertilizer tablets, and liquid iron and magnesium for food for plants, or go high tech and add C02 in your tank through gas. (for more advanced aquarist)

As far as snails go when you need them i suggest some neritess snails, they dont eat plants, stay small, but lay eggs that only hatch in saltwater so you will find little sesame seeds all over the tank in a couple months.

As far as leaving plants in pots you can do that, but i wouldnt, id just remove them and let their root system naturally grow into your aquarium, the plastic pot it comes in can cause you problems later, with looking un-asthmatically pleasing, or blocking other plants.

For lighting i would use a normal florescent aquarium plant bulbs, 6500k spectrum plus.

Think thats all i can add, and all i know, please someone correct me on whatever im wrong on.

 

[508]

Sand or gravel, light and possibly bottled fertilizer. Nothing else you really need, liquid carbon is an option but not necessary. There are loads of nice low light plants out there which do not take much knowledge or effort to grow. With higher lighting, you need to start thinking about co2 as well. So in a high light enviornment you need have pressurized carbon, with a medium light level liquid carbon should be ok. Obviously, higher lighting also allows you to get plants which you otherwise wouldn't be able to, especially carpeting plants which most generally don't do very well in a low light environment.
 
What sort of lighting setup have you got? And what sized tank?
 
And I disagree about what Carflo said with the snails, if you use bleach solution and wash thoroughly there won't be any snails or other unwelcome guests. And that's a really guideline to use, two amazon swords aren't going to fill up an aquarium like two pygmy chain swords..

 

[sawickib]

O lol didnt see the snail comment, you shouldn get overrun at all by snails if you inspect and clean the plants before adding, and you definitely should add more than just 2 plants. And sand also works fine, you really dont need plant gravel for most, you can do 1" of plant gravel on the bottom and sand or whatever other substrate you want on top of that i believe.

 

[JonesyJ666]

ive got a 6ft x 2ft x 2ft fish tank with sand as my substrate. I have resent got a co2 set up as well, i dont want really picky plants. maybe ones that just low to medium work.
 
i see so many places selling fertilizer but just dont know...... is co2 classed as fertilizer? also readying that the best way is being plant fertilizer and lining the bottom fo the tank with this then putting the sustrate on top.
 
just would like to know where or what to do

 

[sawickib]

Well c02 can be in a tablet form, or liquid, or gas, or you can use a c02 diffuser.

 

[daizeUK]

ive got a 6ft x 2ft x 2ft fish tank with sand as my substrate. I have resent got a co2 set up as well, i dont want really picky plants. maybe ones that just low to medium work.
 
i see so many places selling fertilizer but just dont know...... is co2 classed as fertilizer? also readying that the best way is being plant fertilizer and lining the bottom fo the tank with this then putting the sustrate on top.
 
just would like to know where or what to do

You have a CO2 setup so you really need to be adding the correct fertilizers. Plants assemble nutrients like an assembly line in order to create chlorophyll and grow, starting with carbon then nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium and other trace elements, more or less in that order. Then they use light energy as an energy source to combine the nutrients together, a bit like pressing the accelerator pedal in a car - the more light, the faster the assembly line will go and the more nutrients are needed.

Read more about it here http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/298133-back-to-basics/ as a basic starting guide.

So your CO2 setup will provide the carbon and now you need a fertilizer that provides all the rest. You can either buy a liquid all-in-one fert (make sure it contains nitrate and phosphate as many of them don't) however for a tank of your size it would work out far cheaper to buy ferts as individual packs of dry salts and dose them yourself (this is what I do).

You can get a planting substrate such as Tropica that goes under your sand substrate (depending on which country you live in) but it's not crucial. The important thing is to ensure there are enough nutrients available in the water column. Even if you enrich the substrate you will still need to dose ferts.

For easy plants you can have a look here for a starting list http/www.tropica.com/en/plants/difficulty/easy.aspx