Best way to plant a plant!

[Barday]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if there was a "best way" to plant a plant.

Sorry for so many questions ) ..........I've had real plants in all my aquariums since the beginning, I see no point in buying fakes . I've had success with a few, but others just fall appart. I was just about to go crazy and buy loads of plants to make my tank a bit more hevily planted , but before I do, and end up killing them all I wanted to see if I was doing anything wrong!

Is it best to plant in the little black pots they come in, to take the pots off, or to take the pots and wool off?

Also How deep should I be planting them. So far I try to at least cover up the wool or the pot, is this too deep? Too shallow?

Thanks for any advice

 

[babyfish]

You may like to think about buying your plants online from greenline aquatics or java.....

green line do an economy set of plants which are ideal for finding out what will grow in your conditions... simply see what is still growing at the end of about 2 months and then buy more of them if you need to.

Take the plant pots and the rock wool off the plants.... trim the roots back to about an inch... remove any dead or damaged leaves and plant.

 

[Da_Oz]

How much light you got??
How hard is your water??
What is your PH??
What is the bottom surface??
How deep is the Bottom surface??
What is your water temp??
What kind of fish??

 

[Barday]

How much light you got?? 1 x 30w ( I want another bulb but I really dont know how this will fit in the hood)
How hard is your water?? I haven't measured it for a while because I've run out of test kits but last time I checkedit was pretty hard
What is your PH?? 8
What is the bottom surface?? Gravel
How deep is the Bottom surface??About 2 ins
What is your water temp?? 84 (raised for ICH but usually 79)
What kind of fish?? in my sig (the bottom one)

 

[konrad05]

the 30W is your biggest problem, unless you have a 10 gallon tank, then I think you have a stocking problem

I would take it one step at a time, upgrade the lighting, then other things to see what works best for your plants. For the potted plants, I remove the plastic then some of the wool, don't cut the roots and try not to cut any leaves unless they're completely dead for the plants are going to try to adapt to your water conditions and stress won't help.

HTH

 

[Barday]

Thanks Konrad - It's a 30 Gall tank. I'm not sure I can sort out the lighting, The hood will only fit one lamp in it, so unless I can get a 90w bulb i'm pretty much out of luck with the lighting problem! I'm gonna check it out tonight and try to figure out a way to adapt it. I might go to the LFS and see if they have anything to allow 2 or 3 bulbs.

 

[flash]

Is it essential to remove the wool?

I bought some really fine grass like plants and the wool is what's holding it together... remove it and it'd be a floating plant not what i was aiming for.

Seriously, will the wool contaminate my water at all?

Ta