buying plants on-line

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Here's pics of my moss that I super glued to rocks that came in today
 

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It won't float of it's own accord. It will sink. You can use a cork or airline tubing to make it float.
Thanks again. :) I don't really know how I will use the stuff yet. I MAY use it in patches as ground cover which would be good for any plant eating type bottom feeders. I also MAY glue to my fake tree trunk an patches but considering it gets to 4 inches that might not be the best idea.

I'm sure, especially when I find out what is in 'mystery package', I will have many more questions.

I just took chance on flame moss from Amazon. Cousin of java moss. Came in beautiful and green. I took mine and separated into 8. Then glued with gorilla super glue gell onto individual river rocks. Then spread rocks throughout tank
I worried about using straight super glue so got some Seachem Flourish Glue. Probably the same stuff but I feel safer considering my lack of experience with live plants.
 
I felt same bout super glue gel but was highly recommend by aquarium folk online and has worked well for my java ferns glued to rocks in the past. But always better to be on the safe side
 
LOL! Of course another question... ;)

Once the plants ship this week I'll be breaking down and scrubbing the tank all the way down to replacing substrate and air lines. Hmmm, I wonder if tank deco, and under gravel plates and risers, are dish washer safe... I say the dish washer part tongue in cheek. ;)

Anyway the tank will be without fish while it cycles. It will have nothing but substrate, decorations and plants. Should I pick up some plant food/fertilizer? This is the plant list:
1 Anubias
2 Java Ferns
2 Crypt Wendtii Green
2 Myrio Green
1 Java Moss Portion Cup

Plus 5 others that I don't yet know what will be.

If I should feed the plants are there any recommendation as to a product? For stem plants I was thinking of putting some fish food pellets in the substrate by the roots. I'm thinking that this would disperse and give the stem plants food while also breaking down and creating ammonia for the bacteria during cycling.

In today's world the thought of putting something in the substrate intended to rot to speed up a tank cycle may be off the wall. It comes from my old school origins. We would bury dead feeder goldfish in the substrate to feed the forming bacteria.
 
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I'd wash ur deco and filter with just hot water and let dry. No soap. As for plant firt I use api liquid firtilizer at a half dose every week. If u put plant substrate you won't need nothing else. If u go with sand or gravel then get u sum root tabs and put near your rooted plants. For the tank cycling I'd buy 3 or 4 zebra dannios and let em live in the tank till tank is fully cycled. It will help speed the process. Not sure bout putting dead fish under substrate
 
LOL! Of course another question... ;)



Anyway the tank will be without fish while it cycles. It will have nothing but substrate, decorations and plants. Should I pick up some plant food/fertilizer? This is the plant list:
1 Anubias
2 Java Ferns
2 Crypt Wendtii Green
2 Myrio Green
1 Java Moss Portion Cup

Plus 5 others that I don't yet know what will be.

Most of those plants will absorb the nutrients they need from the water column, via their roots and leaves. So they benefit from using a liquid fertiliser. The exception to that is the the one I've bolded, the crypt Wendtii. There are lots of varieties of crypts, but while they're pretty easy plants and great for beginners, they can also be greedy root feeders, so they really appreciate having a root tab added under them every now and then. Will grow faster and better if they get a root tab.

I wouldn't use fish food in place of root tabs. For one thing, root tabs will have minerals and things that plants need that aren't in fish food. For another, they slowly release their nutrients into the substrate over time, so the plant has food it can use over 1-3 months or so. It wouldn't work that way with fish food (or dead fish...), which will break down and rot much faster, affecting water parameters and then the plant not having that food that it would have with a root tab.

Just a quick warning, there's a well known thing called "crypt melt". Crypts are generally easy, but sometimes they seem to sulk when moved or added to a new tank, and can take some time to re-establish themselves. If a crypt plant goes through this, it drops all it's leaves and seems to melt back to nothing. A lot of folks then think the plant is dead, but that's a mistake! Crypts grow from roots. If this happens to you, keep the roots, and the leaves will grow back! I went through this when I tore down my big tank. I had some massive bunches of crypts that I'd grown from roots from a much older tank, and I moved some to one tank, one to another. The one tank they were fine, the other one, they went through massive crypt melt after being moved, and melted back to nothing but roots. But they've all put out new leaves now and are growing well again. :)

Another warning - don't cheap out and buy dodgy looking cheap root tabs online. Use a fish-related brand name you can trust, like seachem, flourish, tetra even make some decent plant products. I cheaped out once and bought a dodgy bunch of root tabs from a no-name Chinese seller on amazon, and regretted it when they released a lot of crap into the water and shot my nitites sky high for weeks. Took a long time of large daily water changes and combing through the sand to remove all these tiny yellow balls (since the gelantine capsules dissolve so fast) to rectify it. So stick with known companies for ferts.
 
Thanks for all the info! :)

BTW, putting food/dead fish in the substrate wasn't really meant to feed plants but to quicken the nitrogen cycle. Way back when (think 1980s) it was a fairly common practice to bury dead feed goldfish in the substrate to 'feed' the new bacteria.
 
Thanks for all the info! :)

BTW, putting food/dead fish in the substrate wasn't really meant to feed plants but to quicken the nitrogen cycle. Way back when (think 1980s) it was a fairly common practice to bury dead feed goldfish in the substrate to 'feed' the new bacteria.
Wow! Sounds pretty gross and messy, lol, but hey, at least with a dead fish, it's at least not stressing out cheap hardy "disposable" fish often used by people to do a fish-in cycle, like adding some zebra danios to a new tank to cycle it before adding their planned fish.
 
Wow! Sounds pretty gross and messy, lol, but hey, at least with a dead fish, it's at least not stressing out cheap hardy "disposable" fish often used by people to do a fish-in cycle, like adding some zebra danios to a new tank to cycle it before adding their planned fish.
Just gross as to handling the dead fish. Not messy as the fish are buried and never seen again. Since it proved effective in the past I'd do again but I have no source for dead feeders. This also involved having already 'live' substrate to seed the tank. You would put a little live substrate around each buried fish. I picked up some API Quick Start and mayhaps that will help. I also got a chunk of lava rock called an 'EcoBio-Stone' that is supposed to be 'seeded' with bacteria spores.

I've looked at zebra danios and they are sort of cool and easy to keep. I may add some but not until the tank is at least partly cycled. If I DO get some they won't be temporary.
 
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This also involved having already 'live' substrate to seed the tank. You would put a little live substrate around each buried fish.

How do you mean, live substrate? Like, stuff taken from an established tank so it's already got nitrifying bacteria on it?
 
How do you mean, live substrate? Like, stuff taken from an established tank so it's already got nitrifying bacteria on it?
Yes, stuff taken from an established tank. When I lived near Cleveland Ohio and Ft. Worth Texas I was fortunate to have aquatic stores that would supply both dead feeders and live substrate if you purchased a tank from them. Nothing even close to that level in Sheridan Wyoming. :( While it may not be a proper term I call it live substrate as it is live due to the bacteria. Think about it... Especially when going strictly under gravel filtration the health of the substrate controls the health of the tank. If the substrate is not live with bacteria the tank is not going to be healthy. LOL! I guess, thinking of human organs, I'd consider the substrate the liver.
 
Sigh! This will very much point out my lack of knowledge as to live plants. ;)

My plant bundles have been shipped and I did the dangerous thing of having a thought. I'm sure that we all 'float' a bag of new fish to allow to acclimate differences of the water temperatures. While I can't really see a reason why it would matter, if the plant packaging allows, would it be good to also acclimate the plant temperatures?
 
Sigh! This will very much point out my lack of knowledge as to live plants. ;)

My plant bundles have been shipped and I did the dangerous thing of having a thought. I'm sure that we all 'float' a bag of new fish to allow to acclimate differences of the water temperatures. While I can't really see a reason why it would matter, if the plant packaging allows, would it be good to also acclimate the plant temperatures?
No need to
 
Welp, plants are supposed to be here tomorrow. Let's see how long it takes me to kill them. ;) Tank is broken down and cleaned. New substrate is in and about to add enough water for the under gravel filtration to work.
 

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