Few Ideas Please?

[craigybaby37]

had my tropical tank set up for about 10 months now and would like to turn it more planted so fort i would ask some of you experts on some ideas od what i can do.....first off heres a picture of the tank as it is now

http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/cra...k22-8-07075.jpg

idealy i would like plants of all hights so the tank looks nice and filled and i would like to do it so both back corners of the tank are nice and dence and then i can make some kind of formation with the rocks that are already in the tank.

also just anohter little thing....if possible ide like relitivly easy to maintain plants which dont require a co2 pump in the tank.

thanks

 

[mlawson]

If you want dense stem plants at the back, it's quite difficult to achieve that without CO2, high-light and fertilisers. First of all you may want to change the substrate to something like the Tropica or tetra plant substrate covered with a layer of quartz, or something completely different like Eco-complete, a good substrate in a low-light, non-CO2 tank is very important.

 

[craigybaby37]

ah rite i see....well as for lighting i have a spare 36 watt t5 light starte i can use to get the lighting up.....when i meen dence i dont realy meen so dence my fish cant get in....i would like sufficient space between the plants so the rams can get in them.

do you have any plant suggestions i could possibly go for???

 

[DevUK]

Swords and Crypts might work, but are really "bushy" like you're after, you really get that with stemp plants mostly. Tough one

 

[mlawson]

ah rite i see....well as for lighting i have a spare 36 watt t5 light starte i can use to get the lighting up.....when i meen dence i dont realy meen so dence my fish cant get in....i would like sufficient space between the plants so the rams can get in them.

do you have any plant suggestions i could possibly go for???

If you add additional lighting, then you'll need additional CO2. You could try some easy stem plants such as Hygrophila polysperma, although this is not that bushy.

 

[mlawson]

Edit: Sorry for the triple post

I'm not sure why this keeps happening

 

[mlawson]

ah rite i see....well as for lighting i have a spare 36 watt t5 light starte i can use to get the lighting up.....when i meen dence i dont realy meen so dence my fish cant get in....i would like sufficient space between the plants so the rams can get in them.

do you have any plant suggestions i could possibly go for???

If you add additional lighting, then you'll need additional CO2. You could try some easy stem plants such as Hygrophila polysperma, although this is not that bushy.

 

[craigybaby37]

ok thanks for your help people ill have to see what kind of plants are at my lfs at the weekend.

 

[DevUK]

You could always add Seachem Flourish Excel instead of CO2. Works out more expensive in the long run, but its simply dosing a liquid from a bottle. I use it at the moment (though I'm about to go pressurised )