Flowering Plants

[saltynay]

I am looking for some flowering plants for my 7.5 gallon tank, I don't want to bother with CO2 and light is provided by an arcpod and works out to around 2wpg plus the tank gets 4 hours of sunlight in the morning. I want to add some no fuss plant fertiliser as well to try and help it along. So far I have shortlisted

Aponogeton henkelianus
Bacopa australis
Echinodorus x. 'Ozelot'
Heteranthera zosterifolia
Nesaea pedicellata

 

[three-fingers]

Sagittaria subulata flowers very easily once the plants at a decent size, and is easy to grow without injecting CO2.
The flowers float on the surface of the water too:

Echinodorus species flower very easily for me too once the plants are at a decent size (took about a year of growing in my tank), but I don't have any pictures since they send stems up above the waters surface that bend and hit the lights in the hood before burning . When I routed them through a hole in the hood, they just seemed to dry out.

They might also completely take over a 7gal before they flower.

If you want to try something that sends up flower stems, put a second light further above the tank on the opposite side of the other light so it will grow further up.

 

[saltynay]

Thanks I think I will go with Sagittaria subulata and plant it spread across the aquarium so that its runners are allowed to fill in the gaps and trim the central area to make it appear grassy with sides growing longer. It will also be kept with some lucky bamboo which will only have the lower portion submerged and the leaves growing above and out of the tank. Fish are going to be 3-4 khuli loaches and a male betta hopefully it will be a nice thai style aquascape. What should I do on the fertiliser front and should I get some substrate fertiliser as well? Would eco-complete be good?

 

[three-fingers]

Sounds good, I had a lucky bamboo growing out of a tank like that before. Remember to put a light above it though, leaves go yellow after a while if you dont IME.

Fertiliser wise it's a case of either a)Tropica plant nutrition b)use seachem flourish+nitrogen+potassium+phosphate c) read up on EI and make your own very economical and flexible fertiliser from mixing dry powders, that you would dose like TPN+ (best option IMO).

http/www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm

Or you could go for any old fertiliser, that would provide trace elements, get a decent substrate that provides nitrogen and other nutrients (pond soil under sand is easiest/cheapest and what I would go for, loads of options though) then count on the fish waste, dead leaves and old fish food to decompose in the substrate and supply NPK.

If you go for a, b or c the substrate isnt too important as the plants will be able to get nutrients through the water, something like Akadama would be great (http/www.theplantedtank.co.uk/akadama.htm) but plain sand would be fine too.

 

[saltynay]

I think I will just use tropica plant nutrition then and perhaps some easycarbo if I happen to see it for cheap but may not.

 

[saltynay]

Can you re upload this pic
http/img181.imageshack.us/img181/3996/fulltss6.jpg

From this thread as I want to see how the lucky bamboo turned out.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=184932&hl=

 

[three-fingers]

Sure .

 

[saltynay]

Strange that pic wouldn't load last night but its doing fine even on the original link I sent. Did you grow the lucky bamboo out of the tank first in soil to a sufficient height to then put above the water line? or just stick it in and let it grow of its own accord?

 

[three-fingers]

Stick it in and let it grow of it's own accord.

The actual thick stem bit doesn't grow after they chop it, so you have to find one that's tall enough so that the leaves aren't submerged. It will then grow more leaves and get taller that way, with side shoots as well.

Last time I was there, Dobbies had taller ones just over 2' long too.