Getting Plants To Grow

[NoRp]

ive brought 11 plant bunches from ebay to cut a long story short they didnt send what i asked for and it took 2 weeks ( fishdeliverd or something like that dont go with them). anyways what i would like to know is the best way to get the plants to spread?
atm there wraped up in weights and spongy stuff? and i would like to get them to fill out the back of the tank
any ideas are great cheers NoRp

 

[ICEEGRL]

You need to take the weights and spogy stuff off. Plant the stems seperately instead of in tight bunches. The light needs to be able to get to the botoms too. By doing that your plants will look better and fill in more space.

 

[nicklfire]

Hey dude,

Yea remove the weight and the spongy stuff or else the plants are going to rot at the roots and die. Also notice that you got sand there, do you have a laterite or anything?? How big is your tank and how many WPG (watts per gallon) lighting are you using right now. And are you running CO2? These are all things you should have considered before buying the plants.. hopefully you were ready before buying them. We are here to help just let us know what's going on : )
If they dont have the proper environment to grow they wont

 

[NoRp]

its about 2.5 -3 wpg
i have no co2 system and no laterite
i only brought the plants coz they were cheap and i wanted lights on a bit more without getting the algae
maybe not all the plants will take but atleast some of them will
there is carbon in my external tho will that help?
and i plan on getting more mts for the substrate i think that will help in the long term also

 

[nry]

With that level of lighting CO2 would be beneficial, I'd also make sure you get some decent liquid fertiliser aswell, SeaChem products are good and cheap since you need little of it even though the bottle appears expensive. The Nutrafin yeast-based CO2 method is really cheap (eBay UK has them for £17 delivered), and would really help with the plant growth at your lighting level.

Many plants will grow well without a 'proper' substrate providing they get enough food, any plants that prefer food from the roots can be fed using fertiliser tablets that you push into the sand/gravel near the roots.

Carbon is one of those 'dodgy' questions....if you use it then it needs changed regularly otherwise it leaches stuff back into the water. For planted tanks it can also strip out much of the nutrients needed by the plants and it will take up the liquid plant fertiliser aswell. Personally I don't use it and if you want plants then you'd (in my opinion) be better to take it out: the plants will absorb loads of stuff when they grow and this is a better and more natural approach for helping keep the water clean.

What is the plastic tube held down by the ceramic tube?

 

[ICEEGRL]

For your light level, you really need co2. Have you thought of lowering the lighting a little? Under 2wpg doesn't need co2 as much. It would also slow the growth a little, and reduce the need for ferts. You could add plant tabs though. That would help your plants without having to put it in the water to maybe feed the algae.
With that lighting you really should have co2 and some kind of ferts.

Sorry. I wasn't much help, was I? I am still trying to figure some of this stuff out myself. .

Edit: I didn't copy. We posted at the same time... lol

 

[NoRp]

turns out the light in the right tank is only 1.5-2 wpg and my right tank is the one with the plants in
the tube through the plant pot is an air pump i stuck it in cause i saw some of the fish where gasping for air before i had the plants in.
tomorrow i plan on separating the plants from there bunches a little is there any tips to keeping them in the sand because i get the feeling about half are just gonna float away.
im not going to be using anything more to help the plants grow id rather let some of them die and some of them take hold
plus i plan on putting a moss carpet down within next 6 months.
instead of using plant pellets can u just push the fish poop down into the roots?
for that i plan on gettign some mts asap. but i could use a pencil until then =]