New To Plants (real Ones!)

[grass569]

Hi all, im after a bit of info/advice on planting my rio 180 tank. ive got plastic plants in at the moment and fancy a change but a bit unsure of how to go about it.
Whats the best substrate?
What type of plants ?
Lighting ?
Do i have to put CO2 in ?

Any advice would be welcome
Thanks in advance

 

[crazie.eddie]

Whats the best substrate?
You will get varied opinions. You can use nutrient enriched soil (Ecco complete, Soilmaster, ADA Aquasoil, Flourite) can be purchased at most home/gardening stores. You can also use regular substrate, but it's best to use finer substrate, to allow the plants to root themselves easier. These types are sand, pool filter sand (Larger than regular sand), or fine or course gravel.

What type of plants ?
Plant selection is your discretion. You can select easy growing, low light plants, which require not too much maintance, except for water changes and maybe additional ferts.

Lighting ?
If you go with low light, easy growing plants, you can use off the shelf, NO (Normal Output) flourscent lights, which will produce about 1 wpg (Watts Per Gallon). Otherwise, if you go with high light plants, then you will need to use high wattage producing lights (above 2wpg) and normally require CO2 and additional ferts.

Do i have to put CO2 in ?
CO2 is only necessary if you have high ligh plants.


A tank that uses low lights and no CO2 is commonly known as a low tech tank. Low tech tanks use low light, easy maintenance plants. Plants in this type of tank will grow slow, but will grow. Most of the nutrients the plants require can be obtained through the water changes (tap water contains some minerals) and decaying material (fish waste, dead fish, dead plants). I have 2 low tech tanks and maintenance is very simple for me. There is none. Both of these tanks have lots of shrimp in them, which help eat dead plants and algae. I also have fish in these tanks. So all I really do is just feed the fish and perform water changes.

 

[grass569]

Whats the best substrate?
You will get varied opinions. You can use nutrient enriched soil (Ecco complete, Soilmaster, ADA Aquasoil, Flourite) can be purchased at most home/gardening stores. You can also use regular substrate, but it's best to use finer substrate, to allow the plants to root themselves easier. These types are sand, pool filter sand (Larger than regular sand), or fine or course gravel.

What type of plants ?
Plant selection is your discretion. You can select easy growing, low light plants, which require not too much maintance, except for water changes and maybe additional ferts.

Lighting ?
If you go with low light, easy growing plants, you can use off the shelf, NO (Normal Output) flourscent lights, which will produce about 1 wpg (Watts Per Gallon). Otherwise, if you go with high light plants, then you will need to use high wattage producing lights (above 2wpg) and normally require CO2 and additional ferts.

Do i have to put CO2 in ?
CO2 is only necessary if you have high ligh plants.


A tank that uses low lights and no CO2 is commonly known as a low tech tank. Low tech tanks use low light, easy maintenance plants. Plants in this type of tank will grow slow, but will grow. Most of the nutrients the plants require can be obtained through the water changes (tap water contains some minerals) and decaying material (fish waste, dead fish, dead plants). I have 2 low tech tanks and maintenance is very simple for me. There is none. Both of these tanks have lots of shrimp in them, which help eat dead plants and algae. I also have fish in these tanks. So all I really do is just feed the fish and perform water changes.

Thanks, im after a low maintenance tank for now, on the point made about the substrate if im going low maintenance am i better off with course sand / fine gravel or enriched soil, i know this may sound daft but do you have to put sand or gravel on top of the soil?
Thanks again

 

[connorsbala]

Ad root tablets,they apparently help. IM getting some for my go at doing a buddha scape for my betta,newt and ADF tank. You just put the root tabs in the substrate before you obviously add the plant.
I dont use CO2 and dont have sand or anything like that in my main tank,just normal gravel, and all seems well but certain plants arent meant to be as they get eaten by the dang fish ! SO im giving the root tabs ago and see of that makes a difference.

 

[grass569]

Ad root tablets,they apparently help. IM getting some for my go at doing a buddha scape for my betta,newt and ADF tank. You just put the root tabs in the substrate before you obviously add the plant.
I dont use CO2 and dont have sand or anything like that in my main tank,just normal gravel, and all seems well but certain plants arent meant to be as they get eaten by the dang fish ! SO im giving the root tabs ago and see of that makes a difference.

What are the root tabs supposed to do? never heard of them, new to the planting side

 

[three-fingers]

They provide nutrients to the plants through the roots, where as liquid fertilizers provide nutrients through the leaves. Some plants can do without the nutrients in the substrate, but even those plants benefit from root tabs.
Personally I would go with a good nutritious substrate and liquid fertilization, as this will give you better results, but to avoid ripping out all of your gravel, you could go with good root tabs(i would recommend anything made by tropica or ADA, the Aquili root tabs are pretty bad) and liquid ferts. The root tabs should be of good quality, but you can get away with a cheap liquid fert in a low-tech tank meant for fish, as long as you do the normal water changes.
The choice of plants is important too, go for low-light fast growing plants like hygophila polysperma, do an 'advanced search' at http/www.tropica.dk/ to find the right plants for you .

 

[grass569]

They provide nutrients to the plants through the roots, where as liquid fertilizers provide nutrients through the leaves. Some plants can do without the nutrients in the substrate, but even those plants benefit from root tabs.
Personally I would go with a good nutritious substrate and liquid fertilization, as this will give you better results, but to avoid ripping out all of your gravel, you could go with good root tabs(i would recommend anything made by tropica or ADA, the Aquili root tabs are pretty bad) and liquid ferts. The root tabs should be of good quality, but you can get away with a cheap liquid fert in a low-tech tank meant for fish, as long as you do the normal water changes.
The choice of plants is important too, go for low-light fast growing plants like hygophila polysperma, do an 'advanced search' at http/www.tropica.dk/ to find the right plants for you .

A bit of an update

In the end i ripped the whole lot out and started again with tropica substrate and a course sand on top, i got 2 good size lumps of bogwood and bought myself a few different plants. Looked the dogs bits. Had a few problems with the clowns eating some of the plants but this has nearly stopped now. The problem i have now is a brownish coloured alagea on the leaves of most of the plants.Is this too much/too little light or something else causing this
Thanks for any help

 

[three-fingers]

Well how much light do you have, what size of tank do you have and what plants do you have?

 

[grass569]

Well how much light do you have, what size of tank do you have and what plants do you have?

Its a 180l juwel tank with the standard juwel 30w tubes in (2 tubes) i have put reflectors on
The plants i have are
vallisneria spiralis
hygophila polysperma
java fern
anubias (cant remember which one)
Cryptocorne (again cant remember which one )

 

[grass569]

Well how much light do you have, what size of tank do you have and what plants do you have?

Its a 180l juwel tank with the standard juwel 30w tubes in (2 tubes) i have put reflectors on
The plants i have are
vallisneria spiralis
hygophila polysperma
java fern
anubias (cant remember which one)
Cryptocorne (again cant remember which one )

Anybody any ideas?

 

[Dave Spencer]

The brown algae are probably diatoms generally associated with a new tank. Otos in a small group are the canine`s tackle for getting rid of this.

Dave.