New To Plants

[seth]

Ok, i am getting a 55 gallon(u.s.) aquarium. What should i plant in it? Also do plants lower the number of fish you have? I pretty much need a start to finish guide. lol.

 

[soggysandwich]

no the number of plants doesnt affect the number of fish you can have. just make sure you get the right lighting.

 

[Themuleous]

That's a very broad question Seth what should you plant? That's up to you I'd never tell someone what they should have in their tank. That said if you have relatively good LFS pop in and see what they have to offer, most shops sell relatively easy plants so they normally make good starting plants. Have you read any of the journals people have on here? They might give you some ideas.

You also need to think about what lighting you have over the tank. I would read the pinned lighting article for more advice.

How big is the tank? It sounds like you've not started it yet so that'll help, as you can build in the bits for the plants from the start

Sam

 

[lljdma06]

I'm with Sam on this one, read all the pinned article firsts and then re-read them since some can be a tad confusing to someone new to plants. What you plant is up to you. The journals here are great sources of information, since many of them include all aspects of their setups, warts and all.

Tank's a 55g, Sam.

It's a nice, large tank, so water chemistry issues will be perhaps easier to deal with. You'll also have a lot of options for stocking, planted, and hardscape. It may all seem rather daunting at first, but it ends up being extremely rewarding.

Could you give us a few more details? Have you set it up yet? What have you purchased for it already?

Have a great day,

llj

 

[Themuleous]

Tank's a 55g, Sam.

I always do that! Doh!

 

[BigIan]

OR you could do what i did...

Just browse around the diffrent shops and pick plants that take your fancy, if they die don`t get any more if they thrive YEAY,

then just replace the ones that die with other ones,

I`m planning on stripping the tank down in a month or two and replacing the substrate with ferts and getting co2 and better lighting and what not.

but i wouldn`t recomend a fully planted tank untill you have a little experiance under your belt. so just try hit and miss with plants untill you find what looks good in your tank,

But if you want a list of easy to look after plants....

Amazon sword,

vallis,

cabomba

crypto`s

hornswort

java fern

anubias

there are lots more but these you should be able to fins in any LFS