Oops - Mini Cock-up?

[Doryfan]

Hi, on the weekend got up the nerve to try real plants and ordered a few from greenline. Currently have a green nitrate sponge in my filter and was planning to get a fine blue sponge to replace it tomorrow. BUT (you all knew there was a BUT coming didn't you!) the plants are arriving Wednesday and my car has decided to break down and I won't be able to get over to the LFS until Friday at the earliest.

1st query - should I put the plants in the tank and leave the nitrate sponge in (just for a couple of days)? Or should I take out the nitrate sponge before I put the plants in and replace it on Friday? Or put the plants in a bucket of dechlorinated water until I can replace the sponge properly?

2nd - can anyone recommend a good all-in-one plant food?!

3rd - Lighting is standard juwel tubes that came with the tank. Will have to do for now so have tried to go with plants that don't have high light requirements. How long should they be left on for daily?

Tank is Rio 240L. Stats: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0.
Existing internal juwel filter
Fish = 9 platties, 8 lemon tetra, 4 harlequins (getting 6 more when I can get to the LFS)
Heavily planted with plastic! Do have some real bogwood though.

Sorry about all the ?s and many thanks for reading on and any advice you can give me!
jen

 

[Underwurlde]

1) Just take out the green filter. Bung your plants in.

2) Tropica Master Grow or SeaChem Flourish (Excel if you have no CO2) aka: AquaCare Plant Nutrition Liquid aka: Tropica AquaCare Nutrition.
If not adding NPK, Tropica Master Grow+ aka: AquaCare Plant Nutrition+ Liquid

3) 8 hours max. IF you increase your lighting, post back!

Have you thought of a substrate, BEFORE putting in those plants!!!!

Andy

<edit:>PS,save yourself heaps of potential problems & sanitize those plants BEFORE they go in the tank!:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=167686

 

[Dave Spencer]

The nitrate sponge will be of no benefit to your plants. You will probably be better off with leaving the space in your filter for now and putting the plants in your tank. The removal of the sponge may remove a percentage of beneficial bacteria, but the plants you introduce will help to take up the extra load, even though they will be growing at a retarded rate.

Your lights should be left on for teh hours per day, pretty much in line with their natural environment.

The recommendation of all in one ferts I shall leave to someone else because I use a different method.

Hope this helps, Dave.

P.S. If you are introducing plants in to your tank, remove any Carbon you may have in your Juwel filter and replace it with an extrta layer of filter wool. The carbon will absorb macro nutrients beneficial to your plants.

 

[Doryfan]

many thanks both of you - will just take the green sponge out, put plants in & replace sponge as soon as I can get to LFS. Will look for those plant foods also - thank you.

Will not be adding CO2 - maybe sometime in the future. I was told to replace the carbon sponge so that is just in the cupboard if needed. What is NPK?

Have a gravel substrate, hopefully that will be ok. Must admit, I'm a bit nervous of these plants. I'm good with garden plants but can kill a houseplant in days!

Thanks again, jen



Have just noticed your link re sanitising plants - will definitely read that!

(can't get hang of this edit thing)

 

[Dave Spencer]

What is NPK?

Have a gravel substrate, hopefully that will be ok. Must admit, I'm a bit nervous of these plants. I'm good with garden plants but can kill a houseplant in days!

Thanks again, jen

(can't get hang of this edit thing)

NPK refers to Nitrogen, Phoshporous and Potassium, basic macro nutrients your plants will need. Do not worry about them, as I am sure the fertilisers Underwurlde recommends will contain all that your plants will need. It may be that your tap water contains a fair percentage of these.

Plants take a lot of nutrients from the water column so gravel should be OK in your set up. Some plants, such as Amazon Swords may need fertiliser tablets introduced to their root systems. What types of plant have you got?

EDIT: Underwurlde, do you keep your lights on for eight hours?

 

[Underwurlde]

A gravel substrate is essentially dead (apart from Mulm of course).

Plants need 17 essential elements in order to grow (not including the most essential, light):
Grouped:
Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon <- from tank water O2 (through surface) and C, carbon from CO2. This makes up 90% of the plants bulk.
Primary Macro-nutrients : NPK aka: Nitrogen [N], Phosphate [P], Potassium [K]
Secondary Macro-Nutrients: Calcium [Ca], Magnesium [Mg], Sulphur
Trace Elements: Boron , Chlorine [Cl], Nickel [Ni], Copper [Cu], Iron [Fe]
Manganese [Mn], Molybdenum [Mo], Zinc [Zn]

Give the plants that lot, they grow. And I mean GROW.

You don't have to have a 'good' sibstrate as the most efficent way for a plant to get this lot is throught its leaves anyway.

Andy

 

[Doryfan]

Have ordered:

5 AGLAEONEMA SPECIES (BORNEO SWORD)

5 SAGITTARIA NATANS (DWARF SAGITTARIA)

5 MICROSORIUM PTEROPUS (JAVA FERN TRUE FORM)-

3 ACORUS GRAMINEUS (GREEN RUSH)

3 x ECHINODORUS PANICULATUS (COMMON AMAZON SWORD)

2 x EGERIA/ELODEA

1 x CERATOPHYLLUM DEMERSUM (COMMON HORNWORT)

Sorry for shouting but thought it best to paste in from the confirmation email rather than try to type out those names!

Tried to research a bit and choose plants that didn't need a high levels of lighting. Except perhaps the amazon sword? But I couldn't resist because I really like them. Will try to get root tabs for that and hope for the best. Does my shopping list look ok?

 

[Dave Spencer]

From my experience your Egeria and Hornwort should do quite well in your set up. The Amazon Swords may struggle in an inert substrate, so you may want to think about buying root tablets for them as means of fertilisation.

EDIT:Carry on with the research, it will only be of benefit to you, and it can be very interesting.

 

[Doryfan]

Will definitely look for some root tabs for the swords when I get the other plant food and then hope for the best.

Hopefully will go ok. If it doesn't, I won't give up easily

Thanks for all your help, jen

 

[Dave Spencer]

No problem!

Let`s face it, the nicest tanks are the green tanks.

 

[George Farmer]

Hopefully will go ok. If it doesn't, I won't give up easily

Good to hear, and welcome to the forum!

 

[Doryfan]

Hi again - and many thanks to all who helped and advised me earlier on this thread.

The plants arrived and are now in my tank. Took a few of the really fake looking plants out at the same time and it looks much better already so really pleased. The platties like the hornwort a bit too much and have eaten half of it which wasn't what I was expecting

Not sure about the borneo sword and green rush as the instructions said they're not true aquatic plants but will see how they go. (Wish it had said that on the website!)

Anyway, went into the LFS for plant food today and they only had 2 and none of the ones advised by Underwurlde above - so I got API Leaf Zone - is that ok? They didn't have any root tabs so amazon swords will have to go without for now.

Thanks again for all your help,
jen

ps many thanks for the welcome also

 

[Dave Spencer]

I`m not sure what API Leaf Zone contains, but I`m sure there is plenty in there for your plants.

Sorry to hear about your Platys. I sometimes wonder why we bother keeping fish in our plant tanks.

Here is a pretty comprehensive list of what ferts are out there:

http/www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.php?...=20a&page=1