Plant Advice Needed - Please Help

[Barlow]

Hi all.

I'm relatively new to fish keeping and hope that you can give me some good advice to help me on my way.

I've got a 2ftx1ftx1ft community tank, and after a few disasters with real plants am currently using plastic ones. However as I'm sure you all agree, they're no substitute and I'd love to stock it with healthy, real plants.

However before I rush out to buy more plants I wanted to check with you all what steps I should take to prevent them turning brown and rotting like all the previous ones I've owned.

First of all do you think that the tank needs more light? It currently only has one 18 inch Arcadia bulb (the FO15 original tropical tube) which I think only produces 15W of light. One problem is that the old fashioned sloping lid only has hooks for one bulb. If I need more light should I buy a new lid and a new lighting unit with two tubes? If so can anyone recommend a good one and a good place to buy it? Alternatively could I just buy more powerful bulbs? I've fitted a reflector but it's not made a huge difference.

One last question. I've got a plecostomus in my tank and in the past I've seen him sucking on to my Amazon Swords. Is he damaging them? He seems very happy munching on the cucumber I give him but if I add real plants to the tank once again will he switch his attention to eating them?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. I'm really enjoying keeping fish and would love to create a beautiful planted tank, similar to many of the fantastic ones I see on this forum.

Jon

 

[Nick16]

firstly, what size is the tank in gallons m8. that will help me with the light situation. what type of pleco is it? he shoudnt damage the plant he is just rasping all the tiny bits off it but i still need to know what type. do you know any of the names of the plants you have previously bought?

 

[Barlow]

Hi Nick.

Thanks for your help. In answer to your questions:

I think my tank contains 57 litres, or 12.5 UK gallons.

I'm afraid I don't know what type of Pleco he is, but I agree that he's probably not the problem as some of the plants that turned brown and died were much too thin for him to suck. These included things like Vallis and Hornwort although there were also larger ones like Amazon Swords.

Cheers
Jon

 

[Nick16]

you may need to find out the type of pleco as if it is a common it will grow to 18 inches. the light means you have over 1 watt per gallon ( over 1wpg). thats should be ok fro growing plants. do you dose any ferts? how long is the light on each day? do you have carbon in your filter? i recomend if you are dosing ferts to take the carbon out as that rmoves the ferts out of the water and just put a bit moss floss stuff in, and then get some root tabs and put 1 or 2 under the roots of the plants. then you will see an increase in the growth. what is the stocking in the tank?

 

[rdd1952]

First, hello and welcome to the forum.

Your lighting should be fine for most common stem plants like amazon sword, anacharis, java fern, anubis nana, hygrophilia, wisteria, valis grass, etc. They usually are fine without any extra lighting or nutrients. Beware of some of the plants that some stores sell for fish tanks. As a general rule, if it has varigated leaves, it won't live in the tank. I have seen many fish stores selling plants with varigated leaves that are fine near water but will die if completely submerged.

If you do decide you want more lighting, you really only have one choice and that s to upgrade to power compact lights. Regular flourescent tubes can't get you much higher than what youo have.

Defintely find out what type pleco you have because if it is a common plec, he will quickly outgrow your tank.

 

[aaronnorth]

anubias
vallis
hygrophillia polysperma
vallis
moss balls
java moss
bolbitis
java fern
cryptocoryne species.
limnophillia sessiliflora
elodea densa

they all do well under your light. As for the holes, do they look like the leaf is damaged, or that it has been burned?