Plant help please!

[benjoey]

Hi,
I have just finished arranging my juwel rio 240 tank with stones and bogwood, Im going to stock with cardinal tetras, corys and cherry shrimp.
I have ordered a collection of plants and added to the tank, The collection of plants was labelled as easy which I took for granted meant easy for a low tech tank, however I'm not sure on some of the plants. The plants in question are:

2 different amazon swords (rose and red diamond)
Lilaeopsis Novae-zelandiae.
Limnophila aromatica
Murdannia keisak



Also recieved anubias, java fern, crypto walkieri, twisted vallis which I believe will be suited? I also have amazon frogbit and water sprite as floating plants, which I was going to let spread to fill the top of the tank.

Im not sure what wattage the LED tubes are but they are the standard with the tank, again Ill check and update.

Also I only have a sand substrate, dont really wnt to use fertilisers and definitely not C02.

So the point of my post is to ask if the mentioned plants will survive in a low tech tank.

How long should I leave the lights o each day? (Tank is away from daylight).

Also is it ok to put plants in small pots with aquatic soil if they wont survive in the sand?

Many Thanks in advance

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Hey, Ben. Rather than put in pots of soil, I recommend using some good quality root tabs, especially for the crypt and swords. I use soil under sand in all my tanks, but it sounds like you've already set up, so probably too late for that. Most lights that come with kits are not sufficient to grow any but low-light plants, but perhaps yours will be an exception. For starters, I recommend keeping it on eight hours a day, possibly increasing it to ten as your plants fill in. If you start having algae problems, reduce it.

Regarding your plants: I have no experience with the Lilaeopsis and Murdannia, so I'll defer to someone else on that. I read that Murdannia is an emergent annual, which probably means it would thrive in shallow water and high light.

Most swords do fine with medium light, and given a deep, fertile substrate they'll grow to a nice size in a 240l tank. In low to medium light they might revert to their natural green color, though.

L. aromatica (paddy herb) is one of my favorite plants, but in my experience it does best in shallow water and bright light. It grows robustly in my 12g long tank, which is only 8" deep with fairly strong light. But it melts away in my 150 g.

Anubias and Java fern do fine in medium-low light; anubias grows so slowly that it can get covered with algae in high-light setups.

Most crypts are fairly adaptable once they're settled in. They don't like change, though, and their leaves often melt away at first. Be patient; they often come back. Be sure you plant them where you really want them, as they don't tend to like being moved.

I've never been able to get vals to grow; it just doesn't like something about my water.

 

[Colin_T]

Lilaeopsis Novae-zelandiae.
Limnophila aromatica
Murdannia keisak

don't expect these to do well underwater.

-----------
anubias is low light
sword plants and twisted vallis like lots of light

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check the cryptocoryne for soft squishy or black bits on the corm (tuber thing). If there is any soft bits on the corm, use a sharp knife to cut them off. They are areas that have been damaged and are rotting, and the rot will spread along the entire corm and kill the plant.

 

[Sgooosh]

don't expect these to do well underwater.

yeah they need like conditioning and stuff

 

[benjoey]

Thanks for the replies, the led lights are 2 x 29W. Just over 1 W a gallon which I believe would be classed as low light?
So if I allow the floating plants to cover the top that will let even less light through, so I really will need to look at low light plants?
Ive already planted the crypts didnt notice any mushy black bits?
So should I just ditch the 3 you have quoted now and replace them rather than waiting to see if they survive?
I'll also order some root tabs forr thw crypts and swords.
Any suggestions for background plants for low light?
Thanks again

 

[Colin_T]

So should I just ditch the 3 you have quoted now and replace them rather than waiting to see if they survive?

plant them in the tank and see how they do. They might surprise me and grow

 

[StandbySetting]

The Juwel LED lights are quite intense, you may struggle without CO2 with both tubes lit. I would recommend clipping a reflector to the underside of one of them to half the intensity, this will allow you to keep things 'low tech' and not need to add additional CO2 and Fertilisers.

 

[Byron]

What is the spectrum (in Kelvin or CRI, this may be on the unit, on the box, or online on the manufacturer's site (Juwel).

Red-leaf swords, like indeed most (but not all) red leaf plants, need more intense lighting than do green leaf. Normal swords will grow well with less intense lighting than the red-leaf forms.

Substrate tabs definitely benefit swords, and most larger substrate-rooted plants. Flourish Tabs are one of the best, avoid the API tabs. I'm sure there are others. Liquid comprehensive fertilizer will benefit the floating plants particularly, and here again you want a comprehensive (complete nutrient) supplement.

 

[benjoey]

Ok so the lamps are 6500 and 9000 kelvin each. If the floating plants cover the surface will this be ok to leave the 2 lamps as they are?

 

[Colin_T]

Ok so the lamps are 6500 and 9000 kelvin each.

They are fine. The 9000K has more blue light than you need but if you can reduce the blue or increase the red, it will compensate.

 

[Byron]

Ok so the lamps are 6500 and 9000 kelvin each. If the floating plants cover the surface will this be ok to leave the 2 lamps as they are?

The 6500K is ideal. The 9000K is not going to benefit plants, but it can encourage problem algae. I had this several years ago. If you can only have the 6500K on, good. That settles the spectrum in favour of the plants; as for intensity, hard to say. The second 9000K being of inadequate spectrum would not help increase intensity because the plants cannot use that. I would try the one 6500K and see how it goes, may be perfectly fine.

 

[Essjay]

my juwel rio 240 tank

Unfortunately, Juwel lights are usually are both tubes on or both tubes off. With the old T8 version the lights wouldn't work if one of the tubes was removed or broken, they had to both be installed and both working; I assume the LED versions are the same.

It sounds as though the tank came with one Mulitilux Day tube (9000K) and one Multilux Nature tube (6500k). One (expensive) option would to to replece the Day tube with a second Nature tube.