plants... making the difference, in how your tank matures...

[Magnum Man]

I've noticed the difference between my tanks with what many feel are excessive plants, and those I have, which I don't feel have enough plants ...

yes, in the dark ages ( before LED lighting ) I was able to keep fish ( often more durable, easier to keep fish ) but some times a few more challenging species, but it seemed to take years to get the tanks "mature enough" and often still lost a lot of fish, to find a few that would survive...

before LED's, plants like pothos were grown... now with LED's I'm growing several aquatic plants, as well as numerous other vining plants, and many other "house plants" aquatically...

so not only do they do great things for our tanks, but they make habitat that can help different species get along ( community tanks ), but also several single species tanks, they can provide line of sight breaks, a more natural place to reproduce, and they just seem to do something good to the water, and may have difficulty reproducing without them... thoughts or comments???

 

[MattW]

Weirdly enough, in the few times I have bred my fish I have had better spawn rates using real floating plants rather than a mop or fake floaters.

 

[GaryE]

I think the main advantage of a heavily planted tank is the cover it provides. Fish can hide, from you, from each other and from imagined predators.
Yes, plants help with water quality as well. But as crucial as it is, I think we think too much about water, and not enough about the effects of poor set ups, overcrowding and the non chemical environment. We need to provide and maintain excellent water conditions, and plants can do a lot there. It's a complicated picture though, which is half the fun.

 

[gimme30]

The other half is turning that Benjamin into mush. And then doing it again. Literally more fun than I can stand!

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

On the other hand you could add a significant amount of plant mass to your aquarium and if conditions aren't suited for plants, you could quickly have plants melting or deteriorating adding even more organic compounds to your water.

I think it's important to remember that unless you are going through a rigorous sterilization and quarantine process with your plants you are also introducing a wealth of other life which could affect tank maturity. All sorts of organisms, good and bad, hitch hike on plants.

 

[fishorama]

Many fish & fry, like to graze on plants "micro goodies" or at least lounge on them. Healthy plants do help with water quality, hiding places, territories & of course aesthetics.

But they can add to maintenance. Stem plants can grow faster than I like. & I've been on a moss & duckweed hate for years now! As hard as I try to remove them, they are almost never truly gone.

It took us many years to learn how to grow even the easiest of plants. We never had lights that did more than show the fish. Now I belong to a plant club & can grow many more! But I have killed quite a few too, lol. At least I don't have to buy them very often to find out what works in my low tech tanks.

I don't usually "sterilize" plants from clubbers beyond a quick chlorinated tap rinse or maybe a 20 minute soak. At 1 time I bleach or peroxide dipped plants & killed or maimed many. I'm not so paranoid these days. I'm pretty sure it's never introduced disease or "critters" beyond a few snails at most. I don't mind a few.

 

[GaryE]

I'm a little cavalier about QT ing plants. I give them a rinse, and that's all. I don't worry about introducing things because I know of no things I'd be afraid of introducing. I collect wild live food, and have had a lot of native plants pulled from clean rivers and lakes in my tanks. I've had easily caught predacious diving beetles, and fascinating dragonfly and darner larvae. A couple of times, easily handled hydra have shown up. On a microbacterial level, in 35 years of gathering stuff, I've never had diseases in any tank that could be traced to local plants.

Admittedly, in tropical south eastern Canada, where the snowflakes are flying and the snow underfoot sounds like walking on styrofoam today, there are fewer dangers than if I lived in Mexico or Brazil.

From pet stores? There, you have to be careful, but I would never pre-treat a plant in a way that could kill it. The biggest problem is snails.

One year, in the icy dark dead of winter, my fishroom suddenly had a few vibrant electric blue darners flying around. Their larvae had harmed no fish and I hadn't seen them. I felt sorry for the insects because I had no way of feeding them, and letting them out at -20 wasn't in the cards. Their time buzzing around was short. Whichever tank they came from was clearly mature, and full of plants.