Should I Have Put Something Under My Sand First?

[white9870]

Bit of a stupid question, but when I set my tank up, should I have put something as a base substrate, then the sand on top? Because I have only got sand which I have got the plants in. Any info will be great

Thanks.

 

[ZoddyZod]

some plants will happily grow in plain sand or gravel, depends on the plant and how demanding they are in terms of root feeding of nutrients.

 

[Tizer]

you dont have to and i wouldnt worry about it

 

[StandbySetting]

As above, there's no need, plants can take all of their required nutrition from the water column.

 

[white9870]

Well my elodea, cabomba, valis are all going brown, I'm using a liquid fert call green low which was recomended by someone on here but they still all goin brown, been using it for 2 weeks. Should I use plant tablets too?

 

[Tizer]

I've got a whole packet of JBL root tabs scattered around the substrate of my tank, i couldnt tell you if they are helping or not though.

Cabomba is a horrible plant for a tropical tank in my opinion, i did try it, but for me it rotted at the base something crazy and when i pulled it out, hundreds of bits broke off and i spent ages netting it all out. Not something i will use again. Vallis grows well for me, but thats because i'm in a hard water area (so im told), however, it used to melt before i started using CO2....

How much light do you have over the tank and for how long?

 

[white9870]

I'm not sure exactly wha light it is, it what you get with a fluval 125, and it on for 7 hours.

 

[Tizer]

They are usually 2 x 20W T8 tubes, probably Aqua Glo and Power Glo.

7 hours sounds ok, does it get much natural light from a window?

 

[white9870]

Yea thas the ones, I remember seeing them names. It dosent get direct sunlight as the tank is in the back of the room, only the ambiant light that's in there. The plants were from ebay, would that make a difference?

 

[Tizer]

well, ebay isnt really a shop in itself. You get some good ones and some bad ones. If the plants arrived healthy looking and have died or are dying in your tank then you can either trim them right back and hope for new growth or ditch them.

I got some plants from Last Trading Post on ebay and i can highly recommend them. Very helpful with advice too when they get some downtime during the day.

 

[white9870]

Well they all arived fine, but nw after 2 weeks started goin brown, should I up the light by about 2 hours see if that helps it out, and put some root tabs in too?

 

[Tizer]

No its probably the light that is causing it, the plants will be absorbing all the nutrients inside them to try and stay alive, hence they are browning/rotting. I would probably trim them down a little and see how you get on. Lots of plants are grown out of water, when they go into water they shed their leaves and regrow. I'm probably not the best person to give plant advice though as i've only just got into them myself. Pop into the planted forum with some pictures and im sure some of the gurus in there can help more than i.

 

[white9870]

I'll trim the valis down a bit and see wha happens, can't with the elodea as its coming from the root up, ends are still green, that green loa I'm using tho, I think its one that some one made their self as it just cam in a plain box a bag with nothing else, so not to sure about it. But I'll put some pics on later see wha people say, I'll also pop into my lfs see wha stuff they got and see about geting new plants.

 

[white9870]

Well I just been to the lfs near to where I work and the only thing they had there for plants was interpet flora boost, is it any good?