Starting Over With Plants, But How Best To Go About It?

[trianglekitty]

I've come to the realization that I need to start over with my planted tanks. I did a ton of research before getting my fish...but for some reason I thought plants would be easy and didn't plan well for them.

All of my plants are from Petsmart and were sold in tubes (ribbons plants, mostly), and I now know they aren't truly aquatic and are doomed. I have gravel substrate with no plant substrate mixed in. I haven't been fertilizing. I do have a plant bulb in my light, but I can't say what watt is it.

I'm wading my way through the pinned topics, but it seems like so much to absorb! Some questions...

Is it safe to add plant substrate when I already have fish in my tank? How best to go about it without stressing the tank residents?

I have shrimp, and some of the fertilizers have copper- is the amount too low to worry about? I've gotten conflicting answers at my petstore.

What's two or three good, low care plants? I'm not hugely invested in having the prettiest tank, I just want live plants because they're good for the fish and water quality.

I know these are total newbie questions, and I'm embarrassed that after all my research on fish I'm only now realizing my plants keep dying because they don't belong in a tank! Any help would be hugely appreciated, and I'll continue reading through the pinned topics.

 

[hensonc4098]

Hi there

To get a good idea of what's best for your tank, it'd be handy to know the volume, stocking and amount of light that's over the tank. The kind of bulb isn't that important, just what the total wattage is

Even low copper can be bad for shrimp, it's best to steer clear of ones with copper just in case.

If you have fairly high stocking in the tank with relatively low lighting, you may not even need to fertilise at all. The waste produced by the fish could be enough. But that's obviously dependant on how heavily stocked and how much light you have.

Typical "beginner" plants are things like java fern, cabomba, mosses like java, christmas etc., amazon swords (although these can get big after a while and outgrow the tank ), anubias, vallis and wisteria.

You don't really need plant substrate for any of those plants.

 

[trianglekitty]

It's a 20 gallon tank. Stocking is as follows:

8 male guppies
5 hengeli rasboras
6 cory cats (2 albino, 2 green, 1 peppered, 1 panda)
5 ghost shrimp

I'd also like to replant my betta tank, which is a 5.5 gallon with a male betta and two ghost shrimp. I have no idea what watt the bulb is- it came with the tank.

The bigger tank is just bordering on being overstocked (all of the fish expect the rasboras were rescued, so the stocking isn't ideal or what I intended). It is overfiltered though, and I gravel vac and do a 50% water change twice a week.

The light is a 20 watt Flora-Glo. The hood only has room for one bulb.

I intend for the tanks to be fairly heavily planted. It's great to hear I won't need substrate if I stick with the mentioned plants...I was REALLY not looking forward to trying to add it at this stage. Do you think I can get away without fertilizer too considering the amount of fish? I just worry that I might be cleaning the tank too much for that (although the gravel is plenty dirty every time I clean it).

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply!

 

[hensonc4098]

No probs

With your lighting, that works out at 1WPG (watt per gallon) which is fairly low, and seen as you have a decent amount of fish in there, you shouldn't need to fertilise. If you stick with things like the above plants or other plants recommended for a "low-tech" tank (basically low light, no CO2 addition and no ferts) then they should grow fine.

If in a couple of months from planting them you find they aren't growing as well as they did when you initially planted them it may be a sign that they need a little fertiliser, but see how you go for now without!

You may find it hard to clean the gravel once the plants are in so you aren't uprooting them. Tbh, I have sand substrate in both my planted tanks and I hardly even clean it, I just water change from the top of the tanks Although when you have heavier stocking it may or may not work. Again, probably try and see how it goes

 

[StandbySetting]

Most fertilisers contain copper, TPN+ one used by many on here contains it, I use it with shrimp and so do others without adverse affects, I did some reading on the effect of copper on freshwater invertebrates a few years ago and found that it is copper ions that are detrimental to the shrimp, the copper in fertilisers are part of a salt in the solution so there should be no issues there.

 

[hensonc4098]

Aww thanks SS. I've never really looked that closely into copper as I've never kept inverts

 

[trianglekitty]

Aww thanks SS. I've never really looked that closely into copper as I've never kept inverts

Thanks again to both of you, I'll be picking up my new plants this weekend.