substrate question

[darksheep]

Whats a good a good subrate that plants will grow healthy in. ive only got plan gravel and plastic in my tank at the moment but i want to get live plants in there. i ve had live plant there be4 but they allways seem to go brown a die on me

do i need some kinda of fertilizer to help them if so what would u recommend?

im thinking of keeping the gravel and having them in pots with some nice sustrate for them and rocks above to look pretty and make for easy cleaning (touch wood)
if thats possible?

are there and hardy plants u could recommend and what depth should they be planted to?

thanks in advance

 

[clutterydrawer]

Do you know the wattage of your lights, and what kind of plants yo uhad bfore? very often people's plant troubles result from not having enough light.

I you get some hardy, easy-to-grow plants they should be fine in plain gravel. although they would prefer not to be in pots, which can restrict their root growth.

 

[Lateral Line]

As CD has already said, it is rarely substrate that is the problem, plants grow better in fine substrates, but many will grow okay in gravel. Light is far more likely to be the problem.

You'll want about 2 Watts per gallon of full spectrum, (5500K - 6500K), fluorescent light turned on for about 12 hours a day. This will give you "Medium" light.

If you do that, and choose plants that want medium light, match your water chemistry and are flagged as "Easy" or "Very Easy" from the list at Tropica you won't need to worry about CO2, fertiliser, substrate or anything fiddly.

 

[darksheep]

light may have been a problem seeing that i have a 3 foot tank and only a 2 foot light. ive puchased a 3 foot light that goes from end to end with the reflector cover the floresnt tube is 30 watts is that a good enough light?

one other thing when i looked at my lfs i noticed that most of the plants there are cuttings (no roots) how do i plant theses without the bottom going all brown and dieing ?

 

[yhbae]

That is still only 1w/g... There is a strip model that holds two 30w bulbs. That setting will give you 2w/g...

 

[yhbae]

If you do that, and choose plants that want medium light, match your water chemistry and are flagged as "Easy" or "Very Easy" from the list at Tropica you won't need to worry about CO2, fertiliser, substrate or anything fiddly.

What do you mean by "match the water chemistry"? Are you referring to the level of CO2 or are there other factors?