Going from plastic to live plants in established tank

Hi all!
So I have an order of live plants from EBay that should arrive tomorrow. Currently my tank has only plastic plants. This is my question...can I leave my plastic plants in the tank until the new ones finish melting and start to grow back? I think it will be kinda crowded, but I’m thinking of the hiding space my fish use. With the live plants probably melting, the fish wouldn’t have any safe places to go. I have 3 Endlers and 2 guppies (all males). Then, when the live plants start growing, I can remove the plastic plants. And how much damage would I do to the new plants if I moved them around in the tank (to make it more pleasant to look at) with them being so new? I’m staying as low tech as I can and it’s a small 5 gal tank. Just one more question please? What should I expect through this process for my cycle? Will it affect it? Thanks you so much for any ideas on this!

No replies, ideas or opinions at all... K - thanks anyway.

I went from plastic to live early last year, I do not see a problem with leaving the plastic in the tanks. You may want to thin it out a little depending on how many live plants you are adding.

Strmwrng said:

No replies, ideas or opinions at all... K - thanks anyway.

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Sorry for the delay! A lot of posts get drowned out during active hours. I agree with viking, and yes, moving them around is ok. I personally like to not plant and try to visualize, because it is pretty hard to establish roots when the plant is constantly moving. You'll love the real plant life!

Retired Viking said:

I went from plastic to live early last year, I do not see a problem with leaving the plastic in the tanks. You may want to thin it out a little depending on how many live plants you are adding.

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Thanks for the response! Did you have any issues with your ‘cycle’ during the transition?

HoldenOn said:

Sorry for the delay! A lot of posts get drowned out during active hours. I agree with viking, and yes, moving them around is ok. I personally like to not plant and try to visualize, because it is pretty hard to establish roots when the plant is constantly moving. You'll love the real plant life!

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Thanks! I’ll keep the moving them at a minimum then if at all...appreciate the response!

Strmwrng said:

No replies, ideas or opinions at all... K - thanks anyway.

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Like @HoldenOn said, posts sometimes get buried when it's busy, no need to be angry about it, just bump the post if it's been a long time and no one has answered yet.

Unlikely to affect your cycle, although it's always a good idea to monitor parameters more closely when you're making any changes to a tank, especially if you removed all the plastic plants at once, since that would remove all the bacteria that were living on those plastic plants. But most of your bacteria will be living in the filter and the substrate, so even then it's unlikely to affect your cycle. Plus live plants consume ammonia, so adding the live plants will help rather than hurt.

You can usually get away with moving plants a couple of times if needed, but ideally, you want to plant them where you want them to stay and try not to disturb them, as with any plants, aquatic or otherwise. They want to put down roots and establish in one spot, so uprooting them and moving them about is best avoided where possible, since the sooner they're settled on one spot and start to put out roots, the sooner they establish and can concentrate on growing healthy leaves.

If you post those photos of them to get ID's, you'll have a better idea of which plants are suited for background, foreground or midground. Then you can arrange them by placing them to sit on the substrate without planting them, and arrange them until you're satisfied with where you want them before actually planting them.

Having said that, I ended up moving these plants 2-3 times because I changed the hardscape and I planted them in the wrong places the first time, but they hadn't been planted for long so didn't have extensive roots yet, so better to move them sooner than later if you do decide to move them. Just don't be re-arranging them every week or anything, that would kill them eventually.


Your new plants might not melt either, not all of them, it depends on how they were grown. But at least you know about melting, so won't be alarmed if some of them do

AdoraBelle Dearheart said:

Like @HoldenOn said, posts sometimes get buried when it's busy, no need to be angry about it, just bump the post if it's been a long time and no one has answered yet.

Unlikely to affect your cycle, although it's always a good idea to monitor parameters more closely when you're making any changes to a tank, especially if you removed all the plastic plants at once, since that would remove all the bacteria that were living on those plastic plants. But most of your bacteria will be living in the filter and the substrate, so even then it's unlikely to affect your cycle. Plus live plants consume ammonia, so adding the live plants will help rather than hurt.

You can usually get away with moving plants a couple of times if needed, but ideally, you want to plant them where you want them to stay and try not to disturb them, as with any plants, aquatic or otherwise. They want to put down roots and establish in one spot, so uprooting them and moving them about is best avoided where possible, since the sooner they're settled on one spot and start to put out roots, the sooner they establish and can concentrate on growing healthy leaves.

If you post those photos of them to get ID's, you'll have a better idea of which plants are suited for background, foreground or midground. Then you can arrange them by placing them to sit on the substrate without planting them, and arrange them until you're satisfied with where you want them before actually planting them.

Having said that, I ended up moving these plants 2-3 times because I changed the hardscape and I planted them in the wrong places the first time, but they hadn't been planted for long so didn't have extensive roots yet, so better to move them sooner than later if you do decide to move them. Just don't be re-arranging them every week or anything, that would kill them eventually.
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Your new plants might not melt either, not all of them, it depends on how they were grown. But at least you know about melting, so won't be alarmed if some of them do

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Not angry at all, all inflection is lost in written words. Sorry that was my impression I really appreciate your response, it helps tons... from everyone.

Strmwrng said:

Not angry at all, all inflection is lost in written words. Sorry that was my impression I really appreciate your response, it helps tons... from everyone.

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By the bye, what a gorgeous tank you have!!

Strmwrng said:

By the bye, what a gorgeous tank you have!!

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Thank you kindly!
Have your new plants arrived yet?

AdoraBelle Dearheart said:

Thank you kindly!
Have your new plants arrived yet?

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Yes they have! I post a pic in the plant ID section and found they are Jungle Val and creeping Charlie. (those were best guesses) So they are soaking (I’ll keep the water changed) for a couple of days. My biggest concern is the size of the Jungle Val!! It’s very big for my 5 gal tank! I’ll see how it goes. You can imagine that I’m thinking about a bigger tank already, just working it into my budget and space for it will have to be figured out