Does Cycling Kill Off Plants?...

[simonmac2]

For those on this wonderful forum who are so patient with me, thanks!

approx 10 days ago, i put plants in a tank, and after a couple of days started to cycle it. The plants looked ok in the beginning, but one of them looks to all the world like it is dead/dying whereas the others look fine.

the one that is dying has a "pom pom" style of leaves from the main stems, and the pom pom's themselves are made up of individual delicate fronds (so they wave about in the current)

all the plants were supplied wrapped up in wool which i had to peel back and plant in the tank - so i could easily have damaged something when this was done.

my daughter had picked out a red plant, which also seems to be dying off, but i have read elsewhere on the forum that red plants are dificult - thanks lfs ;-)

plant that is thriving - http/i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn122/s...-01-05_0033.jpg

plants that are doing ok, except the red one - http/i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn122/s...-01-05_0034.jpg

plant that is on its last legs - http/i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn122/s...-01-05_0035.jpg

the creative gravel doesn't lend itself to adding a substrate. is there something else i can put in the tank that won't look as hideous as the wool wrap the current plants came in? and that will help them settle in the tank? I suspect the red on and the "pom pom" will have to come out anyway.

as usual - any tips gratefully recieved

Simon

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hiya Simon, the one in the last pic is a houseplant which is why it's dying off (yes, inept lfs again..... we get this one A LOT!!)

you can generally spot the houseplants, if you hold them up out of the water aquarium plants will flop, they aren't designed to support their own weight so they don't stand up out of water, houseplants are designed to hold their own weight out of water so they stand up by themselves.

it's not foolproof but it's a general guide.

the one in the first pic (cabomba i think) should do OK, it's generally regarded as one of the easier plants to grow, however some people have an inexplicable inability to grow it!! Sometimes the natural tank conditions, pH and such like are not suited to certain species. You'll find it's a little bit of trial and error to find what grows well in your set up.

the middle pic you have java fern in the back on the wood, that should do fine, the stem plants on the right i've forgotten the name of but again, they should be fine.

the red one will be hit and miss, we've got some and it does ok.... but just ok. Red plants are more demanding so don't be all that surprised if it dies off.

but in general cycling does not kill plants, plants feed off ammonia, you have plenty of this so that's all good as far as the plants are concerned. if anything plants can hinder cycling, but only if you've got loads of them (think 50% of the substrate covered with plants) in which case they can take in all the ammonia meaning the bacteria doesn't develop, this is called 'silent cycling'.

 

[simonmac2]

thanks MW i'll take out the plants that look "iffy"

<OT>
I suddenly have the fawlty towers scene in my mind where Basil leaves the hotel with a plastic garden gnome under his arm with the intention of "visiting" his inept builder...

going round with some half-dead grot-weed wouldn't have the same impact - ah well! another lesson learned.

have ordered some from the ebay co that sold the api kit - will compare and contrast...
</OT>

have started another thread RE stones to put in the tank

Thanks again

Simon

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lmao

I can just see it now, storming into the lfs with a houseplant book and some half dead plants.... can't see it working but it would be funny!!


edit - this could also work with the dead parrot sketch i reckon.....

this is a deceased houseplant, it is no more.....

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Simon,

Well, MW's done the main work here so I'll just chime in with a few thoughts. One approach you can take is to go into it buying a lot of different plants knowing that all you are doing is sampling to see which ones live in your tank. Some will live, some will die. One tricky part is that sometimes plants will appear to be dying, will lose all their leaves, but in fact will then make it and grow new leaves and be ok. Note that another bad part about this is that all those dying leaves will be adding to your ammonia load during cycling, making your estimate of whether you've got the 4-5ppm ammonia in there possibly not quite true (because the dead plant material will be adding slowly all day long...) Of course the kink in all this is looking at the plant prices (they definately don't seem to be thinking of it as a sample, ugh.)

Another thought mentioned frequently on TFF is to work on getting so called "easy plants", like that nice dark green java fern in your picture (incidently, there is a good generalization - dark green means not as much light needed, whereas as you move to lighter greens and reds, more light is needed, making them trickier for average aquarium gear.) Over time, various threads on TFF have discussed "easy plants."

Now, I'll give you my little spiel about the sister hobby, called "planted tanks." These apparently are the small subset of aquarists whose plants don't die after they bring them home because they have learned the correct 527 incantations to perform around the tank. (You will not need a degree in psych to know I'm in the plant beginner raft with you.) From my reading so far I feel that there are four skill areas to planted tanks: lighting, nutrition/substrates, CO2 and algae. My own take is that each of these sub-areas takes some learning, like fishless cycling. The overall management of this takes some doing as all four areas need to tie together for the whole thing to be mastered.

Now that your eyes have glazed over and those plastic pink decorations are beginning to have a new appeal, let me throw in a reminder that the normal folks (apoligies for thowing you in with me here..) can learn quite a bit from the planted tank folks and this is my reason for wading into all this. They divide their hobby into two approaches which I'll just call "low-light" and "high-tech." How many lumens of light energy you throw at the plants takes you in one of these directions or the other and each has its difficulties. High-tech is the full-blown hobby and requires rather a lot of equipment and attention. Low-light is, well, more normal with respect to gear, but is still quite tricky if you want to get all the needs of the plants balanced.

Anyway, that's my two-bit summary to maybe give you a little summary of what's being talked about over in the planted tank forum or in the many aquatic plant societies. The path often hacked out by beginners involves evaluating their light and getting it up to a little over 1 watt per US gallon (another rough guideline like the inch of fish one that falls apart upon further study..), evaluating their options for substrate enhancement, perhaps beginning to add a liquid plant nutrition supplement and learning how to handle and maintain the plants. btw, you are correct I believe that the wool should be removed very carefully and the plants kept wet while out of the water. Rooted plants need to get their roots into the gravel/sound relatively soon (ie. not a few days later.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Now, I'll give you my little spiel about the sister hobby, called "planted tanks." These apparently are the small subset of aquarists whose plants don't die after they bring them home because they have learned the correct 527 incantations to perform around the tank. (You will not need a degree in psych to know I'm in the plant beginner raft with you.)

that really got me WD. very true!!!

i'm fairly lucky in that i have a boyfriend who has learnt said incantations, if let to my own devices plant wise our tank would be a mess....... but he's equally lucky cos i know a fair bit more on different fish species, care and health than he does....... it's a nice balance.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, need to get Ian to build me a dream addition to the house and put "planted tank" in the contract... we can hook it off Oliver's room (Ian would probably hate the north carolina heat, lol)

 

[simonmac2]

the "planted tank" setup seems like wet indoor gardening to me, and a bit delicate - i'm already trying to figure out how to vacuum the gravel without uprooting everything - heavily planted tanks must be a nightmare...

rocks are the answer... i'll build some caves and put the vegetation around that.


Regards

Simon

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Yes, need to get Ian to build me a dream addition to the house and put "planted tank" in the contract... we can hook it off Oliver's room (Ian would probably hate the north carolina heat, lol)

lol, you get us a free holiday to america and he'd do it in a shot!!! but yeah, he doesn't handle the heat too well...... lord only knows how he's gonna cope with August in Budapest.... but never mind he still gets to see cars go fast so that'll keep him happy