Freshwater Plants

[DjLeethul]

I know this is not the best question around, but I was wondering if you can really "overplant" an aquarium and have too many freshwater plants. I have a 30 gallon tank with a tropical community and it currently has 2 plants (a few bunches of aquarium grass and on stalk of a big leafy plant, forgot what it was). I was thinking about adding more plants to the aquarium to add more natural shade. I know they release C02 at night and I was thinking of either utilizing a moon light or an air bubble thing to counter act that. I've read somewhere that you can or that too many can be harmful to your fish.

thanks


4 tiger barbs
4 serpae tetras
2 clown loaches

 

[Miss Wiggle]

in a word, no

the plants aren't gonna produce much CO2 just like they don't really make any tangible difference to the oxygen levels.

basically, don't worry about it and add as many as you like.

 

[DjLeethul]

in a word, no

the plants aren't gonna produce much CO2 just like they don't really make any tangible difference to the oxygen levels.

basically, don't worry about it and add as many as you like.

Thank you so much for the quick reply.

 

[OldMan47]

The only way to overplant is if you put in so many plants that they no longer get enough light because of the shadows. Long before you get to that point, you will decide you don't really want any more plants.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with MW, the gaseous exchange is not a practical thing to worry about - in general, a more heavily planted tank that is healthy and stable should provide a -better- environment for fish from the O2/CO2 standpoint.

But I also agree with oldman47 that as you crowd in more and more plants you could easily reach a point where upper plant leaves are shadowing lower leaves and you'd quickly start having trouble hanging on to that stable healthy-plant environment. When plants turn yellow and begin to decompose, they quickly begin to add to the ammonia load.

Finally, if you think about it, there's also the obvious issue of swimming room. This need varies dramatically and is the reason you'll sometimes find some species not recommended for tanks below certain sizes, because they have a need to dart at much longer distances. There's really no way to know the complicated details of this on a species by species basis, but it stands to reason that a lot of species would not like to be so crammed into heavy plants that they could not stretch out and swim!

That said though, the usual problem of beginners on this topic probably is underplanting and not providing enough "security cover" for various species that like it. So the issue of overcrowding by overplanting would likely be theoretical, as oldman implies.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Corleone]

The shade effect of heavy planting can be turned to your advantage, too. I use large leafed plants like pennywort to create shaded areas in the tank, then plant low-light plants in their shadow.

 

[vinylman]

The shade effect of heavy planting can be turned to your advantage, too. I use large leafed plants like pennywort to create shaded areas in the tank, then plant low-light plants in their shadow.

I've always thought of a well-planted tank (not full to brimming) as a very handy backup filter if you have any power cuts.