Plants for discus

[whacky]

As you may have gathered from posts elsewhere im setting up a discus tank. I know that discus like a nice planted tank but what do the plants like.

Im going to use sand as my substrate, my question is is what do i need to see the plants ok. How much lighting do i need co2 now or in the future. I have often heard low tech and high tech methods mentioned but dont really know exacltly what it means. Is it an idea to put some fertilizer under the substrate. How will the lawn mower fit?

All advice gratefully recieved

whacky

 

[Rose]

First off congrats on the Discus Tank. Your a braver soul than I for taking that one on.

As for your plants they aren't too fond of sand substraits. The sand doesn't give them anything to anchor their roots to. If they can't anchor themselves to anything they have a tendancy to become uprooted and float. The solution to that is to either to keep the potted plants in the pot (they will out grow the pot and die eventually) or to use gravel. I prefure the gravel method myself.

Depending on what kind of plants you have will determin what
type of substrait you will need to have. If you have plants like the Swords or Crypts you will need to put in a gravel fertilizer. Swords and Crypts use their roots to get the nutrients they need unlike the Water Sprite and Duckweed which use the nutrients in the water and not in the gravel.

The difference between High Tech and Low Tech is how much time and effort you want to put into the plants. High Tech is CO2 bottles and pruning ever 3 days and things growing wild and takes quite a bit more work than I care to do. I like enjoying my tanks not messing with them all the time. Low tech tanks are the ones I like. These have large numbers of plants in them but take as much of my time as the non planted tanks do. There is no CO2 or anything fancy about these tanks and the plant growth is much more manageable. That's all there is between the two.

As far as how much CO2 and lighting you need will depend a lot on your choice of plants and the size of your tank. For my 10g. I can put just about anything in it cause I run it with 4 watts per gallon (the lighting). It's also by a window so it get's natural light as well. I have a liquid fertilizer and liquid CO2 I put in it. I also dont have a filter on it. I let the plants act as my filter. I've been doing the no filter thing for about 4 months now and it's working out great. This tank also get's weekly 90% water changes.

A lot about fish keeping and plant tending is trial and error. What works for me doesn't mean it will work for you. You have to experiment and find out what works for you and your tank. Rose

 

[whacky]

Thanks for that Rose,

one thing does confuse me now though, nearlly everyone i have asked says to use sand as the substrate, but they also say to use plenty of plants from what you sya Rose the two dont mix. What if i mix in a few bags of gravel will that work???

 

[Davy Reynolds]

I wouldn't (in my opinion, but I'm rubbish with plants) mix the two, I've see it done with two layers, the gravel under the sand. Thus poke the plants through the sand in to the gravel, where there roots can move. But the gravel wont get any minerals, so you'll need plants that take there food from the water