Plants

[toebash17]

ok so i have my 55 gallon tank. and i have some fake plants but i got to looking around the store and i saw some real plants. the store i went to the girl had no clue what she was talking about. if i have real plants are they harder to maintain. are they better for the tank? are they better for the wish. im just look for some information. any one have some good tips or information it would help out a lot! thanks again

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Im no expert on aquarium plants, but this is the basics about live tank plants that i know;
a. Live plants are good at lowering nitrates in your tank naturally, so if you have high nitrates adding them is very beneficial for the tank/fish.
b. Plants vary a huge amount as to how difficult they are to maintain, some are low-light plants that don't really require anything to grow while others need strong lights, CO2 boosts and fertilisers and a whole load of other stuff- for some info on commonly available easy to grow plants, check out the plant section .
c. As stupid as it sounds, not all aquarium plants sold in lfs are actually for aquariums- some need to be semi out of the water while others can't be submerged in any water at all, there are alot of plants sold that would die in your average fish tank in a couple of weeks.
The basic rule of thumb's to knowing if your plant is meant to be for a fish tank is
1. Can it support itself out of water? If so, this plant is not meant for your fish tank- almost all fish tank plants should not be able to support themselves upright out of water.
2. Are the plant's leaves variegated? I've noticed that many plants that have stripey leaves or leaves with patterns with more than one color are not meant for your average fish tank.
d. All plants can benefet from aquarium plant fertilisers, i use "Flora Boost" by interpet myself and is very good at helping my plants flourish. When you buy new plants its best to separate the plants up a bit as most will come in a clump of many when you buy them, this helps prevent the roots from rotting and gives them space to take hold, it can be difficult to plant new plants first time as their roots won't be very established so you may need to weight their roots down with some pebbles at first to stop them from floating around the tank .

For more info check out the plant section, there are many members on here that are experts at growing planted tanks and you can see some of their pics in the members aquarium section for inspiration .

 

[leafs]

I use to have plastic, then I added a few live plants to try it out. I stuck with low light plants that don't require much to grow. The only thing with low light tanks is that the plant growth will be fairly slow. Now I have all live plants and I'm injecting C02. I'm actually enjoying the plants more then the fish. Tokis-Phoenix made a lot of good points and I would do some research and browse the plant section. Everyone has been very helpful to me when I started.

 

[rdd1952]

I think Tokis pretty much covered it. One thing to remember if you stick with fake plants is don't burn your lights too long. A lot of light can spur algae growth. Just burn the lights when you are there to view the fish. During the day, there is enough ambient light for the fish so just having the lights on for a hour or 2 in the mornign and a few hours in the evening is fine.