Removing Plants For New Ones.

[tez2k007]

Hi guys. Bought 6 plants when first started my tank and was not sure exactly what they were as was just starting out. Anyway still in process of cycling my tank and some of them just dont seem to be growing much and most of them have turned quite brown especially on the leaves. Im thinking of just scraping them and buying some new ones. Also when I planted them I planted them inside the pots with all that white stuff on the roots. When I get the new ones should i remove this. Tank has been running for a month currently.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Yep,when you get new ones you should take off the wooly stuff and plant them in the substrate,take car though as some plants do not grow in the substrate (ferns,anubias etc),and will need to be attached to stone/bogwood etc.

 

[waterdrop]

agree

 

[Goodygumdrops]

What size is your tank,what lighting do you have,what decor do you have and where are you from?Maybe we could give you a bit of advice on plant choice?
This is my little two foot tank,I have low/medium lighting in this and no co2 injection so all plants are fairly 'easy' ones(I do give them liquid feed and carbo though):

I have windelov and java ferns attached to bogwood,java moss attached to slate and pebbles,anubias nana attached to bogwood.Fissidens attached to bogwood,amazon frogbit floating and an unidentified stem planted in the sand at the back.
The ferns are widely available,Pets at Home etc,others you can usually pick up on the for sale section on here.

 

[tez2k007]

agree

I must admit I am not an expert when it comes to plants and not familiar with all the names. Which ones are verns. A couple of mine are like really long sword shape leaves which look like they have not grown at all since I put them in.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Well,if the tanks only been running a month,you aren't dosing any ferts and you haven't removed the plants from the pots and wool,not much growth sounds about right.
If it is a sword you've got,remove from pot,take off wool etc,plant in substrate,then gently pull it up so that the crown (where the roots start) is just visible.
A pic would help though.

 

[tez2k007]

Whats best way to wash them when I get them home. As many say this helps with avoiding snail eggs and stuff.

 

[waterdrop]

There is some kind of a "dunking" that is supposed to be pretty effective on snail eggs and back when search was working it was pretty easy (well, you can do it with google and the site parameter currently) to find a lot of long threads on snails. I've forgotten what the advice was or where the link to the best thread was alas, maybe some other member will remember.

Once the plant leaves (swords with big leaves for instance) are going brown and dying you don't want to leave the leaves in and let the heterotrophic bacteria produce a lot of ammonia out of them, you want to clip and remove them... however, note that some rooted plants will die back but the crown and roots will still be good and you may be able to get them to come back for you, it might be worth a try after you've taken them out of the wool etc. You'll want to perhaps give them a root tab of fert. as some find this helps with swords and the like.

That said, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with frequent buying and trying of new plants. It often takes trial and error to find what might work in your pariticular tank. Plants is a very big topic and I can only advise to begin a little reading in the plant section to "dip your toe in" so to speak. As a beginner concerned most about learning water and fish and maintenance first, you can still be doing a small percentage of learning about plant basics.

The way I like to organize plant learning in my mind is that light is a whole skill-set of learning. Fertilization is a whole skill-set of learning. CO2 is a whole skill-set of learning. Algae is a whole skill-set that requires the others as prerequisites. I'm just a beginner with it myself but its pretty fascinating, just like tropical fish water chemistry!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[james morrisontoxic2]

i got some new plants at the weekend,when i come to wash them they were covered in snails eggs i couldnt belive it

 

[cor2008]

some of them just dont seem to be growing much and most of them have turned quite brown especially on the leaves.

could be brown algae which is easily removed gently with your fingers. if its just algae remove the pots and plant them in the substrate, if not do as waterdrop said

 

[mark.w.jones]

There is a link to good beginners plants in my signature. I have had success with most although find Amazon swords to be a real pain to keep going, even with the root fertilisation that they need. Most of the plants in that link will grow fine with just low light levels which are around 2 watts per US gallon but they will need at the very least a basic liquid fertiliser once per week. I use Seachems Flourish although there are other general liquid ferts which are fine to. Ideally you should be dosing it daily or at least every other day, not in one big lump at the weekend. I dose every other day roughly splitting the amount recommended per week across the days I'm dosing on. This provides more stable fertiliser levels and less chance of algae / bacterial blooms. That's about the minimum you can get away with if you want to grow decent plants. Carefully removing them from the pots and wool before planting is also important. For better growth the next step to add is liquid carbon, something like Seachems Flourish Excel although again there are others. Dosed daily will provide a similar affect to having a dedicated CO2 system which all plant enthuasiasts live by. Finally you can improve your substrate with something like Eco Complete which provide numerous trace nutrients. I have got by growing most of the plants from that link with just the first 3 mentioned above: 2wpg light, liquid fert every other day, liquid carbs daily. If you want to grow more difficult species then more light and a fermentation / tank based CO2 system are needed as well as an improved substrate.

 

[Truck]

are any of the plants of the cryptocoryne species? if so it could just be crypt melt(when the water conditions for the plant soon change they shed their leaves and look like their going to die, but water changes and removing the leaves helps, to get them back into shape)

 

[waterdrop]

There is a link to good beginners plants in my signature. I have had success with most although find Amazon swords to be a real pain to keep going, even with the root fertilisation that they need. Most of the plants in that link will grow fine with just low light levels which are around 2 watts per US gallon but they will need at the very least a basic liquid fertiliser once per week. I use Seachems Flourish although there are other general liquid ferts which are fine to. Ideally you should be dosing it daily or at least every other day, not in one big lump at the weekend. I dose every other day roughly splitting the amount recommended per week across the days I'm dosing on. This provides more stable fertiliser levels and less chance of algae / bacterial blooms. That's about the minimum you can get away with if you want to grow decent plants. Carefully removing them from the pots and wool before planting is also important. For better growth the next step to add is liquid carbon, something like Seachems Flourish Excel although again there are others. Dosed daily will provide a similar affect to having a dedicated CO2 system which all plant enthuasiasts live by. Finally you can improve your substrate with something like Eco Complete which provide numerous trace nutrients. I have got by growing most of the plants from that link with just the first 3 mentioned above: 2wpg light, liquid fert every other day, liquid carbs daily. If you want to grow more difficult species then more light and a fermentation / tank based CO2 system are needed as well as an improved substrate.

Funny, I was just reading a bit by Diana Walstad last night where she called Amazon Swordplants "greedy" and basically said its amazing how many nutritents they need. They will easily outstrip some nutrient and start looking bad.

~~waterdrop~~