What Do I Need To Do To Add Live Plants

[fishybuisness]

I have a 100L tank and i was thinking of adding live plants, i dont know the first thing about adding live plants and was just wondering if someone could let me know whats involved,

Heres a few Q's i have at the moment
my tank has a 16w bulb, would i need to upgrade this?
how long is the light required to be on everyday for plants?
I have about 2.5 inches of sand which i think is right?
when keeping live plants do you have to add chemicals regularly to keep them growing?
How long will the plants live?

is there anything else i haven't mentioned here that i would need to know about?
thanks


another quick question about an air pump, if you dont have a filter that aerates the water how long per day would you need an air pump running?

 

[fatheadminnow]

I have a 100L tank and i was thinking of adding live plants, i dont know the first thing about adding live plants and was just wondering if someone could let me know whats involved,

Heres a few Q's i have at the moment
my tank has a 16w bulb, would i need to upgrade this?
how long is the light required to be on everyday for plants?
I have about 2.5 inches of sand which i think is right?
when keeping live plants do you have to add chemicals regularly to keep them growing?
How long will the plants live?

is there anything else i haven't mentioned here that i would need to know about?
thanks


another quick question about an air pump, if you dont have a filter that aerates the water how long per day would you need an air pump running?

How big is your tank in gallons? Because light for aquariums is measured in WPG (watts per gallon).
The addition of micro and macro fertilizers are a good thing. Have a look in the planted section of this forum to read about ferts. You can though, when you add plants start dosing with micro ferts, which you can find at pretty much any LFS. One example is Seachem Flourish.
Normal plants get about 12 hours of light a day.
The plants should live for a very long time, as long as their basic needs of nutrition are met.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there fishy,

I'll tell you my "quick & dirty" thought about a way to do plants:
1) search this forum with the search term "easy plants" and try to find the couple of lists here and there of "easy" plants for "low-light technique." Its very important to stay within the right plants if you just want plants in your tank and are not going to get a lot of plant equipment and get involved in special planted tanks. These lists should include things like java fern, anubias, amazon swords, crypt.wendtii and others.
2) start your lighting hours low, like 4hrs per day, and work slowly up through 6hrs, 8hrs and -maybe- more if you don't see algae developing
3) use a "liquid carbon" product like Seachem Excel in the usa or EasyCarbo in the UK
4) provide fertilization (macro and micronutrients) such as TPN+ or Seachem Flourish in small amounts

OK, that was really quick and dirty! Lighting is a skill set. "Carbon" is a skill set. Nutrients are a skill set. Algae is a skill set that relies somewhat on knowing the previous skill sets! A more detailed start than what I said above is in the "Back to Basics" article by Aaron in the planted section of TFF.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[craig855s]

u cna have some basic live plants like anubias without anything fancy,even stock bulbs are fine. My anubias are the only things in my tank in flawless condition,along with the moss balls.java moss and fern are doing ok, exhinodorus species are semi ok.

Im quiite tempted to start dosing ferts and CO2 though myself so i can add a couple of other echinodorus

 

[fishybuisness]

thanks i'll have a search for the easy plants topic waterdrop. i just want to get as little as possible to start off with like you said.
my tank is 26 US gallons

 

[waterdrop]

thanks i'll have a search for the easy plants topic waterdrop. i just want to get as little as possible to start off with like you said.
my tank is 26 US gallons

Yes, I think I remember noticing that you would be at about .6 watt/gallon, which might possibly be a bit too low, but I've seen some posts saying this is not true, that even very low light can work, the growth is just slower, but on the other hand the algae risk is somewhat less too, which is good. I don't know, maybe some of the plant specialists will comment.

~~waterdrop~~