thinking of getting a plant

[orthikon]

Okay I've read a couple of beginner plant threads and I have a couple of questions.

1) I noticed the the plant (Anubias) in my LFS has some sort of pot but it has big holes cut out of it. Do I have to remove the plant from it?

2) I currently have gravel how do I plant the plant other than simply covering it up?

3) For my first plant should I get a plant friendly substrate? Since obviously gravel doesn't contain any nutrients. This may be a lot of work though since I already have an established tank.

4) IIRC, plants cosume nitrates as well as amonia and nitrite so once I get a significant plant population I wouldn't need to change water that often right?

5) IIRC, my light is 15 gal so that equates to 1.5 wpg. How long do I turn the light on? Also what is the optimum wpg?

I went to my LFS and they have these plants:

Anubias conjensus
Anubias nana
Anubias nana gold
Anubias bateri
Anacharis
Fish tail

I've read that Anubias is one of the most hardy plants. So other than that what other plant should I get among those listed?

Thanks in advance.

[DavidDoyle]

Anubias actually do best planted on wood or rock rather than in substrate. They can be planted in substrate as long as the rhizome is not burried. The rhizome is the thick stem from which the leaves grow up and the roots grow down. This plant needs nothing special at all in terms of ferts or additives. It will do fine in low to moderate light levels.

Anachris is a stem plant which will only root in very high light levels, so in most tanks it should be floated or lopped arount something. It is a fast grower and an algae "buster" as it will consume excess nutrients.

I have no idea what fish tail is- sorry.

For plant refernece you may want to visit http://www.tropica.dk/database.htm

For lighting start with 12/on/12off and adjust from there if needed.

Yes you still need to do regular weekly water changes. Plants do nothing to remove disolved solids and in most tanks plant load will not keep nitrates down.

There is no such thing as an optimum wpg. The size of a tank and the types of plants used determine the optimal wpg for each tank.

[Damon]

The 2 plants I know of called fishtail are not aquatic. One is a poisonous palm and the other is a fern (houseplant).

[Fishboy93]

A good beginner plants are java fern, anubias, crypt., and dwarf sag. If your lfs has them. i buy mine online(ebay and aquabid)

[Damon]

Not all crypts are beginner plants. You should look for C. Wendtii, C. Lucens, C. spiralis. Stay away from C. annamica, C. blassi and deffinitely C. bogneri.

[MyraVan]

For me, the optimum WPG is about 2 to 2.5 WPG. This gives me enough light to grow a decent variety of plants, but not enough that I need to mess around with adding CO2 or ferts to the tank. But as DD says, it all depends on what you want to grow and the effort you want to put into it. If you're happy growing crypts and anubias and java ferns, less will do, and if you want a proper high-tech tank with an almost unlimited choice of plants and added CO2 and ferts, then you'll need more.

I would go with java fern and anubias on rock/wood; dwarf sag, crypts (eg wendtii) in the substrate; and some floating plants (duckweed and water lettuce work well for me).