Can I Add Live Plants Now?

[pfinstir]

Okay,

I have posted on the introduction section of the forum and gotten great feedback from several people about suggestions for stocking my tank. (The general consensus is cichlids) Now, I have a new question.

I have a 150g fish tank that has been set-up and basically cycling since March 21st. I have added some bamboo shrimp (3), gold mystery snails (3), glass catfish (6, but 1 died), 2 plecos and flying foxes (4). In addition, I have only put artificial plants in the tank because the dealer said that I would need a different type of light to encourage the live plants to grow.

I have decided that I want to add live plants to the tank. I monitor the temperature daily, but I don't know the pH.

1) How safe is it to add the plants now that I have established the tank?

2) Do I need a special substrate for the plants to root?

I have seen a package deal on one of the sites advertised in the banner, but I don't want to buy them and then find out that I can't use them. Also, I am pretty certain that the snails will reek havoc on the live plants. Is this a good idea or not? Also, can't find any bog wood to add to the tank. I bought a piece of wood from Petco, but can't tell if its bog wood. How do I tell?

[Ownager2004]

The dealer was probably right. a 150 gallon tank is going to need a lot of light to even grow some of the undemanding species. What is your lighting?
You can try some low light plants to see how they do. I would definately do this before i spent a lot of money on plants. Some "mystery snails" eat plants and some dont. Just keep an eye on them.

[pfinstir]

Thanks for the advice. I wanted to add them b4 I started stocking the fish. I am doing the whole process so very, very slowly. I want to eliminate as many problems as I can. Should I try some of the plants, like, javas, wisteria, hornwort, etc. I do have some artificial plants in the tank, but it seems so naked and I don't want to just throw anything in there. Don't turn the hood light on much because I didn't really think I needed to. No live plants. Plus, I read that it keeps the algae down.

I got such a large tank because it fit well on the wall and I had a lot of success with a 40 g years ago. (Didn't know half of the things that I've learned. Just trial, error and a lot of reading.

I am going to order the hard to kill package mentioned in the water plant section of the forum.

[Alin10123]

You're going to need some light if you want to successfully grow some plants. I would recommend the power compant lighting at www.bigalsonline.com
The one i got was a power compact by "coralife" and it has 2 6700k bulbs in it. That's the light temperature that you want. You will need one that will get you 2 watts per gallon. That's a good place to start out. You can add plants at anytime without doing it much harm. With live plants you could even add plants before the cycle starts as the plants would absorb most if not all of the ammonia. CO2 and substrate would help as well. But the #1 thing is lighting. YOu dont have to use special substrate as you can use liquid fertilizer instead. If you want to encourage more growth then you will need CO2. If you have live plants growing well, the algae shouldn't be a problem since the plants would've starved the algae of nutrients for the most part. The snails will leave your plants alone for the most part.

[pfinstir]

Thanks for your advice Alin10123 and Ownager 2004!

I have considered all of the advice and have at least decided on 1 thing. I am going to put live plants in the tank. I have ordered the hard to kill package from the online store provided in the link in the aquatic plants forum.

I also checked the plant lights and will call the online dealer to explain what type of tank I have and how many lights I will need to purchase. I think that the live plants and the artificial plants should help my poor fish. They don't have enough places to hide.

[JustOneMore20]

I would get a light fixture that puts out atleast 300 watts of light. That may be hard to do. How long is the tank...and how tall? If the tank is pretty tall, it may take more than 2 watts per gallon to grow medium light plants.

Low light plants (hard to kill) will grow...but will grow very slow. Also, alot of them need to be attached to driftwood or rocks (java fern and anubias). Do you currently have a light fixture on the tank? If so, do you know how many watts it is?

[pfinstir]

JustOneMore20,

Thanks for the advice. I ordered the hard to kill packages from aquabotanic.com. The light, however, is going to be an expensive proposition. I think that's why I didn't get lamps that allowed for live plants when we bought the aquarium.

The tank's dimensions are: 72x18x28.

I think that I am going back to the dealer that sold me the set-up and ask him how I can economically get lighting. He has been really friendly and has offered up specials, like 2 for 1 fish. We usually get all of our supplies from him since he sold us the tank, etc.

Won't get there until Saturday, however, since the store is a good distance away from where I live.

[JustOneMore20]

I would definitely ask the guy that sold it to you and see if he has any ideas about lighting. Wow, 72 inches long....that's a big one!

You could get 2 48 inch fixtures. The only ones I can find that are 48 inches and can give you enough wattage, is 2 Coralife Aqualight fixtures. They make 48 inch ones that have 4 65 watt bulbs. If you got 2 of those it would be way too much light (~3.5wpg) for a non-CO2 tank. But if you only used 6 bulbs instead of the 8, it would give you 2.6wpg...which is still a little high, but better. It will be expensive though.

Maybe the guy knows someone that can build light fixtures. That would probably be cheaper...then it could be custom built to fit your tank.

[Ownager2004]

Anubias and java fern can be planted in substrate.... Anubia just make sure the rhizome isn't buried. Java fern will attach to substrate given time and no disturbance of the substrate.

[ultasol]

You can get some pretty high wattage shop lighting from lowes/home depot. I bought one 40 inch fixture with two 40watt bulbs (both 6500K) from lowes to light my thirty. It works well. You could put a series of shoplights over the tank.
just an idea.
Also, what fish do you have? Some fish uproot most everything.
Also, once you get to about 2-3 wpg you need to think about co2 and ferts.

[pfinstir]

Okay,

I now have a lot to consider. CO2, fertilizers, aaah!!! Let's see now. This is what I gather from the various sources:

I will need at least 2 watts per gallon to grow simple, hard to kill plants;

I need to contact my dealer to see if I can cut the cost for this project;

Some of the plants will need to be attached with either slate, driftwood or rocks;

Given the minimum amount of light, the plants will grow slowly (which is not a problem because I don't think I want them to grow very quickly.).

Now, regarding substrate. Is substrate the gravel or does that mean the sand, dirt or other growing medium that goes under the gravel?

Need to figure out what I am going to do. Thank you everyone for all of your support. I will put all of this useful information to use and hopefully, create a beautiful, living, breathing ecosystem.

In response to ultrasol, I now have: 3 bamboo shrimp, 2 plecos, 12 zebra danios, 5 glass cats ( I think, haven't seen one in a day or two), 3 gold mystery snails and 4 flying foxes (I have been trying to find more but no one seems to have any.)

[JustOneMore20]

will need at least 2 watts per gallon to grow simple, hard to kill plants

Well it depends on what you mean by simple hard to kill plants. Java fern and most anubias will grow in 1wpg and less.
I mentioned that you should shoot for 2 watts per gallon, because that will allow you to grow alot of stem plants that will help keep nitrates down. If you are not going to mess around with CO2 then a range of 1-2.5wpg is good. I've been told that CO2 is good with any light, but I think when you get around 2.5wpg and up, CO2 is necessary or you will have alot of algae problems.

If you plan to stick with the low light, hard to kill plants forever, then getting a fixture with ~1wpg will be fine. Many stem plants and alot of the reddish plants need higher light of ~2wpg or more. Since the choices for low light plants are pretty limited, I always try to shoot for 2wpg when i set up a planted tank.

Like Ownager clarified, anubias can be placed on the substrate (gravel, sand, special gravel stuff) but you can't bury the rhizome, or the part where the stems grow from. It is really hard to keep an anubias from floating up though...or atleast it is for me. I attach all mine to small rocks or stones with fishing line. That way you can bury the stone so it won't be seen, keep the plant submersed, and keep it from dying.
To me java fern looks better in groups, on a piece of driftwood. I have tried just planting the roots, but the group didn't stay together and it would stay on the gravel.

It's really your choice how you decide to plant them or place them.

Substrate is indeed gravel, sand, or whatever you use on the bottom of the tank. I don't suggest dirt...that's messy and probably isn't best for your fishies. There are some specialty plant substrates out there...here's a few that I can think of off the top of my head: Eco-Complete (black, small grain, contains nutrients and some beneficial bacteria), Flourite (iron rich, comes in red or brown, small particles), and Laterite (red, iron rich, usually you make an inch layer under regular gravel. There are others, but I can't think of names and I don't know much about them.

You can always use regular gravel. It should be really small though...like 2-3mm pebbles. It does help to have the specialty substrates, but not necessary. I have 2 planted tanks with regular gravel, you just have to make sure you use fertilizers.

What type of plecos do you have? Some plecos will uproot plants and others won't. Some, like Bristlenose plecos, are really clumsy and can uproot plants on accident.

Since you already have your tank set up, what kind of gravel do you have? If its pretty small, then you shouldn't mess with it and it will be fine. You could have problems later on, depending on what type plants you have, if your gravel is large.

[pfinstir]

OneMore,

That was an outstanding explanation and it pulled all of the various suggestions and info together seamlessly. Thanks. I have the standard plecos sold in the LPS. The sales person convinced me to buy them because they are supposed to be "excellent algae eaters." I must say that I bought them before I discovered this site, so I am not as easily lead anymore thanks to the vast amount of information on this site.

[Damon]

Metal Halide would probably be easier and cheaper than pc on a 6 foot tank. Fixtures are hard to come by in the 72 inch range though not impossible,
Marine depot carries them in the Current Orbit series. Roughly $500.00.

You might want to see if Big Al's would order one for you in this model or another. Probably cheaper too.