Anyone use live plants?

[Daeorn]

Just as the topic suggests: anyone use live plants in their tank?

Been thinking of tossing the few fake ones I have to get some real ones - such as anubis, java fern and hornwort.

Not sure what people have in their tanks though. Any ideas?

[fishbguy]

I have live plants in my 10 gallon. Now that I have both live and fake, I deffaintly like the live plants over fake. They are alot more work than I was planning on, but they are deff. worth it.

Are these for the 75 brackish tank??? I'm not sue exactly, but I believe that most vals, sags, and other grassy plants are usually brackish compatible, as well as anubia, and anacharis/elodea, but I'm not positive.

[Daeorn]

Yeah it'll be for the 75 - soon to be a 125.

Thanks

[Baby_Baby]

LOTS of people on this board have real plants in their tanks, so I'm sure they'd be more than glad to help you out.

[[sadly I'm not a real plant person]]
[[but I'd still love to help you out]]

JustOneMore20 And Daemon definitely can help you out and I'm sure they'll be on the forums later on today or tomorrow, not sure since its a holiday

[Daeorn]

Thanks a ton. I've always thought live plants look much better than fake ones, but it being a brackish enviroment, I know my choices are slimmer. Thanks for the help

[JustOneMore20]

I know some of the hardier plants like Java fern, Anubias, Anacharis, and maybe some Vals will grow in brackish. I have read that they won't always thrive though, but I've never tried it personally. I did some research on brackish plants at one time because I wanted to setup a Bumblebee goby tank with some plants. I couldn't find enough plants that would make it in brackish water to make me happy though.

I just found this link which lists alot of plants that could survive in brackish: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/BrackishS...bracplants.htm. They'd require various degrees of lighting though, but a good many of them can live in low light.

[Corydora_FREAK]

Wow i guess i am the odd sheep here. i use only fake plants. I want to focus on the fish, and i dont want to spend a ton on upgrading or the hassle of CO2 injection. Also i dread the thought of adding any chemical ferts to my all natural water. i always use realistic silks and plastics and they are great. Most people cant tell they are fake until i say so. I dont use the obvious fake ones or ornaments. I love all natural looks but no live plants for me!

[Chaos553]

im glad someone posted this because ive been wanting to set up a bumblebee goby tank for a while now. JustOneMore20, is there really not enough live plants to satisfy their environment due to the conditions? i planned on setting up a 10g brackish sometime in the near future, so it would be good to know this.

[JustOneMore20]

There are enough for their environment (if you look at the link I listed above, the list is fairly long)....there just wasn't enough variety for me personally.

I like having alot of plant choices and have moved past alot of common plants. There are alot of plants that are easily obtainable on the list and pretty common, so you should be able to have atleast a little variety in the tank.

Vallisneria will outgrow the tank. Some of the others will need more than low light to thrive. But other than that, there shouldn't be many problems.

[Chaos553]

alright thanks!

[Moltenice]

Hmmmm well, I have had quite a few (like 5 different types) live plants in my 55gal Malawi tank and then do just fine. I never assumed they would be a pain to keep, even so they arent going to break the bank to try out and they offer some housekeeping benefits to the water.

I dont doing anything for them except use the correct lighting. The water is is kept to Malawi standards and they do just fine.

The only "problem" I have had is the occasional nipping of one of my plants. I'm not exactly sure who it is, but one of my plants gets it's ends chewed off. I'm not sure what the plant is, but it seems to be the only one they mess with.
Here is a picture of the plant and the Electric yellow sleeping under it ( I snapped it at 5am when I turned the light on and they were all asleep).

[Daeorn]

What plants do you have and whats your salinity at?

[fishbone]

I'll have to say, it depends on what you have in that brackish tank
I tried my luck with Anacharis, they fared well ... until the floating anchors failed and my 8 crabs got their claws on them. I was away from home, in a matter of 3 days 8 crabs managed to tear up about 10 Anacharis plants. My brackish is on the low-end. 1.005-1.007 at most.
I don't think I need to tell you that you should acclimate the plants nice and slow.

[Daeorn]

Yeah. I've never really liked anacharis for what I'm trying to do.

Right now I've finally got some plants in there. About a dozen or so java ferns, 2 frilled java fern. I also put clumps of java moss on driftwood and under rocks and whatnot. It's REALLY starting to look nice, and really added the natural look I was looking for.

On the 48" strip light I added a 40W floura-glo bulb on it.

My question to those who've tried. The substrate is play sand with a thin layer of argonite and pea gravel on top. I inserted sea-chem root tabs into the substrate around the plants to give them a bit more nutrients.

There anything else I can do to promote growth or at least make them stay alive? Never been a green thumb in my fish tanks.

The salinity is 1.006 right now