Plants..Real vs. Fake

[LovinLiveBearer]

Hello everyone! I have been struggling this last week with m tank. I have recently set it up again to have live bearers in it and after not having great luck with the fish I am thinking about some change. Right now I have a 20g tall tank with an eclipse filter as well as a bubble stick in the back. I have lots of fake plants that are all green and a red color because I like a more natural look. I am having difficulty with these fake plants as I am getting more interested in the whole fish life. They look cheesy and fake and I have had a couple fish get stuck in them. I am really wanting to switch to real plants but have heard that these are hard to keep alive. I had tried real plants years ago with not that great of luck, but I really want them again. They look better, keep the water cleaner and provide more oxygen for the fish. My question is, how do I keep the plants alive and healthy. What lighting do I need for my tank? I have normal long lights right now (came with the eclipse). What kind of plant food do I need? And I have heard people saying that they have a co2 tank for the plants. Isn't that bad for the fish? And is it really needed? I don't want to go out and spend money on plants and have them all die, so any advice anyone can give me would be great. I want a more natural, beautiful tank. My fish deserve the best home I can give them. THANKS!

[NewfieFishGuy]

I'm no expert, so I'll offer encouragement instead. There's lots of others to answer more specific questions.

I started fishkeeping about 2 yrs ago not knowing much of anything. I started right off with two kinds of plants because I always hated the look of fake. One were crypts, the other wisteria. I have 1.25w/gallon. It worked out fine. No co2.

There's a few commonly found low-light, low maintenance plants out there.

If you can provide a few more details like how many watts your lights are, it might help people give you specific suggestions.

As for food, I can't get the commonly recommended fertilizers, so even though I tried something, I gave up months ago. I have less algae and the plants seem to be doing better. But, I haven't tried to figure out why.

[LovinLiveBearer]

I have 2 15w bulbs but I am willing to upgrade if needed. Thanks!

[Blue Cray]

Planted tanks are very simple and easy to take care of if you have the right lighting and substrate. Brighter lights = more choices to choose from and medium sized gravel is perfect for roots. With plants you have to clean your tank way less as well.

[emc7]

Start with a few "low-light" plants and possibly Flourish Excel. Anubias, java moss, hornwort are worth a shot. If they thrive and you catch the plant bug, then you can start upgrading lights and getting more demanding plants. If you can't keep them alive, you will know to surrender (some areas seem to have plant-killing water). Excel is supposed to replace CO2 and it does seem to help with the algae. Some CO2 won't hurt fish, its in the water already from fish respiration, like we breathe out CO2. But any changes to a small tank can be risky for the fish, so add only one new thing at a time and watch the fish for ill effects and check the water chemistry for changes.

[joe kool]

Originally Posted by LovinLiveBearer

I have 2 15w bulbs but I am willing to upgrade if needed. Thanks!

2 15w incandescent bulbs or fluorescent? while some plants will live under incandescent lighting I don't know of any that do well under it. you will need to get a fluorescent hood for your tank if you want to do well with plants. try to get a fixture that will allow for around 2w per gallon size of the tank. smaller tanks you can get away with a little less, bigger tanks will need more but 2wpg is a good target.

look up justonemore20 and several others on here as they have lots of success with plants. I personally only have 1 what I would call planted tank, a 20L with about 10 different variates of plants and cherry red shrimp that I have a 65w compact fluorescent retrofit kit I built into the normal hood and the plants have to be trimmed back and separated about every 3 months or so (and some aggravating string algae ). I have java fern and anubus in just about all my tanks but they are fairly easy under low to moderate fluorescent lighting and can stand the hard water high ph and salt of my cichlid tanks.

[neilfishguy]

If they are flouresent you could try-
Java moss
Java fern
anubias
swords
crypts

[Scootydoo]

anything anubia or java is a good start and from there you can build your way up, maybe putting in co2 or putting better lights on, in the long run.

[Damon]

There are at least 20 posts on this exact topic here on the site

[joe kool]

rather than just chastise them for asking a question without searching for answers first why not add a link to one of the more informative posts too?

Like this one

http://www.fishforums.com/forum/aqua...nted-tank.html

[LovinLiveBearer]

Thank you everyone for all the info. They are florescent lights and I am going to go out this weekend and get a couple live plants. I am new to this site...like within the last 4 days so I am still finding all the different forums and so on. I have been doing a lot of research on my own too. It is just nice to get other opinions. Thanks again!