Caring for Aquatic Freshwater Plants.?

Question

I've had plenty of freshwater fish tanks before, but have never really messed with aquatic plants before and i'm trying my first planted aquarium. I have a 20 gallon tall tank with four plants and plan on adding more. I bought a bundle of bamboo plants (3 stalks), a little 4 inch gold ribbon, a 6 inch tropical fern, and a larger 9 inch brazilian sword.

They are planted in about 3 inch deep medium size gravel, get about 12 hours of 15 watt 5500k tropic sun light, and i've used tetra plant flora pride plant nutrient. Should this be sufficient enough for plant growth and how soon should i see plants starting to die or rot if they will?

What else can I do to ensure my plants stay healthy and begin to grow?

Answer 1

Actually, none of the plants you bought are even aquatic; they're all terrestrial. They'll rot and die in your tank, causing an ammonia spike, which you don't want. Take them out of your tank and get real aquatic plants: http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide.php

15 watts on a 20 gallon tank isn't really good lighting, it's not even 1 watt per gallon. Especially if it's on a high tank, it takes stronger light to reach the bottom. You can grow/buy any plants listed here: http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_list...

And yes, if you get easy to care for plants, that fertilizer and lighting should be enough.

Here's some links on plant care:

http://fish.mongabay.com/plant_care.htm

http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/...

http://www.catalogs.com/info/pets/aquari...

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/plantc...

E-mail me for any questions!

Answer 2

10 times harder than keeping fish.....its a good way to challenge yourself.

You could spend a 1000 hours online researching how to keep aquatic plants.

I'll keep it as simple as possible

you must balance..

light

nutrients

co2

substrate (an iron rich bed feeds plants)

One of these out of balance and plants will die and 1 or all 6 types of tank algae will take over.

Your tank is borderline suicide unless you pick your plants wisely.

5500k is barely passable but is 6700k is ideal

No substrate means plants can only water feed. Fert sticks for root feeders like the sword may be needed.

Light drives the system and you have none. Plus tall tanks are the worst to grow plants as light has a hard time hitting the bottom.

You have 15watts, I wouldn't suggest less than 70 watts or 45 of t5ho

8-10 hours of light is ideal

your plants will get 90% of the nutrients they need from the water and weekly 20% water changes so dose the ferts very sparingly.

Your low light means the plants will grow very slow, which also means you don't need to introduce co2. A good thing for a beginner.

get really really low light plants and you should be ok.

  

Research a little and you will be able to tackle growing plants no problem.

Good luck!!!

Answer 3

Ouch.  You have almost all terrestrial plants, not aquatic plants, and they won't survive in your aquarium.  Did some of them come in those plastic tubes?  Most of those actually aren't for fish tanks and are very misleadingly labeled.  Your bamboo, gold ribbon (which is also just a type of bamboo), and fern will die if you try to keep them underwater.  The sword should fare better, though.

You may not see them start to die right away, since it could take a while, but they WILL die.

Here's some advice for a new plant keeper--stick with hardy, low-light plants at first.  Java fern, java moss, anubias, anacharis, and hornwort are good starter plants.

Also, for future reference, here's a list of tube plants that actually ARE aquatic:

Tropica (java) fern

Argentine sword

Amazon sword

Compacta

Wisteria

All the others don't belong in an aquarium.