Any planted freshwater tank gurus here?

[SnowManSnow]

hi,
While not a guru.. I have had pretty good success with FW planted tanks over the last few years. Oddly enough the most success I've experianced was with typical aquarium gravel...I tried the other substrates... only to be baffelled by how someone could keep all the "dust" in the tank down. As for lighting.. I use whatever came with the 37G Eclipse tank... probably nothing fancy. What DID help me a lot was avoiding surface agitation. I know its opposite with SW.. but with FW my plants began to do MUCH better when I began to keep the surface as tranquil as possible. I believe it aids in plant respiration as the lights come on and go of and so forth.

I did try the CO2 reactors, only to jerk them out a few weeks later due to PH fluctuations and algea growth (yes, I know this can be avoided).

I guess all in all... my planted tank at home has done much better as I have learned not to tinker with it so much WOW isn't THAT a big help haha.

Have a good one!

 

[GSchiemer]

-CO2 is a must. I always use it on a controller.

It is not. Unless you have a race and want to have faster growth than your neighbor, the plants will be OK with the nutrients they get from fish poop and uneaten food. At the same time they'll keep your sand clean by extracting those nutrients from the sand.

I always try to go with the natural way whenever possible (also see the under the sand heating post -> ?!!!?). But that's me.

M.

It's all about balance. If you employ bright lights, such as metal halides, dose an iron-based fertilizer, and want to maintain "high-light" plants, then CO2 is a necessity. It's not unlike a reef aquarium in this regard. There are SPS aquariums and mushroom aquariums. They have different requirements. Being that Jim comes from the reef hobby, I figure that he wants an "SPS" plant aquarium that typically features more colorful and interesting varieties of plants, IMO.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

I do. Thanks Greg.

 

[Anonymous]

Jim:

There is an article in this month's FAMA you may be interested in. It is a report on a FW planted at the six year point of operation. The author shares experiences over six years of running a planted tank.

Bob

 

[delphinus]

-The only parameter I measure is hardness, which is important when you're dosing CO2.

What sort of things are you looking for, when you're measuring hardness if you're dosing CO2?

 

[GSchiemer]

-The only parameter I measure is hardness, which is important when you're dosing CO2.

What sort of things are you looking for, when you're measuring hardness if you're dosing CO2?

There is a relationship between alkalinity, pH and CO2. These have to be balanced or else there is a danger of overdosing CO2 and killing the fish. You can also under-dose CO2 and it becomes ineffective. Charts demonstrating this relationship appear in numerous publications, including Dupla's plant manual.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

...
There is a relationship between alkalinity, pH and CO2.
....


...
Greg

Gee Just like in saltwater.

 

[holry7778]

I finally got fed up with my Planted FW. Pulled afterr having it 2 years. I spent 1+yrs fighting hair algea that just wouldn't give up. I tryed everythign from leaving the light of for weeks at a time, to dosing, to cleaing it everyday, NOTHING helped. A friend of mine's tank is also starting the same thing. I didn't feed the plants, I barely feed the 5 fish, no CO2, 1 full plant spectrum light on a 10 gal. I just could beat it down

So my advise would be walk carefully. FW turns green really fast and likes it that way!

 

[GSchiemer]

I finally got fed up with my Planted FW. Pulled afterr having it 2 years. I spent 1+yrs fighting hair algea that just wouldn't give up. I tryed everythign from leaving the light of for weeks at a time, to dosing, to cleaing it everyday, NOTHING helped. A friend of mine's tank is also starting the same thing. I didn't feed the plants, I barely feed the 5 fish, no CO2, 1 full plant spectrum light on a 10 gal. I just could beat it down

So my advise would be walk carefully. FW turns green really fast and likes it that way!

If you couldn't control algae, then you were doing something wrong. A FW plant tank is similar to a reef aquarium in this regard. I only use remineralized RO water for water changes and straight RO water for top-off. I always use a lot of Otocinclus fish to help combat algae. I also like livebearers and Farowellas for this task, as well as ramshorn snails. The best combat against algae though are fast-growing plants. If necessary use some of the various duckweed-type floating plants until the other plants start actively growing. Most stem plants serve the same purpose.

BTW, I never have green water. This too is a sign of an imbalance.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

I finally got fed up with my Planted FW. Pulled afterr having it 2 years. I spent 1+yrs fighting hair algea that just wouldn't give up. I tryed everythign from leaving the light of for weeks at a time, to dosing, to cleaing it everyday, NOTHING helped. A friend of mine's tank is also starting the same thing. I didn't feed the plants, I barely feed the 5 fish, no CO2, 1 full plant spectrum light on a 10 gal. I just could beat it down

So my advise would be walk carefully. FW turns green really fast and likes it that way!

My wife's son had a similiar experience. It was really really fustrating because he saw my 10g and was tired and too busy to constantly maintain his 29g.

So when I visited once, we went with sand, plants, and a 4' utiluty tube for light. And in a month or so he had green water, cloudy tanks, and even a lot of plants dieing. When I visited about 3 months later, we got anacorus plants and they replaced about 90% of the water using tap through a pure faucet mounted filter. At that point the water cleared and things settled down.

What I think happened was his was an existing tank whereas all of my Fw were always started with plants as the very first thing. Similiar to what happened with my 55g salt, if you do not get the plant life thriving as the very first thing, then playing catch-up can take many many many months.

But once you do hit that point where the plants are in charge, then everything just drops into place. And the easiest way to do that is right from the beginning.

 

[Anonymous]

no special substrates are really necessary, plants get most of what they need through direct absorption via their leaves from the water column


if you're lookin to do a fw 'reef' then CO2 is prob'ly the way you want to go

watch the phosphates, it's as much an issue as it is in a reef tank

the original dutch/leiden tanks were very successful waaaay before anyone even heard of flourite/laterite


fwiw-seachem flourish iron, and trace, are prob'ly the only additives you'll need think of iron in a fw reef the way you think of Ca in a reef tank. they're almost parrallel in their importance/uptake speed

hth


oh, and start googling anything by karen randall :wink:

 

[GSchiemer]

I disagree. Stem plants and floating plants absorb nutrients from the open water, but heavily rooted plants, such as Echinodorus and Cryptycoryne, require a rich substrate. They need to be fertilized through the substrate. This is also a better method because it keeps nutrients away from nuisance algae, which "feed" from the open water.

Greg

 

[fishfanatic2]

Yes, substrate is very important in plants. However I will agree that the seachem additives are very good-I have and use them.

 

[GSchiemer]

I've used Seachem plant supplements with success but prefer Kent. It's important that the supplement contain iron!

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

I disagree. Stem plants and floating plants absorb nutrients from the open water, but heavily rooted plants, such as Echinodorus and Cryptycoryne, require a rich substrate. They need to be fertilized through the substrate. This is also a better method because it keeps nutrients away from nuisance algae, which "feed" from the open water.

Greg

i've grown huge amazon swords in reg #2 quartz gravel, and amazons can be fertilized directly through the water column just as easily as through the substrate

i've also seen them do excellently in u.g. tanks

vals and saggitarias will go bonkers in #1 reg quartz gravel, and sand, as will most of the 'stem./bunch plants

no special substrates necessary

i would stipulate that laterite is a 'highly desirable' when wanting to propagate crypts rapidly, but it too can be easily taken care of through dosing the wc w/iron


afaik, most of the 'higher' plants don't use roots for nutrient absorption, roots are just an anchor and transport media for water-it's what's in the water that's important, for both terrestrial and aquatic plants :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

All I know is my current 10g Fw has a single amazon sword that almost fills the entire tank. And vals the are spreading rapidily. All with silica type play sand. So I'l just let my fish fertilize the sand and the plants consume that. Just as I have done with FW tanks for up to 6 years continuous running.

Also. On the salt side, One fo the very very important aspect of plant life is the consumption of carbon dioxide. So I just let the macros consume the fish co2 And forget any co2 dosing.

Bob

 

[GSchiemer]

afaik, most of the 'higher' plants don't use roots for nutrient absorption, roots are just an anchor and transport media for water-it's what's in the water that's important, for both terrestrial and aquatic plants :wink:

This is untrue. Some of the "stem" plants use roots as holdfasts, but deeply rooted plants, such as Echinodorus and Cryptocorynes, have extensive root structures and use these roots to absorb nutrients.

As I said, it's much better to fertilize at the root level because nutrients will not be available for nuisance algae.

I'm not arguing that you can't grow CERTAIN plants with silica sand, UG filters and shoplites, but this is not the IDEAL method. It all depends upon what you want to achieve. I like a densely planted "Dutch" aquarium with colorful plants and clear water, and this requires more intense light and an iron-rich substrate. Just like a reef aquarium, we're trying to duplicate a tropical setting. You can grow some corals with shoplites, silica sand and UG filters, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'd suggest taking a look at a few books on plants in the freshwater aquarium. Unfortunately the two that I like are out of print, so I won't bother mentioning them.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I've read Karen Randall's book. There is some interesting stuff in there, but it isn't going to be too useful if you want to set up aquaria like these: http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... ry=0&vol=2

Hey, while I'm looking at pictures, check out Oliver Knott. http://www.pbase.com/plantella/130cm_tank

 

[gpodio]

Jim, looks like you have plenty of info here already. I'm coming in a little late on this thread so please excuse any duplicate info I may provide but I'll try to give you a brief outline of how I setup my tanks and what has worked best for me in the past.

For a high light tank here's my ideal setup:

3-4WPG of fluorescent or MH lighting, less in tanks over 75-90 gallons. CO2 will be a must with such lighting of course and unfortunately you may just need to get yourself a PH test kit, not for the fish but to measure CO2 levels as you will want CO2 to be in good supply and stable. Substrate wise I choose Flourite over any other, eco-complete is also great but will raise water hardness, I tend to prefer an inert substrate and fertilize it myself. Preparation of the substrate for me usually includes a couple handfulls of peat in the bottom of the tank, followed by some crushed Flourish Tabs, about a half gallon of mulm vacumed out of an established substrate (if possible) and 4" of flourite on top of it all. As far as fertilizers go, your best bet is to start with something like the "Estimative Index" by Tom Barr, this method works very well and requires the least amount of testing. You can certainly personalize it as you go along but it's a great place to start. Here is a link:

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/est_index1.html

As far as which fertilizers to use, I prefer Flourish and Flourish Iron for traces. KNO3 for potassium and nitrate, Fleet Enema for phosphates. You can also use K2PO4 for fosfates and K2SO4 for potassium if required, but usually not if using KNO3. Flourish Tabs for the substrate as well. Other popular trace mixtures are TMG (Tropica Master Grow) and CSM+B (from the PMDD text). Kent has a new line called Botanica, it is pretty much the same as the Flourish line only the traces are divided into three bottles rather than a single one. I didn't see any advantage to using the Botanica line so I stuck with Flourish that I can get the larger bottles of easily. You can compare their contents on my site if you like:

http://www.gpodio.com/fert_table.asp

I don't recommend using substrate cables, they have caused more headaches for me in the past than any advantage one may hope they provide, a waste of money in my opinion. As far as filtration goes, plants will be in competition wtih aerobic bacteria for nitrogen so extensive biological filtration is not really required, mostly water movement. But of course mechanical filtration is required as things can get pretty dirty when moving plants and disturbing the rich substrate. A canister is obviously the king of filtration here, not only does it allow you to have a lot of mechanical filtration but it also allows you to personalize the intake and return so to reduce surface agitation and keep stable CO2 levels. You can also feed your CO2 directly into the canister 24/7 and it will serve as a big CO2 reactor rather than having another piece of hardware in your tank.

I'm new to reefs but so far my opinion is that a fast growing planted tank can indeed be a lot more work, specially until one has the regime worked out and doesn't need to test and adjust things as much. I usually do water changes weekly or every two weeks for such a tank, pruning is required every two weeks. Luckily however they are no where near as delicate, most mistakes are easy to resolve and nothing will "crash" overnight or during a weekend at the shore like I've heard reefs can.

Fish wise, just like in reefs there are the important janitors that will help deal with small algae outbreaks. Ottos, SAEs, Black Mollies, Caridina (Amano Shrimp) and Ancistrus are all good algae eaters, none replace the other so best to have a few of each. Snails are also great, olive nerites are perfect and MTS for the substrate. Coridoras as a general bottom scavanger are good too. The rest are all there to look good

Plant wise with such a setup you can keep anything. I'm sure you have plenty of sources locally but if you get stuck looking for a certain plant send me an email as fall is a good time to be shipping plants (not too hot, not too cold).

Last of all, consider joining or just browsing some of the plant related forums, it's good to hear other people's opinions and methods as we all get stuck in our ways eventually... There are many, my favorites are in the links section of my website:

http://www.gpodio.com/links.asp

Hopefully that provides some information or at least another point of view.

Regards
Giancarlo

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, this thread is turning into a great resource. 8)
Thanks again.

Jim