Preparing for Plants in a 35-40g Hex

[flamechica]

I've decided with this tank, I want more real plants. I love the one lonely anubias attached to the mopani log I have in my 10g and I have done pretty well with it considering I haven't done much with it. If you haven't seen pics of my 10g tank, they are in my introduction thread HERE. When I get this Hex tank set up, the large piece of mopani is coming out of the 10g and going into the hex. I will probably splice up the anubias on it and split it up on some smaller mopani that is coming for the 10g. But...I want some other plants for the hex too and since I haven't put the tank together yet (hubby is trying to clean off hard water deposits, etc) I wanted to research some more stuff about taking care of other plants and I am getting lost in a sea of information. I bought the Finnex Ray 2 for a light and it's on it's way because it seemed to be one of the few LED lights recommended online for taller tanks and plant growth. Now, I am struggling with what plants to choose, what substrate to choose, what ferts are best, etc. I'm not looking to get plants that are extremely difficult to take care of since I am just starting out. I also would like recommendations on where to get plants (online or LFS), good prices and preferably snail free - I HATE snail infestations with a passion! Substrate is confusing the crap out of me because some people say gravel is just fine if you fertilize, some say no. The tank came with a mixture of different sized gravel - the small colored kind all the way up to pea sized (or slightly larger) gravel all mixed together. A lot of the substrates that seem to be made for plants seems to be really fine and almost sandy like - which a lot of people say clouds the water for awhile or requires a ton of rinsing. Not sure I really like that. It also seems like those substrates need to be replaced, if I am not mistaken, because the plants will take the nutrients out of them? It doesn't seem like that would be an easy task once fish are in the tank. Since I haven't set up the tank yet, I want to get something figured out that would be a great somewhat permanent solution that I am not having to bugger around with later on. I realize I may have to fertilize on occasion and that is fine, but I don't want to have to keep swapping out substrates every 6mo to year or however often these substrates loose their nutrients, especially when a lot of these substrates aren't real cheap....am I not understanding this correctly? Recommendations?

If you are wondering what fish are going in this tank....I haven't decided other than that my Cory's (and getting them a few friends) will be moving to this new tank once it is cycled. They need to be moved from the 10g as soon as I can get this going, because Cory's have come up missing from my tank the last couple months and I suspect that it is my Pleco, whom I now believe to be a Columbian Zebra Pleco after a bit of research - he was sold to me under a different name by a pet shop well over a year ago and I had no idea that he was carnivorous until cory's came up missing I told the pet shop I wanted a good algae eater that looked cool and they pointed me towards him....a $30 fish, whom I never see, never eats my algae and now I'm pretty sure eats my fish....grrr!

 

[jrygel]

It can get away from you really fast! I am working on setting up a pressurized CO2 system with Apex controller in my planted 30 gallon . . .

The best places around to get plants and advice about planted tanks are Aquarium Co-op in Edmonds and Aquarium Zen near UW. Sierra in Renton and Denny's in Totem Lake also have a pretty good selection of plants, but they are bigger places so the staff knowledge is more spotty - they have some people that can give good advice, but not all.

You need to think about a few things for plant nutrients - first, many plants (Anubias, Java Fern, most stem plants)get most of their nutrients from the water, and substrate doesn't really matter much as long as they can spread their roots out in it (typical aquarium gravel is fine), others (Swords, Crypts, etc) get more of their nutrients from their roots and you do have to care about substrate -

I had the substrate debate when starting my own tank and ended up with CaribSea Flora Max, which has been fine, but I've decided I don't really like the look of it and have come to find out that most substrates don't really have many actual nutrients in them (more of a shape that encourages root development) and you need to use fertilizer tablets anyway. The ones that do actually have nutrients are picky to setup (dirted tank) or very expensive (ADA aquasoil et al) - and, the nutrients still run out of these types of substrate in a year or two anyway. I plan on going with pool filter sand and fertilizer tabs in my next tank - I've been very happy with Seachem flourish tabs.

For the water column, your number one concern is getting carbon to your plants - you can go with DIY CO2, pressurized CO2, or a liquid carbon source like Flourish Excel. Easy, low growth plants will do okay without this, but you will be pretty limited in what you can grow.

The main nutrients plants need in the water column are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K), commonly called the macros, i.e. macro nutrients. These should be dosed into your water separately from each other, and keeping in mind that fish food and poop will produce a pretty good amount of N and P once your tank is up and running. It's a pretty good bet that until you get to high light and pressurized CO2, that K will usually be the only one of the three macros that you need to dose. In addition, you need to dose a comprehensive micro nutrient mix - Seachem Flourish is a good one (there are others).

Depending on the dimensions of your tank and what size RAY2 you got, you might be into 'high' light levels, which can be a problem without CO2 and fast growing plants. Too much light and not enough carbon or fertilizers for good plant growth will lead to algae.

You may want to make sure you have at least one easy to grow, fast growing plant in the tank to suck up excess nutrients before algae gets to it - I have Water Wisteria (Hygropilla Difformis) for that. Other easy plants to start with are Anubias, Crypts, and Java Ferns. Slightly (only slightly) more demanding are swords and a lot of the stem plants (Hygro varieties).

The only guaranteed way to keep snails out of your tank is to buy only tissue cultured plants - I did this for the start of my tank and no snails. With the second plant I bought (from one of the above mentioned, really good aquatic stores), I transported in an MT snail, and now I have dozens of them. I got an assassin snail to help, but he can only do so much - thinking about getting some small (dwarf or yoyo) loaches once I have room in my tank.

Also, only a couple of species of pleco are really good at eating algae and stay small enough for that size tank - a bristle nose pleco being the most recommended one. BUT, what you really want for algae clean up are ottocinclis cats - they stay small and specialize in eating brown diatoms off of leaves without damaging the plants.

-Justin

 

[flamechica]

It can get away from you really fast! I am working on setting up a pressurized CO2 system with Apex controller in my planted 30 gallon . . .

The CO2 systems seem way above my head. I'm afraid I would kill off the fish! But maybe I am just being a wuss about something because I don't know much about it yet.

The best places around to get plants and advice about planted tanks are Aquarium Co-op in Edmonds and Aquarium Zen near UW. Sierra in Renton and Denny's in Totem Lake also have a pretty good selection of plants, but they are bigger places so the staff knowledge is more spotty - they have some people that can give good advice, but not all.

The only place I have been to is the Aquarium Co-op. Just made my first visit there on Saturday. They were WAY too busy to be asking in depth questions like that, so I imagine going during the week would be better...BUT their plant tanks were infested with snails, which was a bit of a turn off for me, unfortunately. Last time I got snails from a plant0 at a different store, the infestation grew out of hand in no time flat and it was a nightmare to get rid of. The only way I was finally able to get rid of them was to tear down the whole tank, remove the rocks and 0pour boiling water through them and then picked up some loaches to eat what snails somehow survived that0 & hitched a ride on the plants that were in the tank that I didn't obviously want to put through boiling water or anything like that. I hated doing that, but nothing else seemed to work. So, snails are one of my biggest concerns about plants...I just hate those little pests! They are like the cockroaches of aquariums. Well, the snails that lay eggs that is. I don't mind the live bearing kind or ones that don't breed easily in captivity.

You need to think about a few things for plant nutrients - first, many plants (Anubias, Java Fern, most stem plants)get most of their nutrients from the water, and substrate doesn't really matter much as long as they can spread their roots out in it (typical aquarium gravel is fine), others (Swords, Crypts, etc) get more of their nutrients from their roots and you do have to care about substrate -

I had the substrate debate when starting my own tank and ended up with CaribSea Flora Max, which has been fine, but I've decided I don't really like the look of it and have come to find out that most substrates don't really have many actual nutrients in them (more of a shape that encourages root development) and you need to use fertilizer tablets anyway. The ones that do actually have nutrients are picky to setup (dirted tank) or very expensive (ADA aquasoil et al) - and, the nutrients still run out of these types of substrate in a year or two anyway. I plan on going with pool filter sand and fertilizer tabs in my next tank - I've been very happy with Seachem flourish tabs.

For the water column, your number one concern is getting carbon to your plants - you can go with DIY CO2, pressurized CO2, or a liquid carbon source like Flourish Excel. Easy, low growth plants will do okay without this, but you will be pretty limited in what you can grow.

The main nutrients plants need in the water column are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K), commonly called the macros, i.e. macro nutrients. These should be dosed into your water separately from each other, and keeping in mind that fish food and poop will produce a pretty good amount of N and P once your tank is up and running. It's a pretty good bet that until you get to high light and pressurized CO2, that K will usually be the only one of the three macros that you need to dose. In addition, you need to dose a comprehensive micro nutrient mix - Seachem Flourish is a good one (there are others).

Thanks for all that info in a fairly easy to understand manner! That clears a few things up and gives me some stuff to think about. I was leaning towards the fertilizer tab route, but wasn't sure and definitely wasn't sure which plants were ok for gravel and which needed a special substrate so that clears up a lot of stuff.

Depending on the dimensions of your tank and what size RAY2 you got, you might be into 'high' light levels, which can be a problem without CO2 and fast growing plants. Too much light and not enough carbon or fertilizers for good plant growth will lead to algae.

I got the 24" Ray 2. The tank is just shy of 18" from flat edge to flat edge, but I read the Ray 2's the lights don't start for a few good inches in, so I thought I would get one a little longer and attempt to mount it from corner to corner, if that makes sense....we will see how that works. The light would be exactly in the middle of the tank when looking straight on at it, since it is a hexagon. Those corners are like 21" a part. The tank is 25" tall.

You may want to make sure you have at least one easy to grow, fast growing plant in the tank to suck up excess nutrients before algae gets to it - I have Water Wisteria (Hygropilla Difformis) for that. Other easy plants to start with are Anubias, Crypts, and Java Ferns. Slightly (only slightly) more demanding are swords and a lot of the stem plants (Hygro varieties).

Ok. I will keep that in mind. From everything I read online, it seemed like tanks 24" tall and above needed more light and people were suggesting the Ray 2 just for that. Obviously, I have no experience in this. My 10g had the old style hood with the dual little 15W bulbs until about a year ago when it kept burning one side out about every couple weeks and I had had enough of that crap and bought one that has a T5 in it now.

The only guaranteed way to keep snails out of your tank is to buy only tissue cultured plants - I did this for the start of my tank and no snails. With the second plant I bought (from one of the above mentioned, really good aquatic stores), I transported in an MT snail, and now I have dozens of them. I got an assassin snail to help, but he can only do so much - thinking about getting some small (dwarf or yoyo) loaches once I have room in my tank.

Ugh...that's what I was afraid of....I've done the loache thing with some success, but had to annihilate a lot of the snails myself first...as I stated above. My husband WANTS me to get a snail infestation because he likes to watch the loaches eat the snails. I told him to shut his dirty mouth. LOL

Also, only a couple of species of pleco are really good at eating algae and stay small enough for that size tank - a bristle nose pleco being the most recommended one. BUT, what you really want for algae clean up are ottocinclis cats - they stay small and specialize in eating brown diatoms off of leaves without damaging the plants.

Yeah, I learned that the hard way. lol. I believe, from what I have read and if he really is what I think he is, that the Pleco is darn near full size. Everything I have read about the Columbian Zebra Pleco is that they only get to be about 3-4in. I would say, it's about 3in now, give or take a little. I don't see it often enough to get a good reading on it. The idea is to move it to a 55g tank in the future, BUT that tank is next on the list. It needs some work on it's stand before I can start to set it up. I don't want to move it to the hex tank, because I am afraid that the lighting is going to be much brighter than my little T5 in my 10g and this Pleco REALLY hates light. So, my hope is to just move some of the inhabitants out of the 10g (the ones that I suspect he is eating) and hope that not only will help with water conditions as he probably gets a little bigger, but it will also solve the munching on my fish problem. He has never taken a dwarf frog life, he just seems to have a taste for cory's on occasion.

 

[tazeat]

Good luck, plants are quite rewarding to keep. Look in to the big pack of a bunch of digital timers, you'll want them for consistent lighting durations, and in the future for CO2 regulators and air pumps.

If you want CO2 info, just ask plenty of knowledgeable people here it's tempting once you get everything set up.

For beginners to CO2 and a <100g tank, hands down my recommendation is to use a standard 5 or 20lb co2 tank available anywhere like you'd use for soda or brewing (find an empty tank cheap on Craigslist NOT a new one, the tank is the most expensive part and you don't usually keep it when it's empty, they are just exchanged, so beat up tanks or expired certifications are fine!) and the GLA Atomic Regulator (http://greenleafaquariums.com/products/ ... or-v3.html) and Atomic Diffuser (http://greenleafaquariums.com/co2-diffu ... er-45.html). Easy to set up and reliable and still cost effective compared to the alternatives, GLAs support is top notch, they also sell fertilizers and other nice to haves. Then you'll want a drop checker to see how much CO2 you've put in the water, the cheap UP one will work fine (http://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/up ... -indicator), but GLA sells much fancier glass ones. Then sit back and marvel at the growth until you have to rescue your tank from your plants and cut a bunch out .

Substrate, I've done inert and EcoComplete. I'd lean toward the inert, it's easy to add fertilizer tabs and to the water and imho more predictable. The EcoComplete will sure grow java ferns and swords nicely without doing much though, but like said above I've heard the nutrients get used up over the course of a year or two anyway and it just looks ok.

 

[flamechica]

Good luck, plants are quite rewarding to keep. Look in to the big pack of a bunch of digital timers, you'll want them for consistent lighting durations, and in the future for CO2 regulators and air pumps.

Yep, been thinking about timers. I put my current fish tank light on one when I leave on vacation, but usually don't have it on one all the time, but I only have the one anubias and a very minute bit of java moss that I keep trying to get rid of - but it's just as bad as snails. LOL!

If you want CO2 info, just ask plenty of knowledgeable people here it's tempting once you get everything set up.

For beginners to CO2 and a <100g tank, hands down my recommendation is to use a standard 5 or 20lb co2 tank available anywhere like you'd use for soda or brewing (find an empty tank cheap on Craigslist NOT a new one, the tank is the most expensive part and you don't usually keep it when it's empty, they are just exchanged, so beat up tanks or expired certifications are fine!)

The CO2 will probably come a bit later when I feel more comfortable with that idea. We actually have a SodaStream machine that we rarely use, that probably has an expired or almost empty bottle on it right now. LOL

and the GLA Atomic Regulator (http://greenleafaquariums.com/products/ ... or-v3.html) and Atomic Diffuser (http://greenleafaquariums.com/co2-diffu ... er-45.html). Easy to set up and reliable and still cost effective compared to the alternatives, GLAs support is top notch, they also sell fertilizers and other nice to haves. Then you'll want a drop checker to see how much CO2 you've put in the water, the cheap UP one will work fine (http://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/up ... -indicator), but GLA sells much fancier glass ones. Then sit back and marvel at the growth until you have to rescue your tank from your plants and cut a bunch out .

I will save these links so I can refer back to them later. I am sure that I probably will go the CO2 route eventually. It seems like the way to go.

Substrate, I've done inert and EcoComplete. I'd lean toward the inert, it's easy to add fertilizer tabs and to the water and imho more predictable. The EcoComplete will sure grow java ferns and swords nicely without doing much though, but like said above I've heard the nutrients get used up over the course of a year or two anyway and it just looks ok.

Well, that's good to hear. That will leave more $$$ for plants and other goodies if I don't have to replace the substrate.

 

[jrygel]

I got the 24" Ray 2. The tank is just shy of 18" from flat edge to flat edge, but I read the Ray 2's the lights don't start for a few good inches in, so I thought I would get one a little longer and attempt to mount it from corner to corner, if that makes sense....we will see how that works. The light would be exactly in the middle of the tank when looking straight on at it, since it is a hexagon. Those corners are like 21" a part. The tank is 25" tall.

From what I've seen, they Ray2 will probably work well for that kind of tank. It may be something you need to keep an eye on, but probably won't be un-controllable.

 

[MorganEA]

Most planted tanks have snails unfortunately it comes with the territory. What causes them to get out of hand is if you are over feeding your tank as long as your fish eat all the food and the snails don't get any you should be fine. You can also add assassin snails to keep the population down.

 

[flamechica]

From what I've seen, they Ray2 will probably work well for that kind of tank. It may be something you need to keep an eye on, but probably won't be un-controllable.

Thanks! I was hoping I had read things right. The light should be here tomorrow....now if my hubby will just get done with his end of the tank stuff....cleaning the hard water deposits off, etc.

Most planted tanks have snails unfortunately it comes with the territory. What causes them to get out of hand is if you are over feeding your tank as long as your fish eat all the food and the snails don't get any you should be fine. You can also add assassin snails to keep the population down.

I used to think the same thing on the food part....however, I did start to set this tank up about a year ago. I rinsed the rocks out and put them in, set the filters up and within a few days there were snails everywhere! Obviously, there had to be eggs in the rocks lying dormant. There were absolutely no fish, plants or anything else in the tank, nor was I feeding an empty tank. I was going to start cycling, but I saw all these snails and wanted to see how it played out. They just kept multiplying and multiplying and multiplying. I left the tank going like that for a couple weeks thinking no food, the wood die off, but their army just kept getting bigger and bigger. So, unless they were feeding on themselves as they died off, I don't know how the heck they kept multiplying off the theory of they need food.... Now, the rocks were used from when my grandma had this tank, but I did rinse them before setting up the tank, so there couldn't have been a whole lot of debris left over for them to munch on.... This time, the rocks are getting boiled before going into the tank, just to be sure I don't have any any little pests. As long as the tank has sat without water and fish there can't' be any useable bacteria for me anyways.

 

[MorganEA]

That is weird!! You had crazy mutant snails lol. The problem is the eggs they are impossible to get off plants and rocks.

 

[flamechica]

Yeah, that whole experience (and a terrible infestation in my 10g) is why I am so dead set against trying to avoid a problem all together. I hate egg laying snails with a passion! LOL! With my 10g, I was able to remove the livestock and pour boiling water through the rocks and that got rid of darn near all of the problem, then the loaches I had bought to eat the snail population before I disassembled the tank, took care of what happened to survive the boiling water or what came out on the few plants I had (and obviously did not subject to boiling water). So, my thought is, if I actually just boil the rocks for this tank before putting them in the tank, then problem will hopefully be non-existent. BUT only time will tell. Then, I just have to figure out a way to successfully get plants without snails or rid the plants of snails and their eggs before putting them in the tank. That will be the tough part....

 

[flamechica]

Has anyone here tried an Alum soak for snails? It seems like the one thing I have read that isn't extremely harsh on the plants. I have a few days to kill before the tank will be ready so I was thinking that I could give them a good soak in an alum/water bath. Then I have a 10g that leaks, so I could put it in our utility sink or bath tub and fill it up with water put the plants in there and quarantine them for a few days to see what happens after the soak. Thoughts?

 

[flamechica]

Got my Ray 2 in the mail today. Plugged it in to make sure it was in working order....holy mother of lights!!! I can't wait until hubby is done fixing up the tank, so I can get started!