A Few Plant Questions...

[mudkeeper]

Has anybody have any sucess with keeping native plants in with there fish under normal light conditions (fluorescent, incandescent)?

Right now i am keeping a hornwort in my 10 gallon take (purchased it from the petstore), and using an incandescent light as the main source of light for the plant. It seems to be doing fine for now, but i have a history of having aquatic plants thrive for a month and then beggining to deteriorate.

Another question...I do not like using carbon in my filter and just use filter pads and bacteria. But has anyone ever use a hydroponic system? I would love to try to create one (it would look like cool project in my dorm, aka crazy bio major kid). I know my highschool had success with one, they had a 1000 gallon plastic tub they used to raise hybrid stripers, which used tomatoe plants and filter pads to break down ammonia and excess food.

 

[ewurm]

I have had success with guppy grass in native tanks, but that is not native. Hornwort should work fine, it's fairly easy to grow, but if it breaks down it is a mess. I have no experience with hydroponics.

 

[meepster]

most unrooted plants have specific requirements. Hornworts, cabomba, brazillian elodea, even milfoil will lose "leaves" if not properly cared for. I have had no luck with them.

If you're doing cryptocorynes or swords, they will melt down after a couple weeks because most of them didn't start out submerged so they have to lose their terrestrial leaves for aquatic ones.

 

[Sundew]

Has anybody have any sucess with keeping native plants in with there fish under normal light conditions (fluorescent, incandescent)?

Right now i am keeping a hornwort in my 10 gallon take (purchased it from the petstore), and using an incandescent light as the main source of light for the plant. It seems to be doing fine for now, but i have a history of having aquatic plants thrive for a month and then beggining to deteriorate.

If you really want to grow plants well, especially a floating species like hornwort which gets very bright light in nature, you will need better lighting than an incandescent bulb which has too few lumens to be of value to aquatic plants. Go to Walmart (or similar) and get a Clamp Light (an aluminum parabolic dish with a socket at the bottom and a clamp to attach it, a "shop light") and a 6500 Kelvin daylight spiral fluorescent to fit the fixture. This Kelvin value is very close to natural sunlight as far as the plants are concerned. Wattage depends on the tank, I have 6, 100 watt over an 80 gallon, one should be fine for a ten. Get a timer, set the time for 8 to 10 hours, no more. You will have to clamp the light above the tank (a few inches above the top of the tank) and you will need a glass, or better yet, a lexan cover. If you have lexan you can set the fixture on the lexan IF you provide a space between lid and fixture so air can circulate, the fixture will get too hot otherwise, maybe causing fire or at least the bulbs will burn out. They are very inexpensive to run compared to incandescent, but they cost more to buy.

And if you really want to get "fancy" and have plants grow like mad, CO2 injection will do amazing things. You can make an injector: You will need a softdrink liter bottle. Airline tubing. Tubing connector. Air Stone or CO2 diffusor. Marine Goop Adhesive. Drill and Bit. Sugar. Brewer's Yeast. Baking soda. Pure water.

Remove cap from bottle. Drill appropriate size hole in cap, using Marine Goop, glue a tubing connector to cap. Let dry overnight. Attach tubing to cap run tubing to tank and add air stone/diffusor to other end.

To bottle add 1/2 cup table sugar and a pinch of baking soda (Sodium bicarbonate). Fill bottle 3/4 full of warm dechlorinated water. Add teaspoon of yeast. Cap. Shake. Place air stone in tank. CO2 will be produced for about 2-3 weeks, then start new culture.

With proper lighting and CO2 injection you will be giving plants away, or selling them to the LFS!

There are many native plants to try. Jungle Val in large tanks, Cabomba, Hornwort, Saggitaria, Bacopa, Utricularia (Carnivorus!) and Ludwigia.

Will try to send pictures of a plant tank later.

 

[Sundew]

Has anybody have any sucess with keeping native plants in with there fish under normal light conditions (fluorescent, incandescent)?

Right now i am keeping a hornwort in my 10 gallon take (purchased it from the petstore), and using an incandescent light as the main source of light for the plant. It seems to be doing fine for now, but i have a history of having aquatic plants thrive for a month and then beggining to deteriorate.

Sorry, having trouble uploading pictures.

 

[ShadowBass]

Yeah, hornwort will always look good and then start to fall apart unless you're using high light. And the big problem with this is that hornwort is one of those plants that really starts to soil your water when it deteriorates. You end up with the little pine needle looking leaves all over the place, in your filters, just everywhere.

There are some non-native plants that will do ok under normal lighting but I don't really know much about native plants unfortunately. One of the other problems with keeping plants under insufficient light is that algae will readily outcompete most plants, even low light ones if you're using an extremely low wattage bulb.

I haven't personally used terrestrial plants as filtration, but I have used aquatic plants on lightly stocked tanks as such. Hopefully this summer I'll be able to try out a small hydroponics setup and post pictures and info.

 

[mudkeeper]

I had duckweed that multiplied immensely under the light, but my little koi made short work of it within 3 weeks. Now i am left with a ten gallon tank with a little bit of hornwort, it is doing alright, not the best looking thing, but eventually i am going to have a fluorescent for it. Since my musk turtle hasnt basked in months.

 

[ShadowBass]

I had duckweed that multiplied immensely under the light, but my little koi made short work of it within 3 weeks. Now i am left with a ten gallon tank with a little bit of hornwort, it is doing alright, not the best looking thing, but eventually i am going to have a fluorescent for it. Since my musk turtle hasnt basked in months.

I had a 28watt coralife compact flourescent over a 10g with hornwort and some pygmy sunfish, ghost shrimp and mosquitofish and it stayed relatively healthy. It shed some, but it was always green and grew like crazy. The hornwort is the only thing I had for filtration, and a spong filter to catch some of the leaves and turn the water over. Sponge filter was not cycled and there was no ammonia so I'm guessing the plants did the trick (keep in mind it was not heavily stocked though).
That stuff got thick enough that I had to thin it out as it looked like nothing but a tank packed with hornwort. You couldn't even see the fish unless you looked real close lol.

If you leave your hornwort under your incandescent it will fall apart pretty quick. If possible you might wanna sit some outside in a tub of water under the sun to keep it growing. You can grow a lot just from a few healthy pieces.

 

[Sundew]

I had duckweed that multiplied immensely under the light, but my little koi made short work of it within 3 weeks. Now i am left with a ten gallon tank with a little bit of hornwort, it is doing alright, not the best looking thing, but eventually i am going to have a fluorescent for it. Since my musk turtle hasnt basked in months.

Koi as duckweed control is of great interest as I have three tanks where duckweed is a problem. Was the duckweed spreading before the introduction of the koi or was there just a bit of it in the tank? The reason I ask is that if the tank in question is the one with only an incandescent light, the duckweed might have died off naturally anyway. Under a brightly lit tank it is a real pest species and I have yet to find anything that will control the duckweed that will not also clean out most of the desireable plants as well. Hand removal is difficult, you always seem to leave at least a few plants to start the problem all over.

 

[mudkeeper]

Koi as duckweed control is of great interest as I have three tanks where duckweed is a problem. Was the duckweed spreading before the introduction of the koi or was there just a bit of it in the tank? The reason I ask is that if the tank in question is the one with only an incandescent light, the duckweed might have died off naturally anyway. Under a brightly lit tank it is a real pest species and I have yet to find anything that will control the duckweed that will not also clean out most of the desireable plants as well. Hand removal is difficult, you always seem to leave at least a few plants to start the problem all over.

The hornwort is doing alrigt underneath the incandescent, which is like only 2 inches above it. The duckweed was spreading before the introduction of the koi, and was a thick layer at the surface. After introducing a 4 inch black koi. It soon took care of it, in little then a month. Now he is almost 6 inches and is a eating machine. I cant wait until it gets warmer so i can throw him in my garden pond.