Advice for adding plants to established 55 gallon - newbie to plants

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J

jadedreams

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 13, 2011
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Oklahoma
Hey everyone, been fishkeeping for a number of years but have never tried a planted tank. Decided I would like to take the plunge with my 55 gallon community tank. Read through some of the stickies, but had some basic questions that I could use some help with.

My target tank is the standard 55 gallon, the light fixture is a single flourescent that came with the tank, for filtration I have 2 aquaclear 70's. Current inhabitants are 10 neons, 4 cherry barbs, 5 albino cories, 5 bronze cories and 2 L104 clown plecos. I would also like to add about 5-10 hatchetfish, preferably the marbled ones and will hopefully find some soon. Substrate is currently a mixture of sand and fine-medium grain gravel, have a couple pieces of driftwood in the tank as well.

Seems like maybe I have the beginnings for a SE Asian biotope? Don't have to stick to that, but if I'm already most of the way there wouldn't mind planting along the same lines. Looking for some plant recommendations that would work well with my fish & tank, would like low-medium light varieties since I'm new to this. And I know I need to update my lighting as well, so any thoughts there would also be appreciated. Thanks for the help!
 
Ok, apparently I had SE Asian on my brain (have several tanks I'm reconfiguring lol) - this setup is leaning towards an Amazon biotope, sheesh.
 
Well, I don't think most plants are really worth doing as a biotope...I mean you can if you want to, but a lot of plants seem to actually be north american, or varieties breed in captivity and farms and such.

That said...do you want to be low or medium light? That makes a difference in terms of plants you can easily keep, not to mention means you would be looking into different sorts of light fixtures.

I run high light on my 75...its the same high as your 55 (unless you have a weird 55), but if you went high light you'd need co2, so avoid going to powerful with lighting.

And just an fyi, don't listen to anything about watts per gallon. That rule is archaic...its all about how much PAR you are getting, basically how intense the light is at the substrate, which is ruled mostly on the kind of light that you are using (LED, t5-HO, ect.) and how far above the substrate said light source is.
 
Keeping the single fluorescent tube you will be very limited in what you can keep. Easiest low light plants will be anubias, ferns, mosses, and crypts. All but crypts do well attached to wood. Without better lighting your options will be very limited, and even low light plants may struggle depending on the actual fixture you have. Can you take a pic of your current setup?
 
How does a few sword plants, some kind of anubias, hairgrass and frogbit sound to you guys? From what I read, sounds like low-medium light would be ok for these?

My lighting is the typical 21-22" height of a 55 above the substrate. Right now there's just one single 48" tube that came with the tank - can get a pic later when I'm home but it's not anything special. It definitely seems I need to upgrade to something else, trying to read and learn about the various options, there's a lot of info on lighting out there. Definitely open to any suggestions :)

One more question, is there anything special I need to do when adding plants since this is an established tank with fish?

Thanks again.
 
I thought you meant South American ;)
I have a 55 gallon SA community tank with 10 neons, 10 pristellas, 10 blood fins, 4 Bolivians, 5 cory cats, and 3 plecos (albino and normal bristlenose & a clown). I want hatchetfish so bad too lol the only thing is I like to keep my top open and hatchets scare easily and will jump out so be careful.
As far as plants go in my tank, I have amazon swords (background), amazon compacta (mid and foreground), and water lettuce. You will need to fertilize since you're using sand and gravel. Plant heavy. And depending on certain species, whichever you decide to get, make sure you read up on them first. Some plants go through a melting phase and come back so it may appear that they are dead but arent. Also, my tank is low tech, so a CO2 system may be necessary for yourself as well.
I love setting up new tanks and doing different themes. You get to learn so much!
Best of luck and pics are necessary!!!
 
hairgrass can be a bit tricky, swords are root feeders so add a fert tab under them when you plant, and frogsbit will block out a lot of light, but doesnt have much requirements to thrive. anubias is very easy, just attach to driftwood and it will be fine. id recomend a decent T5 light since they give good spectrum lighting(depending on bulb) and good reflectors are a must. catalina aquariums makes good lighting. LED is usually a bigger investment upfront, but will more than make up the difference in the long run with power saving and no bulb replacement. caution though LEDs usually emit a very narrow spectrum lighting and can be tricky to grow plants unless you go for plant specific leds which are not cheap.
 
brich999 said:
hairgrass can be a bit tricky, swords are root feeders so add a fert tab under them when you plant, and frogsbit will block out a lot of light, but doesnt have much requirements to thrive. anubias is very easy, just attach to driftwood and it will be fine. id recomend a decent T5 light since they give good spectrum lighting(depending on bulb) and good reflectors are a must. catalina aquariums makes good lighting. LED is usually a bigger investment upfront, but will more than make up the difference in the long run with power saving and no bulb replacement. caution though LEDs usually emit a very narrow spectrum lighting and can be tricky to grow plants unless you go for plant specific leds which are not cheap.
Click to expand...

Yes to mostly all of this, but I wanted to add a few thoughts myself.

Don't do floaters if you are doing a medium light tank. It's generally not worth it. DHG isn't all that bad to be honest, but given that the tank has fish already it is hell to plant, since you plant each individual node, and a pot can have dozens of nodes....it takes forever. It also grows slowly without co2. It's do-able but there are better carpeting plants for your situation IMHO.

LED can be done, but I'd go with a finex fixture...not sure if I'd say ray II or fugeray but I can get back to you on that later.

Avoid co2, unless you don't mind investing a few hundred into it.


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Ok, thanks guys. Going to keep the anubias and swords on my list for sure & maybe add some Vals to it. Think I'll skip the floating plants as I don't want to block out too much light. Is there another foreground plant you'd guys recommend instead of DHG or should I just try some of the dwarf swords?

Going to check into T5's but will also compare with LED's for cost & output. Will also hold off on C02 for now since I'm not aiming for high light at the moment.

This weekend I'm going to nose around a couple LFS in the area to see what plants are locally available, but are there good online vendors you'd recommend if I need/want to go that route?

Appreciate all the help everyone.. will get a before pic of current tank setup this weekend. And then get some more as it changes.
 
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