Do plants help? Tank design question.

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J

Jay88

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Dec 23, 2010
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Australia
My current 55gal tank has a Flowerhorn, Rainbow Shark and two jewel cichlids.

My interiors consist of sand as the substrate, 3 rocks.... and one very small drift wood piece.

I was wondering, what TYPE of plants, would you guys add to make it better for my Flowerhorn. (floating plants are welcome, please provide name of the plant and MAYBE a link to where I could purchase it online?)

Also, i use a normal tube light which is quite strong as you can see.

Please advise. Thanks guys.

(picture is without fish)

new.jpg
 
Type of light butt?

watts?
 
I got this second hand, so im really not sure... can we assume its like an average tubelight for a 4ft? Anyone know the watt? By looking at that picture i mean.

Im sorry guys, i feel really stupid when it comes to lights and decorating questions...

Lets say good type of plants for cichlids, which require low or medium lighting? PLUS they get a lot of sun light, since its right next to my room
 
With so many types of bulbs out there such as T5, T8, T5HO, Halides and all that jazz its hard to say for sure what the wattage is on your tank...

But, with that being said and done, if you flip the lid open and look on the side of the bulb it should state (at least if i remember correctly) what the power is...

-EDIT-

But if your only planning on keeping a sand substrate, then maybe anubias would be your best bet as they are probably one of the easiest and least fussy plants for aquariums...
 
water onions are easy to grow i find. hydrocotyle as well. hygrophila are pretty easy too.
I am in no way a plant expert at all. those are just some species I have had no problem growing under average light we will say (my lightbulbs come from a hard ware store haha
 
If you think your fish might dig up your plants, use anubias and java ferns and glue the them onto the rocks or wood. They are very easy plants to grow and in general, the fish won't eat them.
 
It's probably just a regular 40 watt bulb, plants are tricky. Youy actually don't have a lot of light compared to planted tanks. So you want low light demanding plants, these grow slower and don't help much. As said anubis and java fern are good tough plants that can be tied to the drift wood. Eventually it will grow on the wood and hold it's self on.

The best thing to do is see what you can get locally cause that will probably be cheapest. Then research the plant online. You could probably get medium light plants.

You can try a plant and see what the fish does with it, some like to rip them up, some don't.
 
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