is substrate necassary in planted aquariums

[talal101]

i always hear people saying you need to have special substrate to grow plants such as clay or peat moss but why should it matter, dont the nutrients in the substrate get taken up leaving the substrate "dead"?
what do i really need to have a flourishing planted tank?, it seems everytime i add plants they are good for a month and then start to die off why is that?. does seachem flourish really work as a substitute to co2?
any extra tips you can give me are helpful, btw i have gravel substrate right now and i regret not making it more plant friendly........

 

[dzjr1188]

Depending on the height of your tank you may need high output lighting. Yes plants need the proper substrate, you cant grow a tree in loose gravel... They need nutrition from the "dirt". If you just have a plant or two you dont need to worry about co2 for the plants. but the seachem flourish line works well.

 

[karak]

I can only speak from experience from my 2foot planted tank
I just used cheap black gravel with the plants going in at the time of tank set up.
the plants really did suck for the first 2 months or so, barely growing, turning yellowish.

But over time they grew back to life and, its now 10 months on and the plants have basically doubled since i put them in, not including extra trimming cos it was getting out of hand.
So moral of the story, my plants eventually did flourish without any special substrate, you just have to give it time.

 

[Fat Homer]

also depends on the type of plant, some like annubias you can grow with basically nothing but water, while others may require proper substrate, lighting and Co2 just to grow properly...

 

[talal101]

from what i understand most aquarium plants dont use their roots to absorb nutrients but use them to anchor themselves to the soil, unfortanately for the time being i just have a plain single bulb light strip on each side of the tank and i know they dont produce enough lighting, i have the eclipse daylight bulbs in and my tank is 65 gallons and is 24" deep so the light needs to travel quite a bit before reaching the plants, do you think dosing with flourish will help and also should i change the bulb and to what?
thanks

 

[Piicklez]

You can buy treatments which you put in to the water and will help to give the plants the nutrients they need. Also a substrate is not always needed, with simple newbie plants they can just float around, but the more specialised plants do need a good substrate.

 

[joe jaskot]

If you are trying to grow plants in your 65 gallon tank with a single bulb light strip, you are not going to succeed. Plants need light to grow. In general, 3-5 watts per gallon. You may have some success with low light plants like anubias, java fern, java moss, etc. But if you want to grow plants which require more light, you will have to change your light fixture or add another.

 

[lipadj46]

not many people grow plants in peat moss or clay. If you want advice on growing aquatic plants go ask or better yet read in an aquatic plant forum. You are getting some good advice here but not much. You should research and get a good understanding of how plants use lighting, marco nutrients, micro nutritents and carbon and also how thing can go awry if these things are not provided in the proper ratios. Also you should learn what healthy and unhealthy plants look like. I will tell you if you take the above advice and put a 250 watt fixture over a 50g tank and toss in some plants you will be frustrated with the results.

 

[talal101]

Yeah I understand what you guys mean, I need to upgrade my lighting to at least double bulbs and I don't think I'm going to add co2 but I'm going to dose with seachem flourish weekly. I'm going to join an aquatic plant forum and see what I can learn, I know it has to be more than just add co2 and light, there has to be some ratios and other more complex things going on. Thanks for trying to help and to clarify i never meant growing floaters I meant growing them in plain gravel.