A while back I sorta got into it with some dbag YouTuber because he kept pulling up pics of peoples tanks and ripping on them, not because they were keeping fish in bad conditions or anything, but because he felt their scape was ugly. I called him out for being overly judgmental over personal taste in decor and he went to list his degrees and say that fake plants are harmful. I’ve been keeping fish since 86 and I usually go with fake because I’m more into fish keeping than caring for plants. I’ve always used realistic and high quality ones with out an issue. Has anyone else heard that fake plants are harmful?
Live versus fake plants
- Thread starter Joshuakahan
- Start date
I would have stopped there, people who normally know what they’re talking about don’t need to list their accomplishments.
To answer your question comrade, no, I have not heard this nonsense and I would think that if it had any shred of truth then all the fake plants would be yanked off the shelves immediately.
I think you’re right , I just felt the need to say something to him cuz he asked people to send pics of their tanks and then he trashed all the ones that didn’t look like his.
Back in the day fake plants did look, quite frankly, hideous. Nowadays you can look at pictures of fake plants in tanks and you struggle to tell the difference. Obviously real plants are better imo because they perform secondary tasks which are impossible for fake plants to do.
Before I went down the route of planting my 180 I looked at fake plants, and nearly went down that avenue. But I fancied challenging myself to see if I could be successful with live so I passed on the fake.
Just for the record, the plastics which fake plants are manufactured from are totally aquarium safe. As
fishhead0103666
said, anyone who starts spouting off about how clever they are, imo, aren't doing themselves any favours from the get go.
Before I went down the route of planting my 180 I looked at fake plants, and nearly went down that avenue. But I fancied challenging myself to see if I could be successful with live so I passed on the fake.
Just for the record, the plastics which fake plants are manufactured from are totally aquarium safe. As
fishhead0103666
said, anyone who starts spouting off about how clever they are, imo, aren't doing themselves any favours from the get go.That was kind of my argument I made with him, while real are better, fake doesn’t hurt anything. that’s when he listed his degrees and said he wrote a paper on the harmful effects of fake. I thought it was BS, but thought I’d confirm it here. Especially since I just busted out a bunch of my fakes from storage for a rescape.Back in the day fake plants did look, quite frankly, hideous. Nowadays you can look at pictures of fake plants in tanks and you struggle to tell the difference. Obviously real plants are better imo because they perform secondary tasks which are impossible for fake plants to do.
Before I went down the route of planting my 180 I looked at fake plants, and nearly went down that avenue. But I fancied challenging myself to see if I could be successful with live so I passed on the fake.
Just for the record, the plastics which fake plants are manufactured from are totally aquarium safe. As
I have never heard of such a thing, plants are just one of the plastic things we throw in our tanks, silk plants exist too. They work well in a pinch to give fish hiding space in quarantine tanks and they don't die.
I actually have heard this advice before when I was still taking advice from petsmart they told me that the fake plants release certain chemicals into the water which are harmful towards fish. Thats actually one of main reasons why I never put a fake plant before in my tank.
Lots of things leach lots of different chemicals. That doesn't tell me much.
Petsmart not so pet smart
Although I do not consider fake plants harmful, I do consider the use real plants to be highly more beneficial for the health of a system.
Fake plants are basically inert objects, same as rocks or other non animate objects (although they do become surfaces for beneficial bacteria growth)
Live plants on the other hand use nitrate (aquatic and terrestrial plants), and other nuisance nutrient compounds that tend to constantly build up in a closed system, they help oxygenate water, and provide other natural conditions to some degree. But unless the plant to fish ration is much higher, some of these benefits are minuscule, which is why I try to maintain way more plants than fish
With some fish species, such as territorial cichlids that rip up plants, they can be hard to keep, I solve this by using planted sumps (refugiums) or putting tanks in a series on a sump with one tank for the plant destroyers, and another tank on the same line dedicated to plants, and fish that don't annihilate them.
You'll notice I use inexpensive shop light fixtures, and take advantage of natural sunlight whenever possible, but choose bulbs that benefit plant growth, and also use hardy easy growing plant species, like villisneria, Hydrilla, and Anubias.
Fake plants are basically inert objects, same as rocks or other non animate objects (although they do become surfaces for beneficial bacteria growth)
Live plants on the other hand use nitrate (aquatic and terrestrial plants), and other nuisance nutrient compounds that tend to constantly build up in a closed system, they help oxygenate water, and provide other natural conditions to some degree. But unless the plant to fish ration is much higher, some of these benefits are minuscule, which is why I try to maintain way more plants than fish
With some fish species, such as territorial cichlids that rip up plants, they can be hard to keep, I solve this by using planted sumps (refugiums) or putting tanks in a series on a sump with one tank for the plant destroyers, and another tank on the same line dedicated to plants, and fish that don't annihilate them.
You'll notice I use inexpensive shop light fixtures, and take advantage of natural sunlight whenever possible, but choose bulbs that benefit plant growth, and also use hardy easy growing plant species, like villisneria, Hydrilla, and Anubias.
Last edited: