Live versus fake plants

[tarheel96]

I wonder if that YouTuber might have been selling live plants online. If you're in the business of selling live plants then you don't like the fake ones.

In my experience, plastic and silk artificial plants are great for fish that uproot plants. The fish can move the artificial plants wherever they want.

Real plants are also great. I've kept them with small community fish including plakat bettas in planted tanks with CO2.

The biggest problem I've encountered with live plants is they can bring disease and pests to the tank. I've had plants bring ick, callamanus and other worms, Hydra, daphnia, and cyclops (copepods).

Cyclops

This is why I'm always careful about the source of the plants. If fish are present in the water then things which cause fish disease can also be present. Some things, like freshwater cyclops, don't cause disease but are a nuisance.

 

[duanes]

I have Also had hitch hikers on plants, everything from snails to dragonfly eggs, I have found that a quick dip in an alum solution works great to eliminate them.
I also believe a solution of potassium permanganate is effective, and both of the above are less traumatic than bleach which some claim to use.

Many of the plants I have now, I collected myself in Lake Gatun, and carried all kinds of critters, although the cichlids eliminated most.

 

[Hendre]

I use permanganate often and so far have had no snails in my big tank despite many additions of snail-infested plants over the years.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I buy pounds of frozen cyclops to feed my fry. They are not a nusisance, they feed the fish I end up selling for $100s.
I was gutted when the cyclop-eeze lake crashed a few years ago. it was a superior quality food.

I have a 150 gal with anubias that I have toleep prining back as they reach the surface. The tank had clown loaches, 4 of which are in the 10 inch + range.

When I was in Panama in the 1969/70 Xmas and New Years holiday season I di see chips go through the locks, but i never made it to the lake. I spent New years eve in the huge (5 story?) wooden hotel in Paama City. The place was literally shaking. Does it still exist?

I do not claim to use bleach on plants, I have been doing it for about 18 years. As far as I know, any diseases that came from something I added to a tank did not arrive on plants, they arrived on fish. This is why I use Q tanks.

 

[duanes]

When I was in Panama in the 1969/70 Xmas and New Years holiday season I di see chips go through the locks, but i never made it to the lake. I spent New years eve in the huge (5 story?) wooden hotel in Paama City. The place was literally shaking. Does it still exist?

Do you remember the hotels name?
There has been a boom in high rise construction in Panama City, and many of the old buildings have been replaced,
you may not recognize the city today.

The lake is gets quite the daily ship traffic., we had tokeepnear shore to dodge these guys

Funny we had lunch on a collecting day, at a resort on the lake, that had a large aquarium above the bar, and were told all the fish in it came from the lake.
They were an Oscar, a managuense, a Tilapia, and a Cichla, none were endemic.
Even many of the plants I collected, ended up being Asian species.

 

[Niki_up]

Petsmart not so pet smart

Are they called pet smart or pets mart? I’m leaning more towards the later as they are like the Walmart of pets.

 

[MatteoTheEnder22]

Petsmart all together and yes they are like walmart in the sense that they don’t really give out quality info. Petsmart actually do care for their fish unlike walmart and petco in my experience but if you want too go too better petstore that isnt you lfs than go too petsupermarket honestly they are the best.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am 72, I was in that hotel 50 years ago. I have OBS (Old Brain Syndrome) and CRS (Can't Remember S..t), What I do remember was it had a separate party on every floor. There was a band on every floor and you could feel the whole place shaking. It was a gray wooden building. I guess there is no historic preservation in Panama.

When I would pcik-up import boxes of fish oOn Sundays from the transhipper in NYC for a friend, I would see a Petsmart truck there. I would bet they did not Q the fish but i did and so did the person for whom I picked them up. Fish stored pretty much do not Q and they want to sell the fish ASAP.

 

[Rass]

After I got back into the hobby a couple years ago I got into planted tanks I quickly realized the benefits of live plants, and I now use them in every tank that I can. However using fake plants in a tank for looks and maybe some shelter doesn't have any negative effects in my opinion. Sometimes people have no choice with fish that eat plants for a living. And I've seen some very nice tanks that utilize fake plants.

 

[neutrino]

Certainly I prefer real plants, but I've done both. I don't know, the way things are now maybe there's some cheapo fake plants out there that might release bad stuff in certain conditions, but I've never had any issue.

I've seen plenty of tanks that impressed me, plenty that didn't, and my share of those I could rip if I was that kind of guy. But I keep it to myself (unless asked, and even then I try to be nice about it). I can't imagine wasting my time collecting tank images just to criticize them on a youtube channel. The only reasonable exception I can think of would be a couple of examples as part of an instructional video on aquascaping. Otherwise it sounds like the guy needs to get a life-- and a new personality.