plants in 140 gallon

[Gasha]

ok so i have a 140 gallon tank im setting up. it is a pool filter silica(beautiful) substrate. i want to plant it... not really ground plants but water lettuce... and maybe some anacharis(ill secure it under some rocks i have for caves...) that way my texas can't unroot it(as some of you know my psycho fish..) o yea and i all read heave some banana plants i have been growing to get bigger before i add fish(they float at bottom for best results) so i want to get water lettuce because my lima catfish will need cover from the day light and he will possibly be able to hide by the anacharis once it gets thick... i was also looking at moss balls(pleco can munch on, also catches debris for shrimp) i just have never had live plants and all this talk about fertilizers is gettin me shy from doing it... i have been reading up on it but was looking for some input from people who have plants in their tanks and their experiences.. i will have a texas cichlid, lima shovelnose, pleco and might try for a pair of convicts(texas will probably murder them) also i'm thinking about some snails and shrimp(keep texas occupied? lol) i would like to have some ground plants but im not getting my hopes up due to the ultimate digger i own(all day long... seriously)... any suggestions of better plants or plants you think might be good I appreciate that also!

 

[carsona246]

My absolute favorite plant is water wisteria, it doesn't need strong lights and it grows like crazy. It can also grow some serious roots so that you can secure it to the sandbed, or it can float. I would be very impressed if your fish could kill the wisteria faster than it grew. The only thing I'm worried about is how many gallons you have. If the depth of the water is too great you might be limited on how many plants you can have. If you stick to just low light, which is what I recomend, you probably dont have to do anything. if you want more demanding plants you would have to upgrade you lighting, fertalize, dose co2 ect. I think the best thing to do would be to stick to low light, maybe upgrade your lights if you can't get any plants to grow, and just stick a bunch of low light plants in there and see what does well. Cambomba grows like a weed in my tank, I'd try water milfoil, duckweed would work as well as water lettuce. Personally i dont like anacharis because it always tended to melt randomly in my tank and I'd have to fish out leaves everywhere. I guarentee floating plants will be able to grow in your tank as long as your light bulbs have the correct spectrum, so definatly get your hands on some of them. Java fern has never worked for me for some reason, but they are sinking plants that dont need to be rooted, and low light. Maybe give those a shot.

 

[PostalPenguin]

Easy plants that I like are swords, frogbit, dwarf sagitaria, java moss, java fern and rotala.

A floating plant like amazon frogbit requires nothing but water and light. Java moss and java fern just require a place to stick them too. Dwarf sag needs higher light but still isn't picky and rotala grows like a weed.

Once an amazon sword gets well rooted it would take a a lot to uproot it. I had a sword in my 29g and when I removed it, it literally had extended roots to every square inch of the tank.

 

[Gasha]

imma check those out! sweat! for those easy plants do you add fertilizer? alos i have sunlight coming in through 2 windows on the tank when ever i want and its for most of the day!

for the planted plants... i have sand bottoms do i have to worry about nitrogen getting trapped? etc.. or do the plants suck that in?

 

[carsona246]

depending on how deep your sand is it's probably not a problem at all. My sandbed is like 3" and I've never had a problem. If your really worried about it you could always get some mts's to stir up the bed for you. I fertalize my plants, but I also have a high tech tank with really strong lights. Fertalizers probably aren't necessary for the purposes that your using them for, unless you want to delve deeper into planted tanks. If you just want a few plants in there to help the water quality and fill up the tank a little bit there are plenty of plants that should do well in your tank without you having to do anything. Then again, fertalizers never hurt plants, but they can be a bit complicated at first. I'm not sure if the sunlight from the window would do much for your plants, but my first thought would be it wouldn't.