I have a 150gl set up that has about 4in of a medium grain sand. I only have two large pieces of Drift wood for decore in it now. I have 2 8in Bichers and 2 6in Plecos. It is so damn empty. I would love to convert it to a heavily planted tank but have no experince with live plants in the aquarium. What kind of plants small to Very large can I use with sand? What do I need to do to the sand before plants can survive? Please help!
Sand?
- Thread starter nbku3vm
- Start date
Well, all plants will live in sand fine, just some need to have their rhizomes exposed and in open water. One option for your tank would be to pull up all the sand, lay some peat moss on the bottom, and then replace the sand. Option two which is much easier is root tabs. How much lighting do you have, and what type of bulbs are they. Are you wanting an overgrown planted tank, or just a low maintenance tank that has a few really hardy, but slow growing plants??
There are some plants specifically adapted to sand environments, but even they need some care, but due to their environment are generally quite hardy. In general bichirs and plecos do not make very good tankmates, as they are known to eat a bichirs slime coat.
My lighting fixture is a 72" strip that houses 2 36" flourecent bulbs. I don't know the output but they are just the basic flourecent bulbs. Nothing spectuacular. I would like to start out with just a few plants and overtime and add until it becomes pretty overgrown. I love the whole clover look with the larger plants to the sides and back.
I would love to have some attached to my drift wood aswell. That looks awesome.
I would love to have some attached to my drift wood aswell. That looks awesome.
That lighting will put you are ~.2wpg. That is too low for just about everything, and you will not have a fast growth rate with just that. Java fern and anubias are often attached to wood or rocks, and they can survive a low lighting like that, but they will not grow fast for you. I would recommend at the least upgrading your lighting to around 1-2wpg. If you stick with compact florescent bulbs that would put you at 300-600 watts to hit 1-2. If you use compact florescent 150-300 will be 1-2 wpg.