I was wondering about keeping a live plant aquarium for my piranhas to live in, I've heard from a lot of other members how much there P loves it. But I also know that my piranhas aren't that big on the light being on that long. So, what are some of the things you guys do or plants to pick because of that. I'm getting a tank that's 70"x24"x24" and plan on keeping a 4 RBP in there at first and maybe getting a Piraya to join them.
The 2 P's- Plants and Piranhas
- Thread starter Greez
- Start date
Well in the wild they come from blackwater, so add some bogwood to get tannins into the water. This will also make it harder for the light to penetrate making it dimmer. They also live in some heavily planted lakes so in your aquarium would be great for them
The 2 P's work well togather. Live plants feed on decomp,gases, and heavy metals all day and release oxygen at night. Piranhas are messy eaters and like super clean water. They leave food debris that can raise nitra levels - the plants eat the decompand it's gasious by-product. With a 2ft. deep tank some research into lighting, substrate, CO2, and plant choices will help greatly in the long run. Many, not all, live aquatic plants need to get their leaves to the top few inches of the tank where the gas exchange is taking place and may require a C02 additive until they get there.
Cool, I've been researching lights and thinking a lot about my tank setup, since I dont have it yet its all I think about...ALL THE TIME. Anyway, I was thinking about running a medium to high light set up so I can have a large selection of plants to pick from. Any ideas on what kind of co2 system would be the best or which one you use/prefer?
im planting my piranha tank, so far i've got a ton of echinodorus tellenus (dward chain sword ) for for ground and amazon sword (no idea on sceintific name) for mid/background.
My piranhas don't bother them and my convicts act like little gardeners eating the dead parts i can't wait till they start to fill in a little more im going to plant more species but as you can see im only planting species from the amazon
HarleyK do you know of any other low light amazonian species (for mid ground and floating ?)
My piranhas don't bother them and my convicts act like little gardeners eating the dead parts i can't wait till they start to fill in a little more im going to plant more species but as you can see im only planting species from the amazon
HarleyK do you know of any other low light amazonian species (for mid ground and floating ?)
Zander_The_RBP;3910616; said:
i just planted a 29g tank with an amazon theme, and I started running DIY CO2. The difference in growth was amazing. I know Harley wrote something about CO2 being overated but I've seen a difference. Ofcourse I'm running a lot of light so...
For background (which is all I have planted ATM) I went with Anacharis which grows like a dang weed, a normal amazon sword, which kicked into overdrive once I added co2, and vallisneria. The val seems to be growing horizontally rather than vertically and that gets on my nerves.
I plan on adding cryptocoryne wendtii to the midground. It's a low light species, in fact some people say that direct light will melt it down, which is why I'm waiting on the background to grow in a bit before I add them.
For the foreground I am planning on doing micro or chain swords. Not sure if I have enough light.
yeah with high light / high nuitrients co2 really does make a huge difference the myth harley tried to debunk i think is that it's absolutly nessicary which it isn't
ill be getting a diy co2 system running on my tank and if i see no improvement i wont use it and if i do see improvement well that's great
my amazon sword seems to be doing great 2 plants have sprouted a new leaf just 2 days after plating even though my lighting is kinda low
ill be getting a diy co2 system running on my tank and if i see no improvement i wont use it and if i do see improvement well that's great
my amazon sword seems to be doing great 2 plants have sprouted a new leaf just 2 days after plating even though my lighting is kinda low
I've used 2 types of C02, currently none. Jungle makes a real easy diffuser type system and Flourish Exel as Liquid dosing. If you want your tank super lush like HarleyK's CO2 + Iron additives will get you there real quick. Alot of plants can get real big taking up IMO too much room so currently I just a few plants per tank. I've had Micro-chain swords that have spread across the bottom, lush dense Vallisneria patches, Red Ludwiga that engulfed an entire 55 gal tank all thanks to CO2, iron additives, and intense lighting. Since my main goal is Monster Fish not Monster plants I stopped Dosing/Excel the tanks larger than 75 gal. and removed the diffusers on the tanks 75gal on smaller. Once I stopped all thses plants died off except for these - Red Crypt Wendttii ( which by the way does not burn up ) , Red Lotus, and Brazillian Spears. It's been well over a year with no CO2, no additives, and lower watt bulbs. Plants make great contrasting pictures - shot these a few minutes ago.
