Thoughts on fake plants

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Really my advice if you're on the fence, go buy a few fake plants, throw them in your tank, see how you like them. If you don't, throw them in a pot somewhere around the house, or you could even POSSIBLY return them if you left the tags on and dried them out (from michaels).
Not everyone likes them and that's ok. It's all about coming home at the end of the day and enjoying what's in your tank, fish stock, aquascaping wise, whatever!
I haven't been around here as long as some old timers, but long enough to see the guys worried about what's "cool" and what other people (strangers on the internet no less) think too much come and go, more than a few times!


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Very good advice. :)


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I've tried buying live aquarium plants and it never worked out. Invasive weeds from the local lakes and rivers do very well as long as I don't have something tearing them apart.
Here's a quick pic of my desktop snail aquarium that has plants doing very well. It was a strict invert aquarium until I added a few tetras. The light isn't nearly as bright as the camera suggests but it keeps the plants going with the white gravel.



Michaels and Hobby Lobby are my favorite places to go when I set up a new tank that can't support live plants.
 
Here's a couple more fake plant tanks of mine:

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Where did you get the tall grass looking plants from?
 
I've tried buying live aquarium plants and it never worked out. Invasive weeds from the local lakes and rivers do very well as long as I don't have something tearing them apart.
Here's a quick pic of my desktop snail aquarium that has plants doing very well. It was a strict invert aquarium until I added a few tetras. The light isn't nearly as bright as the camera suggests but it keeps the plants going with the white gravel.



Michaels and Hobby Lobby are my favorite places to go when I set up a new tank that can't support live plants.

I have a Michael's less than a 5 minute drive away. Nearest Hobby Lobby (my preferred of the two) is over 45 minutes away! LOL


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Tried live plants but my parrot fish an my silver dollar eat them. An my Oscar rips them up just for sake of it Lol.


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That is the other reason I think fake plants will be better. All my cichlids are small right now, but they may turn against my live plants when they get bigger, so a fake plant can be buried again while a live plant is dead once a cichlids destroys it. :/


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Two questions.

1) How do you pick out aquarium safe plants? I know some have metal in them and I should avoid those plants as the metal can corrode and become lethal for the fish.

2) How do you anchor the plants in the sediment? I saw a bunch of them today that had long "stems" (I assume they are meant for a vase or bouquet) , but I know they would just slide right out of the sand like that.


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1) I've never had a problem with metal in fake plants myself.

2) Bend at a 45 degree angle and place in substrate. You can put rocks on top if you wish. I use a 2-5" layer of substrate in most my tanks, sloped higher in the back.


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