What plants do you want?

[EllieGreene]

Hi. I'm a complete noobie at this, so please forgive me. I want to get into the hobby of growing aquatic plants. Both for fun and to sell. These could be pond plants or aquarium plants or.. ?

Question 1 (What to grow..): What plants would you love to buy but they are hard to find or stupidly expensive? Or.. what plants do you love to buy, and buy all the time?

Question 2 (What else do I need?): For the project I have acquired a 55G and 2 long 2 bulb shop light fixtures with grow-light bulbs. (I'll have to make a diy reflector). I also built a DIy co2 system (2 2 liters bottles+bulkheads+ yeast separator bottle+pressure cap+ silicon tubing, manifolds, etc. (I do NOT have a good diffuser yet and will probably assemble a counter current diffuser out of a spare PowerHead.)) I also have net pots and Rockwool from my Aquaponics adventure. What else do I need? (other than plants!)

For planting medium I was thinking an organic potting soil or the Azomite the LFS sells. Anyone have an Opinion on this?

Many thanks,
Ellie

p.s. best replies get free plants!

 

[EllieGreene]

After a lot of digging, I might be able to answer my own question.

Hi. I'm a complete noobie at this, so please forgive me. I want to get into the hobby of growing aquatic plants. Both for fun and to sell. These could be pond plants or aquarium plants or.. ?

Pond plants and aquarium plants are two very different things. Most of the advice you'll find on here will apply to aquarium plants.

Question 1 (What to grow..): What plants would you love to buy but they are hard to find or stupidly expensive? Or.. what plants do you love to buy, and buy all the time?

For easy plants, Naja/Guppy grass (aquariums) and Duckweed (pond) are about as easy as it gets. Both will grow like weeds in your evnironment. (and the tilapia will eat the duckweed like pez.)

http://www.aquabid.com is a great place to find information about desirable plants. You can pull the information on the closed auctions too. As a general rule, Java Ferns and Java Moss are in constant high demand. For Java ferns , large plants or groups of plants attached to lava rock seem very popular. Even more so if they are a mix of the regular and trident varieties.

Question 2 (What else do I need?): For the project I have acquired a 55G and 2 long 2 bulb shop light fixtures with grow-light bulbs. (I'll have to make a diy reflector). I also built a DIy co2 system (2 2 liters bottles+bulkheads+ yeast separator bottle+pressure cap+ silicon tubing, manifolds, etc. (I do NOT have a good diffuser yet and will probably assemble a counter current diffuser out of a spare PowerHead.)) I also have net pots and Rockwool from my Aquaponics adventure. What else do I need? (other than plants!)

Going forward you will want to add some shell grit in the water stream to keep the buffering capacity up, as the CO2 will form carbonic acid and lower the pH. Keep an eye on this and see how it stabilizes so you don't kill the fish.

Other than that, try it and see what happens. The effluent from the culture tanks will have plenty of Nitrogen, but you may have to add other micro and macronutrients. The plant symptoms to watch for are poor growth and leaf discoloration.. _or_ if the algae is growing faster than the plants.. Aquatic plants are a lot like terrestrial plants in this regard, so that knowledge/advice should apply.

.... p.s. best replies get free plants!

My attempt at humor seemed snide and prudish. I will be more careful next time. Thanks for all of your help. You guys are great.

 

[velanarris]

I'd say specialize.

HC is a very popular one and it can be difficult to find at times. It's a needy plant though and can be very, very frustrating if you haven't had much experience with the really small ones.

Swords are easy, and the Marble Queen Radican swords can be pricey.

 

[oOMO3NOo]

i think the best plant to grow for profit is anubias. specially petite. becuase everyone can grow them from noob to expert and most people like the look. and most LFS will buy them as well. they do grow slow (in most systems) but thats ok.

but if your looking for more rare plants i would go with UG (link below) its an amazing plant but very hard to grow. most of the rare plants will require more light and co2 then your system has.

so basically if your trying to make a little extra cash talk to your LFS and see what they will buy that way you almost always have a buying and just post the rest that they dont buy online. most LFS will buy anubias (all forms) amazon swords, rotola and a few of the easy ludwigia species.

but for fun this is a list of my fav plants with links. (links were just taken off google so some are of other peoples tank builds i have some of these plants but the links are not mine)
UG
Ludwigia Glandulosa
tonina fluviatilis (i think this is my FAV by far)
anubias (didnt see a link i liked on google but im sure you know it)
limnophilia aromatica

well thats all i can think of off the top of my head if i think of any more ill post them

 

[nubz]

amazon sword, anubas, and hornwort are all real good 4 noobies