BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Fish your advice on underwater plants please

Hi everyone. I need to replace this great article, by the previous Fish editor, with one of my own. It's about planted tanks:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1839.asp

I know some of you have had some great success with planted tanks. What do you agree with from this article? What do you disagree with? what can you offer for advice that I could include?

Good article Jilly. Lots of good info. Can't think of anything I can add at the moment.

I have found that the most successful planted tank that I have is a one gallon betta tank..lol.. No filter or airation...just one small sword plant baby and a sprig of water sprite. It has eco-complete substrate for planted tanks and gets a dose of flourish excel for a carbon source every other day.....OH...that's something you didn't mention.....lol...

Flourish Excel is a liquid form of carbon and is an excellent substitute for the injected CO2 system....if you have smaller sized tanks. It really isn't cost effective for anything over...say 30 or 40 gallons as it can be costly. I use this because I didn't feel like having another gadget to have to keep an eye on..plus the excel doesn't cause any ph issues which can crop up for various reasons with the injected systems.

Here's a pic of that simple one gallon planted. I have NEVER had to deal with aglae of any kind in this tank. The water and the glass/plastic stays crystal clear...so far...

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that is absolutely gorgeous Emg. wow. and a darned pretty betta too!

Yeah...the lady in the reflextion aint half bad either...LOL !

Here's a closer pic of him....he has a slight ridge on his forehead (??)..from when he tried to swim up the airline tube while I was syphoning his tank...
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definately carrying the butterfly trait. Where did you get him?

EMG, what kind of lighting are you using in those one gallons? Just your standard incancescent bulb?

Jilly, I bought him at an lfs here. I had been to the store for weeks and looked at him everytime I was there...lol. It took having my daughter with me to bring him home. He was one of the lucky ones in one of those tiny cube tanks with a mini filter in it...so he held up pretty well.

The lighing in those little tanks is just a 7watt little bulb...the clear ones, not the white ones..if that makes any difference. It surprises me how well the plants are doing in that little tank with such dim lighting...but they are thriving.

Huh. Whaddayaknow.

I have my paradise fish, Gonzo, in a 3 gallon in my bedroom. I just have a plastic plant in with him right now, but I think I'll try to add some real plants (I'm thinking java fern for the low light incandescent bulb).

I do have to tell you that I have a very good substrate in with these plants. I'm sure that has alot to do with how well they are doing. I am also periodically dosing with a liquid carbon source...flourish excel...

I am also haveing decent success with other smaller plants that are in tanks that barely get any light at all...I had to snitch thier light for the small dart frog tank I have...lol. I don't dose with the excel in those two tanks, because with the limited lighting they don't need it...however...these two tanks also have the "Echo-Complete" substrate in it.

But yeah...give the java fern a try..it generally does well in low light conditions and may do quite well for you !

Do you plant your java fern directly into the good substrate, or are you letting them root into driftwood? I've been rooting plants into driftwood (or at least anchoring them to it), and then using a good liquid fertilizer (the name escapes me at the moment).