When to plant a new tank?
 

Basic question on planting a new tank: I'm setting up an Eclipse 6
gallon for my daughter and we'd like it to be moderately planted
eventually. I'm going to cycle the tank with FISH (2 danios), as
opposed to the method of using only live plants to establish the tank
(and then adding the fish later.) So after a few weeks, when the tank
is cycled and I'm adding a couple of more fish (cories probably), Is
this the time to introduce the live plants, or can I do it earlier?
Thanks.

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the water,
ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was rotting
quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of dirt on my
back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.

"Ook" wrote in message
...

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the water,
ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was rotting
quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of dirt on my
back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.


No problem with my pennywort...see pic in alt.binaries.aquaria

The essential problem is lighting with the Eclipse series. It is totally
inadequate for most live plants. At best, get some Anubias, etc.

"Nitesbane" wrote in message
news:FMRtd.225$sU4.114@trndny01...

"Ook" wrote in message
...

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the water,
ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was rotting
quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of dirt on
my
back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.


No problem with my pennywort...see pic in alt.binaries.aquaria

I would go to the LFS and ask them for a bucket of water with freshly
siphoned mulm from one of their tanks. IME plants do much better in a well
established (loads of mulm and bacterial critters) than a newly setup
sterile tank. Take a look at Chuck Gadds website, he is quite big on cycling
tanks with plants.
--
"In the beginning, God said the four-dimensional divergence of an
antisymmetric,
second rank tensor equals zero, and there was Light , and it was good."


"avgeek21" wrote in message
oups.com...
Basic question on planting a new tank: I'm setting up an Eclipse 6
gallon for my daughter and we'd like it to be moderately planted
eventually. I'm going to cycle the tank with FISH (2 danios), as
opposed to the method of using only live plants to establish the tank
(and then adding the fish later.) So after a few weeks, when the tank
is cycled and I'm adding a couple of more fish (cories probably), Is
this the time to introduce the live plants, or can I do it earlier?
Thanks.

To help outcompete the algae your best bet is to plant as soon as you
can. If will make your life easier in the long run. The plants will
suck up nutrients leaving less available for the algae

Marc
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On 8 Dec 2004 10:14:40 -0800, "avgeek21" wrote:

Basic question on planting a new tank: I'm setting up an Eclipse 6
gallon for my daughter and we'd like it to be moderately planted
eventually. I'm going to cycle the tank with FISH (2 danios), as
opposed to the method of using only live plants to establish the tank
(and then adding the fish later.) So after a few weeks, when the tank
is cycled and I'm adding a couple of more fish (cories probably), Is
this the time to introduce the live plants, or can I do it earlier?
Thanks.

Happy'Cam'per wrote:
I would go to the LFS and ask them for a bucket of water with freshly
siphoned mulm from one of their tanks.

Thanks for all the advice. Sounds like I'll go with some anubias and
maybe a java fern, and also get a better bulb for the light fixture.
One question: what is "mulm"? Sounds like something they make people
eat on fear factor or something?! Thanks again.

"Nitesbane" wrote in message
news:FMRtd.225$sU4.114@trndny01...

"Ook" wrote in message
...

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the water,
ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was rotting
quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of dirt on
my
back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.


No problem with my pennywort...see pic in alt.binaries.aquaria


Where is the pennywort? I see something at my LFS labeled as pennywort, but
it doesn't look anything like what I see in the pic you posted. And, BTW,
what are those other plants in the pic?

"Ook" wrote in message
...

"Nitesbane" wrote in message
news:FMRtd.225$sU4.114@trndny01...
No problem with my pennywort...see pic in alt.binaries.aquaria


Where is the pennywort? I see something at my LFS labeled as pennywort,
but
it doesn't look anything like what I see in the pic you posted. And, BTW,
what are those other plants in the pic?



The pennywort you see in the picture was originally purchased at Petco.
Each plant consisted of a single stem with only one leaf at the very top and
looked nothing like the plant you see in the pic (the one with the round
leaves and roots growing everywhere that reaches the surface of the tank).
It took almost two weeks from the plant to go from its original state to
what it looks like now.

The other plants in the picture a

chladophora aegagropila - "moss ball" - in the bottom right corner
Cratoneuron filicinum (?) - "christmas moss" - attached to the driftwood
Sagittaria subulata - "dwarf sag" - the short, light colored green "grass"
vallisneria spiralis (?) - "italian val" - longer, darker green "grass"
toward the back of the tank
nymphaea stellata - "water lily" - plant with reddish/brownish/greenish
arrow-shaped leaves... hard to see in the pic

There are small portions of water sprite and one of my crypts in the pic
too. I just posted a pic of what it looked like when I first got it.

Mulm is the crap that sits at the bottom of your bucket after a good deep
gravel vacuuming. Loads of BIO activity going on in there.
--
"In the beginning, God said the four-dimensional divergence of an
antisymmetric,
second rank tensor equals zero, and there was Light , and it was good."

"avgeek21" wrote in message
ups.com...

Happy'Cam'per wrote:
I would go to the LFS and ask them for a bucket of water with freshly
siphoned mulm from one of their tanks.

Thanks for all the advice. Sounds like I'll go with some anubias and
maybe a java fern, and also get a better bulb for the light fixture.
One question: what is "mulm"? Sounds like something they make people
eat on fear factor or something?! Thanks again.

"Ook" wrote in message
...

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the
water, ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was
rotting quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of
dirt on my back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.


ime, Pennywort is more sensitive to water hardness than to light levels.
In soft water, I've had it from low to med-high levels without problems,
and in hard water high light, it died back. ymmv of course. Also note
that the LFS might not be identifying its plants correctly.

Mulm, (or detritus) is a collection of fish-poop, uneaten fish food,
scales, decaying plant matter etc, and while I have no first-hand
experience, probably not very appetizing to the human pallet.

The advice to get some mulm from an LFS is theoretically correct, but you
would also introduce a horrible collection of disease vectors using the
LFS as a source. Better to get it from someone you know, or the local
aquarium society.
--
www.NetMax.tk

"NetMax" wrote in message
...
"Ook" wrote in message
...

Nothing prevents you from adding the plants earlier. It should also
improve the cycling conditions for the fish. As there is very little
mulm in the substrate, pick plants which will also feed from the
water, ie: Anachris, Pennywort, Hornwort etc.
--
www.NetMax.tk


Have you had good luck with Pennywort? All of mine rotted. I went by
Petsmart, and they had pennywort in their plant tanks, and it was
rotting quite nicely also. I took it out of my tank and put in a pot of
dirt on my back porch and it grew great until the frost killed, doh.


ime, Pennywort is more sensitive to water hardness than to light levels.
In soft water, I've had it from low to med-high levels without problems,
and in hard water high light, it died back. ymmv of course. Also note
that the LFS might not be identifying its plants correctly.

Mileage does vary a bit... my water is fairly hard (GH 16, kH 6.5) and I
have about 2.3 wpg of light. Most plants are pretty adaptable.

Thanks for the help. I set up my new tank this weekend with some
anachris and a couple of java ferns. Question: I understand the
anachris will grow both floating and planted but I planted mine. They
came from the LFS bound together in a bunch and that's the way I
planted them, unseperated. Now I'm thinking I should have broke the
bunch apart and planted them individually. Does it matter? Will they
grow roots into the gravel this way? Thanks.

"avgeek21" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks for the help. I set up my new tank this weekend with some
anachris and a couple of java ferns. Question: I understand the
anachris will grow both floating and planted but I planted mine. They
came from the LFS bound together in a bunch and that's the way I
planted them, unseperated. Now I'm thinking I should have broke the
bunch apart and planted them individually. Does it matter? Will they
grow roots into the gravel this way? Thanks.


Like most aquaria questions, there are pros/cons to different methods.
Separating them often allows more light to reach the entire length of the
plant, but they might look scrawny by themselves. Too big a bunch has
the opposite effect (looks great, but they might lose some lower leaves
in the shade). I usually compromise by planting them in groups of 2 or
3. Fwiw, I don't think it makes a huge difference to their root network.
If there is enough mulm, the roots will wander around away from them.
Otherwise, they might throw roots into the water. ps: I plant Anachris
on the tank sides, so when they grow too long, they 'frame' the tank by
growing along the surface towards the middle. Jungle Corkscrew & Elodia
also look nice like this.

For the ferns, make sure the roots are not under the gravel (but you
already knew that ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk