Adding Plants to already established aquarium

Pedro wrote:
What would be the way to add plants to an already cycled tank with fish and
live plants?

Thanks


Here's what I've done:

1) Figure out what your lighting conditions are, and if any of the
residents will eat them.

2) Once you've got that figured out, buy the appropriate plants.

3) In order to prevent a snail invasion and reduce the chance of other
cuddly cuties invading your tank, put the plants in a 10 mg/l (1% by
weight) potassium permanganate solution for 10 to 15 minutes. Rinse the
dipped plants with clean water.

4) To further reduce the chance of introducing disease into your tank,
minimize transfer of water from the source where you purchased the
plants and quarrantine the plants in a fish free environment for two weeks.

Handy URL: http://www.applesnail.net/content/va...radication.htm

3 + 4 might seem like overkill, but since your tank is already
established, I'm going to assume introducing icky organisms into the
tank would be a bad thing :-) I also use Yo-Yo loaches to eat snails in
my quarrantine tank.

P.S. Since I have a molluscan lawnmower named Petunia Pig in my main
tank, I usually put one plant in at a time and check to see if Petunia
eats it or not. So far, she's munched on Anubias, Crypts, and Java Moss
and left Duckweed and Hornwort alone. Java Ferns are next. (Petunia is
an Apple Snail, Pomacea caniculata)