[piranha198220]

i never had real (alive) plants before and i dont know a thing about them

i would like to try to get some to start out in my 20gal but i dont know what they need like for food or how to plant them or anything like that so all the help you can give is greatly appreceated

 

[SnowCichlid.]

Tell me waht type of plants you intend to get ... becasue each type of plant like fish requires certain conditions for ideal growth.
But if you get hardy plants such as the ever so common AMAZON SWORD you should be fine as long as you have a canopy with a light and leave the light on for several hours a day atleast. You can buy plant growth fomula too at your local LFS that is not harmful to your fish. This will aid in your plant growth

... If you need more info just ask. Or if there is a certain type of plant you want just ask

 

[piranha198220]

do you NEED a canopy my 20 gal(thats the one i want plants in)dosent even have a top just a light

 

[piranha198220]

what other kinds of plants are good for piranha tanks

 

[piranha198220]

also are they hard to take care of?

 

[bobme]

i thought you just planted them and turn the light on and they will grow.
they are good for your fish also, and will keep it semi cleaner.
also if you get a power outage, they will give you more time.

 

[MPower]

I had live plants for a little while but my caribe just tore them all up. They did help with water parameters. I was always scraping the tank because of algae.

 

[Innes]

What I do is buy a load of random fish plants from my local fish shop, and put them in the gravel, after a month they are mostly dead, some survive, and I get some more.
as simple as that, I don't try to grow them, I just replace them

it only costs me aroung £10 every month or two for all my tanks 3x20 gallon & a few tiny ones

 

[Sir Nathan XXI]

stay away from bunched plants, they will never stay in the gravel with piranhas

amazon swords are a great choice, I use standard lighting at 12hrs per day of light, and they do great

 

[piranha198220]

so all i need to give them is just light and like plant foods or somthing

 

[Neoplasia]

You can either buy random plants or look for specific ones. Generally I have one or two that I want and then just pick whatever looks good for the rest. So far Amazon Swords have had the best luck, had some others that did ok for a while but I don't think I gave them enough attention. A. Swords are great for the back corners because they'll grow up nice and tall and will hide whatever equipment you have, they're also easy to take care of and fairly robust. If you want I can dig up some of the planted tank sites I used to use as reference, fire me off an email and I'll send you some links (have to find them first, not sure where they all are). Plants do make some more work, but not really all that much. Usually when you do water changes you can just take off any dead leaves so they don't clog things up or make the tank look unattractive. Proper lighting and some food are basically all you need, though you can always add a layer of something under your gravel to help supply nutrients too.

Here's what my tank looked like shortly after I first planted it quite a while back.

http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/313855707

 

[bobme]

You can either buy random plants or look for specific ones. Generally I have one or two that I want and then just pick whatever looks good for the rest. So far Amazon Swords have had the best luck, had some others that did ok for a while but I don't think I gave them enough attention. A. Swords are great for the back corners because they'll grow up nice and tall and will hide whatever equipment you have, they're also easy to take care of and fairly robust. If you want I can dig up some of the planted tank sites I used to use as reference, fire me off an email and I'll send you some links (have to find them first, not sure where they all are). Plants do make some more work, but not really all that much. Usually when you do water changes you can just take off any dead leaves so they don't clog things up or make the tank look unattractive. Proper lighting and some food are basically all you need, though you can always add a layer of something under your gravel to help supply nutrients too.

Here's what my tank looked like shortly after I first planted it quite a while back.

http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/313855707

Nice plants

 

[Judazzz]

Amazon swords didn't do very well for me: they all died within a month due to low light levels on my piranha tank (they need quite a lot of light to prosper), and the constant chewing done by the piranha's and pleco's. Others had more succes, though...
The most succesful plants in my tank are java fern (hardy, low light requirements and midly toxic to most fish, ie. not chewed on) and anubias (very robust and low light requirements, but grows very slow [unless you find a so-called 'mother' plant, which grows rapidly and branches off]). Valisneria did great as well with little light, until my piranha's developed a great taste for them and reduced the plants to stumps within days...

And Neo, that's a fine looking tank you had (shame about the neons, though *cough*whimp*cough*

j/k)

 

[Mr. Hannibal]

The recomended plants will do fine!

I also believe using Plant Gro by Nutrafin or something alike as an additive for your plants which contains trace elements and iron will effectively promote plant growth.

It's cheap and really works!

 

[Neoplasia]

Thanks. I found that when I added the swords they dropped their leaves. I thought they were dying but I left them in for a bit and noticed new leaves growing. I have about 70W of light in a 72, not a huge amount but they seem to do fine with it. For added nutrients I use Jobe's Palm & Fern Plant Spikes, they come highly reccommended by people who keep primarily planted tanks.

Hah! Shows what you know, those aren't neons. They're cardinals. So far they have eaten 7 or 8 other fish including three glowbacks (significantly larger than themselves), three cardinals and one or two skunk loaches. Evil bastards.

 

[Judazzz]

Hah! Shows what you know, those aren't neons. They're cardinals.

Well, you're the expert

. So far they have eaten 7 or 8 other fish including three glowbacks (significantly larger than themselves), three cardinals and one or two skunk loaches. Evil bastards.

Sounds like you got an evil breed of cardinals then (Pygocentrus cardinalus

)
Just wondering, how did they manage to do that?

 

[bobme]

Where do i get amazon plants?

 

[Judazzz]

Duh, at the Amazon

Seriously, most pet stores sell sword plants: they're one of the most common aquarium plants around.

 

[Neoplasia]

Don't know, I've never seen them attack any other fish, other than now and then they'll chase each other briefly. But fish just started to vanish on me. The loaches were content to hide in the driftwood all day and one by one fish started to go missing. Nowhere for them to jump out, nothing in the filter or plants. At least I assume it's them, could be the loach but I've heard that cards will do that. *shrug* Stupid fish.

 

[bobme]

Duh, at the Amazon

Seriously, most pet stores sell sword plants: they're one of the most common aquarium plants around.

Basterd!

hehe ok thanks.