Tropical Fish Keeping banner

Floating Plant and more?

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  pretzelsz 
#1 ·
I want to know about floating plants. I have seen many plants that are at the top of the tank what is it?

I want to get other plants to replace the plastic ones.

20 gallon tank to work with.
I have a 23 inch tube light want to get a florescent or what ever the plant one is.
I have a gold ribbon plant and a moss or something like that
I want to plant in a small rock and sand substrate(separate)
The tank is a few years old but i also want to plant a 2 gallon new tank but i want to upgrade to a 10
No CO2 thing but would i need one?

Thanks
 
#2 ·
Check what your florescent say's...If not go to Walmart, Lowes or homedepot and buy what's labeled "Daylight or Ultimate Daylight" these are full spectrum and rated at 6500K that's the ideal set up for plants; and get something around 20watts for your tank. These are avilable by GE, Phillips, Bright Effects, Salvina and for normal 18" cost you about 2-3 bucks :)

No you do NOT need CO2 and dep on your source water maybe not even liquid ferts. Check my tanks out under the aquarium log they're ALL set up w/out CO2, no ferts and low lights :)

The most common floating plants you will find are frog bite. Also very common and looking real nice is pennywort, cause you can either let it float or plant into your gravel.
For a 20g I'd suggest plants that stay fairly small, if you have driftwood or rocks in there, something like Anubias or Java Ferns. For the back something finer Like Vallis or Rotala; centers are often well planted with Narrow leaf chain swort, Crypts, dwarf hairgrass, kleiner bar sword.....

Here's the site I always buy from you can click on the pictures to enlarge them to give you ideas what the plants look like Sweet Aquatics
 
#3 ·
There's amazon frogbit that looks like lily pads, my current personal favorite but don't have any in my tank yet.

The bulb: do you know the wattage and the kelvin rating? You would want around 6700K (higher is okay) and roughly 1 watt per gallon (don't believe the hype you read all over about 2-3 watts per gallon...it can burn your plants alive!).

Sand substrate will work fine. Haven't tried it myself but several posts have given a thumbs up on this lately.

No need for CO2, your fish will provide what you need.

You'll want to use a liquid fertilizer like Flourish comprehensive supplement (I order mine online as my LFS doesn't carry it). Use according to the package directions.

Your fish will be so happy to have live plants : )
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top