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So the secret is plant selection. Choosing the appropriate plants for the set up you have on hand. For a truly successful tank in terms of looks plant selection should also include quantity, color, shape, potential size and intended location within the tank. Taking these into consideration is the difference between a tank with healthy plants in it and a beautiful natural looking environment. More on that later.

So why is this so obvious step so often over looked ? There is a tendency in the planted tank world for some enthusiasts to treat aquatic gardening like some people treat customized autos - more power, bigger engine, more gadgets etc. In the planted tank world this equates to more growth, faster growth, pushing the plants past what is natural for them. Most people do some research before embarking on their first planted tank, usually on the internet. More often what they will find is lots and lots of babble about lights and spectrums , co2 injection , DIY set ups, PMDD (up to recently I thought that was something my wife got once a month !) and on and on. What you will rarely find unless you really go look for it is information about the plants themselves ! Most beginners (and some not so beginners)think all of this stuff is necessary, and get so confused by kelvins, and yeast recipes and whatnot that the plants research gets over looked. How many times have I been asked a question like "maybe my plants have a deficiency, what if I dose CaCo3?". Well heck don't ask me I haven't got a clue what CaCo3 is ! But if I ask them what type of plant they have , invariably they don't know ! Well if you don't even know what the name of the plant is chances are you are not going to a great job of growing it.

So in practical terms. You want a successful planted tank. How to go about it ?

Do some research. Nothing too heavy, no need at this stage to need to know how to make a co2 reactor out of bottle tops and bubble gum. Understand how plants work and what are the basic requirements for their survival in an aquarium.

At this stage you will quickly realize probably the first hurdle to be overcome is lighting. A decision has to be made. Do you want to keep a simple easy to maintain set up or going for something a bit more high tech. My advice would be to keep it simple at first. Once you have grown a few simple "easy" species you can gradually improve your equipment and expand the number of species as time goes on.

When you have decided on your set up. Check what plants will work with it and select only these species of plant. Resist the urge to "try" one of those pretty red ones or a plant you have already been informed will need more light then you can provide. It won't work. If you've decided on the high tech set up plant heavily and with a mixture of plant types. A high tech set up with only slow growers is both a waste of money and a source of problems.

Balance and patience. The key to a healthy tank is a balance of light, Co2 and nutrients. A low light tank with the correctly selected plants should need no addition of C02 or ferts to add either is to create an imbalance. In the high light set up (above 2 wpg) Co2 supplementation is almost a necessity to avoid algae and a good fert regime is needed to keep all 3 in balance. There is a middle road , where light is provided at 1-1.5 wpg, there is a wider choice of plants for selection,Co2 is not necessary, some ferts may be needed from time to time. Patience. Let the plants do their thing don't try to force growth , observe the plants watch how they grow and they'll tell you when they need something.

It's the plants, man, the plants. Choose wisely, give them time, observe them. Pick the right ones and it all becomes very easy.

In part 3 I will discuss how plant selection plays a role in the aquascape.











Last edited by bensaf at 16-Feb-2005 04:06

Last edited by bensaf at 16-Feb-2005 19:57

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

"Well heck don't ask me I haven't got a clue what CaCo3 is !"
Well, apparently, it's Calcium Cobalt-3 (tricobaltide? o.0), which doesn't actually exist..

But anyhoo, wonderful article. I am guilty of all of the aforementioned new planter errors, so this'll be of great help to many people. Great job.

Bernard

Again this article is well thought out like your tank a fantastic job.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

i've had touble with planted tanks in the past - went for plants i like more then plants i could keep alive. now in my small 20g planted tank i have easy low light plants and it's looking great
it has no CO2 and only 15W 10000K light. i do have some tablets that i puch into the gravel

plants
Vallisneria americana (gigantea)
Vallisneria americana (natans)
Echinodurus x barthii
Cryptocoryne wendtii ''brown''
Cryptocoryne walkeri (lutea)
Cryptocoryne undulata ''broad leaves''
Cabomba caroliniana
Bacopa Caroliniona
Hygrophila corymbosa "angustifolia"


www.blooming-brilliant.co.uk

I've had little issue concerning plant selection with non CO2 plant tanks.

I add a little SeaChem Equilibrium once a week, use onyx sand, plant heavy from day one, add some detritus from an established tank, a little peat to the bottom of the gravel and algae eaters. I do not do any water changes, only top off the water.

I alway pack a tank with a lot of plants from the start.

I'll add KH2PO4/KNO3/Traces on tanks without fish, fish food seems to supply the rest if I add the SeaChem EQ weekly. Just that one addition helps a great deal along with a different substrate that aids in cycling better and longer term source of KH(many Plants use KH, the bicarb, in non CO2 tanks when the CO2 drops down low, same is true for algae).

Non CO2 tank methods and CO2 methods are quite different, you are comparing two different methods each with their own unique trade offs.

I like the patience on the non CO2 tank, I've taken it to high level and grow plants that other deem unsuitable.

Many CO2 aquascapist tend to have a lower opinion on non CO2 methods.

Most newer folks are happy with either method if they get off on a good foot.

You can do CO2 very simply, cheaply and easily as well:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/People/resler-tengallon.html

A method in and of itself does not imply a good aquascape, I can force most any "method".

A non CO2 tank can look very nice and requires the least maintenance, many like to see their plants grow fast though, many like all the items that go with the tank.
Many cannot keep their fingers out of the tank, resist moving the plants all over.

Non CO2 tanks can be done to a high level and investigated more and improved upon greatly, more so than CO2 tanks.
Plants will only grow so fast and for many, faster is not better. There aree severla ways to slow things down, less Light, then less CO2, then less PO4.

But few folks that are into the science and chemistry get into the non CO2 methods, that's part of the point, to not need to deal with any of that/testings etc..........but you can really improve a good system further in doing so.

It takes longer to see changes though.
I've been keeping them all along but have made changes in the last 8 years or so, namely with substrate and the last 3 or 4 with dosing the water column.

I've been able to grow many plants such as A reineckii, Hair grass, Glossostigma, various red stem plants, Riccia etc, they grow an inch a month instead of a day, but the health is good.

So paiteance is certainly needed but a non CO2 tank will surprise you. You can also dose some Excel also and then back off once the tank has grown in, that's becoming a popular way to jump start a non CO2 tank.

Great suggestion! Too many CO2 suggestions on the boards.......

Regards,
Tom Barr

Tom,

Great info (as always).

A method in and of itself does not imply a good aquascape

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately most people seem to equate low light as "dull" which is not neccesserily anywhere near the truth.A case in point is the winner of the 2004 AGA contest in the large tank category. A tank with only 1 wpg and stuffed with easy plants but providing a very attractive aquascape witha minimum of maintenance.
On the other hand I've seen high tech tanks with very healthy plants that overall looked "blah".

In my own case I started the tank as low light and it was very successful and attractive. As I got more interested in the hobby and the plants I expanded to higher light and Co2. It's just as successful but if I'm honest I sometimes pine for the look of the old set up and the ease of control and maintenance. With the additions, as the plants are growing faster and bigger, the tank needs a lot more control just to keep it looking good. A week without maintenace and the "shape" is gone. A few days without ferts and the plants show it.

Last edited by bensaf at 19-Feb-2005 23:42

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

"Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately most people seem to equate low light as "dull" which is not neccesserily anywhere near the truth.A case in point is the winner of the 2004 AGA contest in the large tank category. A tank with only 1 wpg and stuffed with easy plants but providing a very attractive aquascape witha minimum of maintenance.
On the other hand I've seen high tech tanks with very healthy plants that overall looked "blah". "

Yes, I think many good gardeners/aquascapist are drawn away for the low tech apporaches.

It's one of my personal goals to get many of them to try an "Experimental" (hehe, a good way to get them to bite the fish hook) non CO2 tank, they are cheap, easy to deal with etc.

"In my own case I started the tank as low light and it was very successful and attractive."

Yes, myself as well. I had trouble adjusting to higher light and CO2 initially, but it made sense that uptake would also increase and the demands for the plants. But that was 15 years ago, I learned a lot along the way. Went back to college later, never left:-)
Someone's gotta teach I suppose....

"As I got more interested in the hobby and the plants I expanded to higher light and Co2. It's just as successful but if I'm honest I sometimes pine for the look of the old set up and the ease of control and maintenance."

Actually returning to this from the high light/CO2 perspective is neat. I like tio have a few higher mainteance tanks, but having 20 is no fun 15 non CO2 tanks that are slow growing and small is much nicer.

" With the additions, as the plants are growing faster and bigger, the tank needs a lot more control just to keep it looking good. A week without maintenace and the "shape" is gone. A few days without ferts and the plants show it."


I find great use though in this knowledge when I've returned back to the non CO2 plant tank.

I know what the plants need much more now.
I do not need to dose at the same rate, I have a great deal more wiggle room with my routine, but not I can go about prefecting non CO2 tanks much further and with some recent testing I've done, I think there are very few plants I cannot grow.
Gloss, Hairgrass, Riccia, red plants, etc.

Instead of 2-4cm per day, I have 2-4 cm per month.

Some differences I have done:
I switched to Onyx sand and leonardite and a little peat.
This has done much better for me than soil which is depleted after a few months.
It's also not messy at all.

I've added GH weekly, SeaChem equilibrium has a great mix of nutrients for a non CO2 tank.
I also add small amounts of KH2PO4/KNO3/traces weekly.

These are small amounts, about 4-6 times less than I would add to a CO2 enriched tank volume wise.

I add these only weekly, not hard at all.

If you have a decent sized fish load you can reduce or eliminate the KNO3/KH2PO4 and add K2SO4 instead.

I did the test with non CO2 planted tanks with no fish.
I also did some tanks with fish as well.

I wanted to see how dosing inorganic nutrients impacted the plants.

I find no real reason why we cannot grow any species that we can in a CO2 enriched tank in a non CO2 tank, just slower and at a slower growth rate.

While the method might seem radically different, they actually are the same except the rate of growth is slower and the needs and uptake demands of both method still meet the plant's demands for that CO2/light level.

Adding the SeaChem EQ and K2SO4 weekly or 2x a week in small doses works very well.

The SeaChem Eq has Ca, Mg, Mn, Fe, K(lots), SO4 so it adds more than GH alone.

The Onyx sand is good for nutrient cycling due to the porosity(Turface/Profile is similar but light weight but can be mixed with a similar colored sand at 50:50 to add weight. These are very cheap and useful)and it has a lot of KH and Ca. So those will not run out as much. The KH is used by the plant bicarb users as HCO3 as a source of CO2, in a limited system, plants(and algae) go after it.

The other thing, both plants and algae prefer CO2, that slowes algae down when you also have moderately low light.
So each individual algae eater is more effective since it can attack and eat more algae since the algae is growing slower.

I always have a few floating plants as a back up also, they have plenty of light and all the CO2 they need, they block the light to the algae below as well.

Try the SeaChem eq and the K2SO4 in small amounts once a week to the lower light non CO2 tanks, see what you think.

It'll take about 1-3 weeks to note a difference. Maybe sooner, but try it for 3-4 weeks and then see.

Regards,
Tom Barr

My underwater rainforest manages quite nicely without CO2 injection etc. The fish provide all that they need. But then my Panda Fun Palace™ is a busy aquarium to put it mildly, not least because the Pandas are maniacs

I have Java Moss (grows like stink), Java Ferns (grow slower but still at a respectable rate), Amazon Sword (needs regular pruning) and Hornwort (currently staging a campaign for world domination). So far, all are doing quite nicely.

Certain plants don't do well in my aquarium (I tried Cabomba, but even 16 hours a day under a 10000K tube wasn't enough for it). Usually these are very fine-leaved stemmed plants. Borad leaved stemmed plants like Hygrophyla or Water Wisteria grow in my aquaria like the proverbial Triffids. My Water Wisteria in the Panda Breeding Aquarium™ needs thinning out, but then that's under an 18000K tube!



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Tom,

Curious about one aspect of the method you described above. I would assume if you can grow Riccia, Glosso et al without Co2 that you are at least providing relatively decent light. Whatever about plants doing well without Co2 quite a lot just won't survive without sufficient light, leaves dropping off and stem bottoms rotting etc.
If you are indeed providing a fair bit of light how are you avoiding certain algaes, in particular BBA ?
I debated for a long time whether or not to go down the Co2 road, as I was doing quite well without it. The deciding factor was some BBA that was becoming a problem. After checking it seemed that high Co2 levels was the only surefire way to keep that at bay. So Co2 it was.
So wondering how you managed to avoid BBA in the set up you described, I would have though that those kind plants growuing at a slow rate would be BBA magnets ?!

I have a small non Co2 tank densely planted I would like to try the above method on.

Last edited by bensaf at 20-Feb-2005 19:47

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Tom,

Curious about one aspect of the method you described above. I would assume if you can grow Riccia, Glosso et al without Co2 that you are at least providing relatively decent light. Whatever about plants doing well without Co2 quite a lot just won't survive without sufficient light, leaves dropping off and stem bottoms rotting etc.
"If you are indeed providing a fair bit of light how are you avoiding certain algaes, in particular BBA ?"

I add lots of plants from the beginning, SAE's is some cases but they are not needed, shrimps etc.
I do not add more than perhaps 2 w/gal.

BBA likes CO2, non CO2 tanks simply do not have enough, unless you do lots of water changes, have lower plant growth.

The key is maximizing plant growth rates for the give method.

No water changes makes a dramatic impact on many species of algae, they like CO2 as well.
If you add say 5-10ppm of CO2 and the levels flux wildly, then that's a great place for algae.

The other issue: less CO2: less plant growth, btu this also means less algae growth.

There are a few other things occuring.

"I debated for a long time whether or not to go down the Co2 road, as I was doing quite well without it."

If you do not try and expand upon what you already have mastered, you will never grow:-) Someone said that, but it's true.

"The deciding factor was some BBA that was becoming a problem. After checking it seemed that high Co2 levels was the only surefire way to keep that at bay."

Did you try SAE's and did you not do any water changes?

" So Co2 it was.
So wondering how you managed to avoid BBA in the set up you described, I would have though that those kind plants growuing at a slow rate would be BBA magnets ?!"

I've nevrr had BBa issues to date and have ebven go so far as to take BBA infected plants and place them into a non CO2, this was done many times and I have recently done this with micro tennellus swords that were covered I got from someone.

They floated for about 5 weeks and the BBA is now completely gone.

"I have a small non Co2 tank densely planted I would like to try the above method on."

Do it!!!
You'll love it.
Resist water changes, don't do them!
I know, it sounds nuts, but try it and do it for several months.

There are a couple of other things you can do to help non CO2 tanks also, I've tried this in the past.

Use SeaChem Excel, this has a somewhat algicidal effect and helps plants grow well.
You dose excess amounts, like the full dose 3-4 x a week for 2-3 weeks.
This seems ti kill off algae and increases plant growth.

Tank start up is very important, some folks use DIY CO2 or Excel to get the plants established etc.

Then take it off. It takes algae and plabnts abotu 1 week to acclimate to non CO2 conditions.

If you add fresh water each week ....this adds lots of CO2.

And then the oplants and algae go nuts, then the algae respond in full force.

I am not going to get into the specifics here. But take my word for it. I have a 100% success rate on non CO2 tanks, the Gloss and Hair grass etc are added after about 1-2 months.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Hi Tom,
I did try SAE's but got suckered and ended up with False Siamensis ! Always did weekly 25-30% water changes !


Thanks again. What you say about the BBA suddenly makes sense. In the big tank before adding Co2 the Anubias were getting hit hard by BBA. The addition of high levels of Co2 stopped that. BUT in the non Co2 tank I added some Barteri on some driftwood and is probably the plant closest to the light source. Been there a while - never a speck of BBA (or any other algae on it)!!!!

OK, your on - I'll give it a try ! Must admit I'm a bit nervous about the no water change, but the few fish that are in there are pretty hardy, and it is well planted with a mixture of slow and fast growers so nitrate levels shouldn't be a problem.I'll let you know how it goes !

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Wow lots of great info in this thread! Thanks plant gurus for sharing your profound and mystical knowledge with us!

I think research is the most neglected part of this hobby in general. When buying plants, people get suckered, not only into buying inappropriate plants for their tank setups, but even into buying non-aquatics! They also get suckered into spending WAY more than they need to on fertilizers (magic potions) and extreme light setups from the local pet shops. Can we really blame the shops though? Honestly there isn't a lot of money in the fishkeeping industry and they're just trying to put food on the table. I think this is a classic example of "Buyer Beware."

It happens with everything in this hobby. People buy dyed fish, goldfish for 2 gallon tanks, oscars for 20 gallon tanks, hybrids, you name it. The bottom line in all of these cases is that the research just isn't done. When the fish start getting sick, people are more likely to spend hundreds on better filters, medications, special foods, anything the "knowledgable" LFS is currently touting as their next miracle cure.

One thing I would like to point out is that a planted tank doesn't need to cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to be successful. I am running one planted tank right now and am in the process of setting up another. I haven't been a "plantie" for too long (maybe a year for indoor plant tanks) and so far it has been great. I made the required newbie mistakes, impulse buying plants that my tank wouldn't handle, but I learned my lesson and now I'm doing fabulously if you ask me!

My current setup is very simple: 1.5 wpg of fluorescent light, Minimal DIY CO2, plain old sand substrate with root tabs added for extra nutrients. I have easy plants that are looking wonderful, even though they may not grow as quickly as they would in a higher light setup. My java moss is taking over the world, my hygrophila polysperma is bright green and lovely, my amazon sword (which I hacked almost down to the rhizome because it wasn't doing well after I moved a few months ago) is putting off new leaves every week or two, my aponogeton ulvaceus is 18" tall and flowers every few weeks, I have hardly any algae in the tank with a very minimal cleanup crew, etc. etc.

I am doing a more advanced planted setup in my 10 gallon, but have limited the equipment budget to under 50 dollars. I'm using 2 15 watt fluoro bulbs from the hardware store (for a total of $16) giving me 3 wpg, spending 5 dollars on a DIY CO2 system, and doing a mixed substrate of shultz aquatic plant soil and fine gravel supplemented with root tablets for about 8 bucks. It's really not hard to do, it just takes research and planning. Be prepared for an article coming soon on that project.

Research and planning: every aquarist's best friend. Tell it to the masses!

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