FishProfiles.com Message Forums

hello all,i have had fish for a few years but this is the first time i bought a real plant do i need to anything special to the water??? what is the easist plant to take care of thats good for fry

What plants you can keep mostly depends on how much light you have. Also very hard or very soft water, what fish you have, and what substrate can sometimes be a factor. The most useful plant I have for fry tanks is hornwort. I just toss a little piece in the tank and it turns into a 6"-12" long strand. The only problem with it is if you have very low light or try to plant it in the substrate without having very high light the needles will all fall off. Left floating so long as it doesn't bunch up and block certain pieces from the light it will stay green and healthy. It's very fast growing and sucks up nitrates so in my 5g full of fry I've been feeding 3-4times a day and the nitrates are still at 5ppm just like 2weeks ago when the fry were born.

Hornwort is a good choice I've also had a lot of luck with anacharis as a floating plant. It looks good and provides hiding places for fry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Java Moss and Java fern. Both could just about grow in the dark. Java Moss is great for fry too!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Hi,
Without alot of information all we can do is talk in
generalities.

To protect the fry, you can give them two types of plants.
The floating plants like water sprite, water lettuce,
anacharis, hornwart, and duckweed, will form thick blankets
at the surface and the tangle of the leaves and roots will
provide supreme protection.

For plants that grow with any speed, you would have to
ensure that you have at least 2 watts per gallon of light.
That is, using flourscent lights, total the wattages of
the lights on the tank, and divide that total by the
capacity of the tank in gallons. That equals the wpg.

If you have 2 wpg then you can also plant plants in the
gravel that are considered low light, and medium
light, demand plants. If you have only 1 wpg then you
must stick with low light demand plants, and non of them
are fast growing. For them to provide any real protection
for the fry, you would have to wait months for the plants
to reach the kind of growth that would provide any real
protection.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--