Keep plants alive
Russell Jacoby
I have a 29 gallon tank with a 20 watt full spectrum fluorescent light.
I put in leaf and root enhancing fertilizar. My plants just never seem
to last that long. How do I keep them alive?
Sam Jacoby
john...@vnet.net
A good place to start is with the plants faq, that's usually available on this ng.
It has tons of good information.
catch u later,
John
Sometimes you can observe a lot by just watching.
Yogi Berra
Mark A. Good
Well, first of all you could start by buying true aquatic plants. Most
fish stores sell mostly bog plants, which when placed in an aquarium often
die after <2 months. For example, Red Crinkle (sp?) is a bog plant... I
don't know anyone that has kept a Red Crinkle alive in their aquarium for
more than 2 months. I tried, no luck. Fish stores don't tell you this,
and when asked say, "for only a few dollars it's worth having a plant for a
couple of months". The problem is, after 1 month, it looks terrible! Who
wants to worry about a half dead plant for a month! Why not just buy a
plant that God made to live in more than 6 inches of water? I have had 2
Amazon Swords alive in my aquarium for over a year now (among a couple of
other types that I can't remember their name).
Full spectrum light is a great start. I don't use fertilizers, but I am
sure they can't hurt. Read the FAQs about aquatic plants, some of them
have a black list of plants NOT to buy... i.e. plants that aren't true
aquatics that fish stores usually sell. Next, ask your dealer for only
true aquatics - if they know what that means and are honest they'll tell
you what they have. Otherwise, you may have to go mail order. Try:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/DarinGasperson/
I have no idea how good they are, never ordered from them. But it looks
like a good place to start. Besides, from what I've seen, they look fairly
reasonable.
If plant TYPEs aren't your problem, then read the FAQs. Maybe you don't
have enough CO2 in your water. CO2 is 'kindof' expensive, although gets
good results - and you can buy CO2 equipment from a welding supply company
and save big $$ by not buying from the pet suppliers. Again, read the FAQs
and they'll tell you a lot about CO2 and how to set up a reasonable CO2
injection system. Or, another cheap way to add CO2 to your water is add a
ton of feeder (cheap) fish. Be careful not to overload your filter system
though. For a good FAQ, try:
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~aquaria/Faq/
This site was down for a while, I guess, but seems to be back up now. Cal
Tech has a LOT of cool stuff on aquariums and plants (etc.)
You may already know all this info. If so, sorry I couldn't help. :) If
not, hope the info helps.
Russell Jacoby <rja...@ucla.edu> wrote in article
<324562...@ucla.edu>...
J.M. Fulmer
Russell Jacoby wrote:
>
> I have a 29 gallon tank with a 20 watt full spectrum fluorescent light.
> I put in leaf and root enhancing fertilizar. My plants just never seem
> to last that long. How do I keep them alive?
>
> Sam Jacoby
Definitely more light. I wouldn't use anything less than 2X20watts in a
tank that size so add another bulb. Also, check pH. If pH is slightly
acidic, you're going to have more CO2. The plants will dig this. If
your pH is neutral or higher, try to lower the pH (unless you have fish
that don't like acidic water) or check out some of the DIY CO2 dosing
methods (this will lower the pH, too). Some of these (yeast method) can
be quite inexpensive and effective.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
J.M. Fulmer Graduate Researcher
Dept. of Oceanography
Florida State University http://ocean.fsu.edu/oce/mfulmer/index.html
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-3048 Tele: (904) 644-2599
email: mfu...@ocean.fsu.edu Fax: (904) 644-2581
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
patrick timlin
Russell Jacoby (rja...@ucla.edu) wrote:
: I have a 29 gallon tank with a 20 watt full spectrum fluorescent light.
: I put in leaf and root enhancing fertilizar. My plants just never seem
: to last that long. How do I keep them alive?
Your light levels need to be increased. The FAQ suggests 2-4 watts of
normal fluorescent light per gallon of water for most plants. Your 29
gallon tank would require roughly 60-120 watts of fluorescent light.
Since a 29 gallon is a tall tank (rather than the 30 gallon long), you
would do better aiming for the upper end of that scale.
Since you have less than 1 W per gallon, you probably will have a very
hard time getting any plants to grow for you. You might try some of the
lower light tolerant plants such as Java Fern, Java Moss, Hornwort,
Anubius, and some crypts, but even many of those may have problems with
lighting under 1 W/gal. Floating plants might work better for you as
they will be up near the light with little or no water between them and
the plant to attenuate the light intensity.
You might want to consider buying a new hood with at least a double
fixture, or try to modify the one you have to except more tubes or try
converting to compact fluorescents as you can fit more wattage unde the
hood than you can with regular (24 inch in your case??) tubes.
Patrick Timlin pti...@lynx.dac.neu.edu pti...@adex.com