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Aquarium Plants

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  • 12-11-2010 2:45pm
    #1
    Nasri2010
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10 ✭


    I am trying to find cheap ways to boost the health of my plants. I am attempting to make a home made C02 system with yeast. Does any one have an other cheap methods for boosting my plants health.


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    #2
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,506 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    buy a bottle of easycarbo, cheap enough and 2-3ml a day will help them out.

    other than that a layer of fertiliser below you gravel/sand bed will help but obviously not that easy to do if tank already full of water.


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    #3
    Nasri2010
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10 ✭Nasri2010


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    but a bottle of easycarbo, cheap enough and 2-3ml a day will help them out.

    other than that a layer of fertiliser below you gravel/sand bed will help but obviously not that easy to do if tank already full of water.

    I have a good plant substrate, and have been using easy carbo. But i was just looking to see if there are any other ideas out there. I like trying to do DIY things for the challenge instead of buying ready made products. Easy Carbo is excellent though.


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    #4
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,506 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    in that case you've reached the limit of my knowledge on the subject :D

    have you many plants in the tank and if so do you have a CO2 source for them?


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    #5
    F-Stop
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭F-Stop


    Depending on the plants you have - if they are very demanding there is no cheap way as you need good lighting - easycarbo, profito, and as you already have a decent substrate it doesn't matter, but those little fertilizer balls that you push under the gravel. That'll get you decent results with non-demanding plants and then you'll have all that extra work of pruning and cleaning out dead leaves :D


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    #6
    F-Stop
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭F-Stop


    2593338337_1353443b1d_z.jpg?zz=1

    That was my first planted tank. I upgraded the lights to 4x54w T5s (on a 180 litre) shortly after the photo though, and it was maintained with fertilizers and CO2 cannister with a ph sensor to monitor it. To be honest it became a bit much for me to take care of, it does take a lot of fiddly regular work to keep something like this under control.

    2778634763_71a32da764_z.jpg?zz=1

    This is the Discus tank when it first started out and I was just using 2 x 54w and 2 x 38 w T5s (on a 300 litre) and easy carbo and profito.

    4059252474_bebf669a5f_z.jpg

    That's the same tank about a year later (after the Discus had moved home) using the same regime. I never changed the T5 tubes though and I should have. You can see some damage on some of the leaves - you can also see Miriam O'Callaghan's reflection! If you chose the right plants you can have a thriving planted set up without breaking the bank or your back. The tropica catalogue is well worth getting just for info on plants - you can get it from the website for about a tenner delivered, or some of the LFS that stock Tropica probably have it for about 3 euro.

    EDIT: oh yeah, the substrate in 180 litre was Aquagrit, the substrate in the big tank was just pea gravel with fert balls buried in it.


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    #7
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,506 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    very nice tank :)


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    #8
    Nasri2010
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10 ✭Nasri2010


    Your tanks look great. Those discus are amazing. I have created a Co2 source a cheap way using yeast and sugar. I have it going into an air stone. Should it be placed anywhere in particular in the tank? I don't know much about the science of it but it seems that naturally the bubbles are going straight up. Does this mean that most the plants won't get any benefit from it or is it still doing something?


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    #9
    F-Stop
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭F-Stop


    CO2 leaves the water very easily, so you want as many tiny bubbles as you can get from low in the tank so that is can mix into the water. You need to keep an eye on your ph and make sure it's not fluctuating too much. Ph shock and CO2 shock can have a very bad effect on your fish's health. I don't know much about the DIY CO2 setups - I know they work, but I've never used them myself.


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    #10
    F-Stop
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭F-Stop


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    very nice tank :)

    Cheers. They're all long gone now as I've moved to marine, finally. Very rewarding, a bit more work (actually much less than the water changes on the Discus tank), and bloody expensive.


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    #11
    F-Stop
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭F-Stop


    Nasri2010 wrote: »
    Your tanks look great. Those discus are amazing.

    Thanks! Yeah, Discus do look amazing, but they are very demanding - and in my experience very boring fish.I don't really see any character in them - I'd rather a 300 litre tank with 30 zebra danios, or a nice group of clown loaches than discus. They are very sensitive too, and there's an image that they need to be big moon shaped things - fat and overfed is the 'healthy' discus, not how they are in the wild.


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