Question: Planted Tank. How to maintain?

[Cady]

Hello caudata world.
i very much so want to make a beautiful planted tank for my axies to live in -- but i'm not sure how to take care of my plants! do they need a specific fertilizer? what can i use that won't harm my axies? can they just survive off of nitrates alone, and do LED lights provide the light necessary for them to grow?

i currently have some java fern and one anubias nana, but they're starting to look sad, so i must be doing SOMETHING wrong. :/ kinda jumped in without looking, but hopefully i can remedy that with this thread.

also, aside from the staples, what kind of plants are good for axies? i've read about the basics: java fern, java moss, anubias anything (pretty much). but what are some more interesting ones? i know some users have more tropical plants, and varieties such as water sprite and various grasses. what plants can grow in the low temps, while still having variety in types? will a very sun-lite room provide added light if my LEDs don't do the trick?

i'm mostly concerned with fertilizers and nutrients, and what kinds of plants other people have had success with. i'm currently cycling a 20 gal tank, so i'll be decorating that once the cycle is complete, to give an idea of how much room i have.

i finally master cycling, and now i have the plants to get down. will the lack of knowledge ever end? i'm hoping relatively soon!

[Carson]

Problem with a planted tank with an axie tank is that axies don't like much light. I suspect your doing a low tech planted setup, as it would be fairly difficult to have a high tech setup with axies. I don't fertalize my plants, becasue my focus on my axie tank is the axies. If you do want to fertalize you need to dose macro nutrients, which are nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, and micro nutrients, which you can usually buy a micro nutreint pack that has them all in one powder online. However, that being said fertalizing won't do much good if your also not giving your plants the appropraite lighting, and co2. What I would use in your axie tank is lowlight plants that grow like crazy. Everything you listed sounds good, I use water wisteria, and cabomba, guppy grass, and java moss in my own tank.
Honestly I wouldn't get into the planted tank scene if you just want to make a fuller fish tank with plants. You can do that without dosing fertalizer, and messing with co2. Just make sure your plants are low maintanace, and that you have appropriate lighting. What type of lighting do you have now? That may be the problem. If your just growing java fern,and anubias I would think your axolotls are producing enough nutrients for them. If your light bulbs don't have the correct light spectrum your plants may just not be getting enough of the correct type of light. Also, in my experience sun light does very little for submerged plants.
I'm not a plant expert, but I've done a planted tank or two and am happy to help with any questions. What might also interest you is using bog plants like peace lillies, and pothos to grow with the roots submerged, but the rest of the plant out of the water. This way you can put as much light as you want on the plants without disturbing your axolotl, and the plant roots still suck up all the bad stuff like ammonia, and nitrate.

[Cady]

yeah, i wasn't really looking for a hardcore planted tank. but all the information i keep finding while trying to figure out what plants i can/can't use gave me the impression i had to provide everything that a nice, big, tropical one would require. and i just want some low-key, living greenery!

from what you said, i'm thinking lighting is probably the problem with the plants. i only have it on very briefly since i don't think my axies like it...not sure what kind of bulb it is, but its supposedly a bulb to "help promote plant growth." just sorta picked it up from wal-mart, and it was dimmer than the original bulb i had. in the future, though, will LEDs provide proper light for the plants? my new tank is going to be set up with some led strips on top.

so, java fern/moss, anubias, water wisteria, cabomba, and guppy grass are good ones? was water sprite a good choice, too? i've heard about it, and it looks kinda fun. are there other types of grasses i could use, like dwarf hairgrass or this other type of long hairgrass whose exact name is escaping me. and are crypts any good?

and i LOVE the idea of out of water plants! but how out of the water do they grow? i bought a screen top for my tank to make sure nothing falls in, so can they grow only on the surface, or will they bloom more than a few inches?

i'm just attacking you with questions. @.@; but all answers are greatly appreciated!

[Carson]

ah the walmart bulbs, they work just fine, my planted tank bulbs were from lowes. It's probably how long you have the light on. I recommend 8 hours a day, give or take depending on the plant growth and how much algae your getting. I don't know much about LED's, but I do know that they can work, but just like light bulbs they need to have the correct light spectrum. I know in light bulbs daylight is the right generic word, and bulbs like soft white aren't. I've never used water sprite, but from what I've read it's basically the same thing as wisteria, it just looks a bit different. I actually got into planted tanks because I saw dwarf hairgrass. It took a ton of work for me, but for some reason it either grows amazingly well for some people, or it doesn't work well at all. It didn't work so great for me, and I wasn't super happy with the results, but some people have no problem growing it in low tech tanks, I just can't figure out how. The screen top might be a problem for growing plants out of the top. I'll put a picture of how mine looked before my tank cracked. I have the same thing setup now, it's just on a rubbermaid bin till I find a new tank.

This is right after I set it up. It's looking much better now, but I'm afraid the rubbermaid bin is rediculously ugly. The plants are growing upright, and starting to grow new growths. It's just peace lilly, and golden pothos that I found in the gardening section of krogers, it was like $10 for both pots. It's literally just a plastic window box with a hole opposite of the side that's facing the camera so I could put the output of my canister filter in the planter to give the plant roots some water movement

[Cady]

i like it! although, since i have a screen, the lilies/pathos is probably not the best. although, i've been looking through bog plant websites, so i'm definately interested in them now! great tip!

and hopefully a little more light should give my plants some perkiness back, and now i have some other varieties to look for other than JAVA!! too much java. @.@;

thank you very much!

[Cheylee]

I have some type of grassy looking stuff in my tank (I'll have to look it up) that i find works really well in cold tempretures and low lighting. I just let them float in the water though because my Axolotls like to uproot them.

[Gavin Hunter]

Cabomba,works really well.

[Kameko]

I turned my 93 gallon adult tank into a planted, no tech, nitrate sucking habitat. I made a 5 foot christmas/flame moss wall that grows like crazy & buffers alot of the light. I have the asian watergrass floating on top so they don't feel so out in the open and vulnurable. Anubias coffeefolia and bolbitis heudelotii tied to driftwood, lucky bamboo to really suck them nitrates up.... and no lighting aside from a bit of natural daylight. I've yet to have a problem with withering, rotting plants

[BIGMerle]

Originally Posted by Grete

I turned my 93 gallon adult tank into a planted, no tech, nitrate sucking habitat. I made a 5 foot christmas/flame moss wall that grows like crazy & buffers alot of the light. I have the asian watergrass floating on top so they don't feel so out in the open and vulnurable. Anubias coffeefolia and bolbitis heudelotii tied to driftwood, lucky bamboo to really suck them nitrates up.... and no lighting aside from a bit of natural daylight. I've yet to have a problem with withering, rotting plants

I know this thread is a little old but could you post pictures?