Dear mods - is this okay?

[Aus]

A few of us would like to collaborate on a really comprehensive plant/planted tank info thread. I thought as there's several of us, it might be easier to hold discussions of who is doing what for it here, rather than PM'ing back and forth for every little thing. And we can request the thread deleted when the posts go up for real. Also, people may like to add suggestions/info here, in case we forget something, saves you being asked to edit posts for us.

Does that sound okay to you?

The people who'd be using this thread are:

kfryman
Aus
ravenwinds

and OldFishLady if she agrees to help out, when I ask her. =P

[aokashi]

Hi Aus,
I've done a somewhat bare bottom planted tank before. As in none of my plants were actually... planted. it worked wonderfully. and will work exceptionally well for those people who loves to move things around.

[Oldfishlady]

Sounds like a great idea...

[registereduser]

You could get Mo to help or incorporate the thread she already made, it's in my siggy

[Aus]

Yes, that's a good idea. Mo's plant thread is great for the easy care plants.

[Aus]

Okay, here's a few tasks I think need doing. Some may take some research :D :

- List of undesirable submersed plants & pictures.
(I'm already on this - Aus)

- List of plants useful to water quality in NPT (ammonia & nitrate sinks, roots plants, floaters) with pics & fert/light needs.

- How to set up and maintain both a small and a large NPT with stage by stage pics if possible.

- Description of the various 'planted' tanks you can have (barebottom, inert substrate, active substrate (plant feeding gravels), NPT, maybe even riparium? -- with general outlay costs, descriptions and pictures.

- Post on lighting for planted tanks, including info on white vs blue/red light, kelvins watts and other light measurements and what they mean for the tank, LED, flourescent, incandescant, halide, low light, high light, how much light for what size tank, etc.

- How to cope with/avoid algal bloom, including list of relevant fixes/products.


whew... I have run out of ideas. :) Hands up for any of those jobs. Ideas welcome.

[Shadyr]

Hey, I can help you with a picture of an undesirable plant that new people (like myself at the time) might be suckered into getting! I bought a tubed plant that turned out to be a Dracaena variegatus from Petsmart and was told by the people there that they were fully aquatic. I thought they looked very sharp in the tank. While they *are* water loving they are *not* aquatic, one did eventually die, rot, and led to a bout of flicking which I suspect is when Ghost damaged an eye (he's blind or near blind on one side now)

Terribly enough, I think this is my official picture for Ghost's tank. I need to update it to show off his lot of ACTUAL water plants!

[Spazzfish]

If you guys have the time it would be cool if you could find certian shrimp that eat algea fish that make good "gardners" (eat algea or something like that.) I have a baby chines algea eateer and he keeps my plants and decor spotless(but he wont take the green stuff off the glass) he even swims up the filter outflow and nibbles on that stuff.

[Mo]

I'll try to do the different substrates and which plants do well with each substrate.

[Aus]

Great suggestions - and awesome pic. It'd be great to have a lot of members contribute their own pics/experiences like that here on this thread so we can add them in. :) Makes all it quite unique to the forum.

Mo, I think kfryman and raven were on the plants/substrates.. let me check? Your input would be great, though - your plant thread here is really good. I notice you breed shrimp and snails.. would you be interested in doing the post requested above by Spazzfish on shrimp/snail tank companions for algae control/which ones are best/ which to avoid/how to keep them healthy/what size tank with a betta, etc? Those get asked about a lot, as well as algae issues, so that'd be awesome if someone experienced with both could do that.