Keeping plants in car question

[Narnian]

Hi all!

So it is the middle of summer and very HOT. My tank isn't quite ready yet, but I'm starting to plan on getting plants and such in a little while, once my substrate is ordered and shipped.

The problem is only certain stores sell certain plants, so I'm gonna have to spend quite a few hours driving around, to various places, to get all the different needed plants. This means the plants I buy at one store will be sitting in the HOT car for a good portion of the day.

How do I do this? Would sticking the bags in a styrofoam cooler suffice, or would it still be too hot? I probably don't want to put ice packs in to freeze them, eh? LOL! HELP!

[ScuitoAmi150]

The guy from Petco told me it was okay, just make sure they have water.

[Oldfishlady]

Using the styrofoam cooler is a great idea and if you have a small ice pack to use in it even better. You don't want to sit the plants directly on the ice pack, just in the cooler to keep the temp stable.....you do need to try and keep the temp stable to keep the plants from melting and in a car it can get well over 150 degrees and higher depending on the outside temp.....

[Ashcan Bill]

Originally Posted by Narnian

The problem is only certain stores sell certain plants, so I'm gonna have to spend quite a few hours driving around, to various places, to get all the different needed plants. This means the plants I buy at one store will be sitting in the HOT car for a good portion of the day.

Have you ever considered ordering your plants on-line? Might save some gas and time. I've ordered once from these folk and had good luck. I'll probably order from them again in a couple of weeks.

Clicky

[Narnian]

Thanks, I will try bringing along a mini ice pack to keep the temperature cool, but not to freeze the plants.

Ashcan Bill, yeah I've thought about ordering online, but can not stand paying shipping when I could use that money to buy more plants. I'm also a VERY picky person who prefers to touch/feel/look and pick out EXACTLY which shape/length/size of plant I want. LOL! It drives me crazy sometimes, but I rarely order anything online for this reason.

Thanks for the help everyone!

EDIT: Oooo, I really like that link you gave. I'm going to bookmark it in case some plants aren't available locally.

EDIT AGAIN: Uh........yeah, the shipping is outrageous. It's telling me Mondo grass is $16.49, plus another 7 or so for shipping when I can get a big bunch for $2 at my local Petsmart. Oh well, thanks anyway.

[Ashcan Bill]

Yeah, the shipping and handling wasn't cheap, but there wasn't any sales tax so that offset it some.

The main advantage was they have a pretty wide selection. Some are harder to find plants, and everything is true aquatic. A lot of the local stores sell stuff that isn't true aquatic and doesn't survive long in an aquarium.

I haven't had good luck finding what I want locally, so it's a viable option for me. I'm looking at setting up a new tank, so one moderate sized order should do it.

[Arzela]

http://www.sweetaquatics.com/ is another option for online plant shopping. I've bought several plants from them, and the shipping for my entire order (which was some vals, wisteria, pennywort, a marimo ball and some other plants) came out to be around $6, for 2-3 day shipping.

[sjones]

Ohhh, I want a Marimo Ball! Was it a real one, in good shape? What size did you get? Does it work (filtering) and do your fish like it?

[Arzela]

Originally Posted by sjones

Ohhh, I want a Marimo Ball! Was it a real one, in good shape? What size did you get? Does it work (filtering) and do your fish like it?

It's a real one. I got the smallest size that they had available, as I wasn't entirely sure a larger one would fit well in the tank. I'm not entirely sure on the filtering part yet, however. It actually just came in the mail today, heh. My fish seem to enjoy swimming around it and chasing it around when the current in my tank pushes it around.

[sjones]

so it floats?