Fish care on a budget.

[addiep8908]

I went in to three local pet stores today looking for silk plants to fill up my new ten gallon.

How do people afford them?!?!?

I carefully examined a few of the plants and then went home to think of things to substitute with. ---> Fish care on a budget.

It then occured to me that they were SILK plants... like SILK flowers. So I ran into my garage to grab the ancient box of silk flowers I have. I opened it up and immediately knew that I had hit the jackpot. I started tearing through the flowers ripping off the heads and discarding them. Then I stripped off all the leaves and gathered up a few stems. I grabbed about six or eight leaf parts per stem and started stacking them on to make them look like full, leafy foliage. I bent the bottom part of the stems (2-4 inches) into an L shape. Voila! Fabulous silk plants that I didn't spend a fortune on.

I soaked them in super HOT water for a few minutes prior to adding them into the tank to remove the dusty bits. Then I got to work designing the new plant set up. With the ends bent into an L shape it was easy to cover them with rocks or set the ends under caves or other decorations to stand them up. They are naturally buoyant, so they stood up pretty straight once I anchored the ends.

Now my tank is beautiful and I didn't spend a penny. But if you have to go buy some silk flowers, look for a good sale and look to buy the stems that only have leaves (unless you want the flowers on there too) instead of the whole flower.

Pictures to follow as soon as I wrangle up some batteries.

[FlyingAero]

No pics no plants

[zoragen]

Sounds like a great idea!

[Mizzle]

definitely waiting to see those pics. sounds really awesome.

[addiep8908]

These are the new plants I made! In the ten gallon boys tank we have Megatron and Optimus Prime.





(Made all the plants except for the two on the far right and the flower in front of the castle.)



And in my two gallon tank, my girl, Violet.



Like I said, the plants were super easy to make and they look great. Oh, and I got that little pot for violet to hide in, but she has pretty much set up camp in that big purple flower. She loves it! As for the boys, they are having fun hiding and then running out to the front of the tank and then doing it all over again.

[Lion Mom]

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of divided tanks, but that looks AWESOME!!!!

And your girl's tank is REALLY cute - LOVE the turtle!!! Did you either expand the hole or plug it up in her terra cotta pot? Wouldn't want to read she got stuck in it!!

Again - GOOD JOB!

[addiep8908]

I plugged up the hole in both pots with the ends of the plant stems. They are what is anchoring the plants to the ground.

I meant to say that I made all the plants except for the two on the far LEFT in the ten gallon tank.

[Lion Mom]

GOOD job!!! :)

[Learn To Fly]

Great job! That's kind of what I did too, but I went to Michael's (sp) and bought them. I got 9 plants for a little less than 9 dollars!

[wallywestisthebest333]

I heard having plats that will bend and stay in shape is bad because that means there's wire in them Won't they rust after a while in the water?

Beautiful tank though! =]

LOVE the design, the cute little flower plants, and the names! =]