Feeding and Nutrition :: Aquatic Plants - Any special care needed?

[DocShay]

I'm thinking of adding some real aquatic life to my tank, for looks, and for my turtles benefit.

When I see live plants at the pet store, the bottom seems to be a bunch of roots in a square like thing. When I put them in my tank, do I need substrate or anything? I like to have a clear bottom as I tried river rock, and gravel but it just gets too messy.

[iac637]

they will usually come in a little root square if you don't want them floating around you need to weight them down you could always but them in a little flower pot and but river rocks in the bottom instead of gravel or dirty hat woudln't be to bad to clean

[Tomny912]

Having a planted tank without a 3 inch substrate is hard to do, and keep the plants growing for life. Those little blocks are the growing media and really does not contains enough minerials for the plant to live on for a long time. You could try the pot idea mentioned above, but you still need to keep the plant underwater..... and most aquatic plants do grow high and need to be trimmed from to time. I suggest some floating plants, I have just some plain duck weed, that floats, the RES's seem to eat it when hungry enough, and it multiplies quickly. I have tries several others in there tank, but they seem to be in the way of the RESs swimming.

[octpusgirl8]

You might want to buy just one bunch of anacharis and see how that goes before you try anything too fancy, a lot of turtles will shred/eat it really quickly. I grow anacharis in a separate tank, and when i want to give some to the turtle i clip off a few strands and clip them into a veggie clip to weigh them down. He eats it pretty quickly.

[marisa]

Unless you want to spend time rerooting your plants, I'd stick with ones that will float in the water. Anachris, water hyacinth, duckweed, and hornwort (moneywort, etc.) will all do this. Just about all plants will get eaten sooner or later, though (or at least get ripped up).

[FLhaven4strays]

Ditto the floating plants. Mine LOVE to eat the roots & leaves too.

[DocShay]

I don't think i'd have a problem rerooting plants into tiny little pots to try it out, my only concern is if I put them in a small mini pot, whats going to stop all the dirty and everything from coming out?

[iac637]

don't use dirty use river rocks or something like that

[DocShay]

don't use dirty use river rocks or something like that

what would you suggest?

[emma]

I dont let mine float around. I just used washed off river rocks that are medium sized and they hold down the plants great.

[Amg81083]

not to hijack the thread but how do you grow anacharis octpusgirl8?? My turts love it but I'm not sure how to make it multiply or root or anything

[octpusgirl8]

I have a big tank with a few inches of gravel and a flourescent tube light. I just bought a few bunches of anacharis and stuck them in the gravel and after a while they grow and you can cut some for turtle food. Sometimes it roots, but it doesn't have to root to grow. New strands don't grow, the ones i have just grow longer. I started out with just a few black mollies in there, but then i had a snail problem, so i got a few loaches to help deal with that, then i had algae on the glass so i got a pleco...it's turned out to cost a bit more than i originally planned. I'm sure you could so it pretty cheap though, anacharis isn't a picky plant at all. When it's warm out you can grow it in a bucket outside.