new to live plants. need some guidance.

well i just got some drift wood in from drfostersmith. added it in the tank! looks awesome but bare( yeah i know about the tannins) what plants can i get that will attach to the wood? i want something that will look nice. eventually everything fake in the tank is comming out and real is going in

my java moss attached to my driftwood after about a month.

why are you recommending 6.5K bulbs over something higher? i thought the higher K rating was better for plants. i just got 18K bulbs, are these not going to be good for plants?

The color temperature (K rating) is only one factor that is to be considered when selecting plant bulbs. All color temperature measures is how the light looks to the human eye. It does not say anything about light intensity, or whether the spectral distribution is particularly suitable for plant growth.

The most important things to look at would be spectral distribution and intensity. The spectral distribution of some bulbs is available on the internet if you google around.

I myself don't like lights that have really high color temperatures. Even if it were good lighting for plant growth, it looks way too blue for me, and seems to wash out the richness of the other colors. I have found a good mix is to use 1/2 cool white (daylight) and 1/2 warm white (kitchen & bath) bulbs. The daylight has a higher temperature, and the kitchen and bath a lower one, which helps bring the reds and yellows out.

well i just got some drift wood in from drfostersmith. added it in the tank! looks awesome but bare( yeah i know about the tannins) what plants can i get that will attach to the wood? i want something that will look nice. eventually everything fake in the tank is comming out and real is going in

I agree with Elijah and others -- it's really hard to go wrong with java moss if you're willing to use a non-native. It's the only thing I've found that is pretty close to foolproof regardless of light level or other parameters. Java moss will stick to rocks or wood, but also does just fine without anything to grab onto.

As for natives, I've had decent luck with hornwort in the past, but did have problems with it becoming overgrown with blue-green algae. That may have just been my relative inexperience at the time, however.

There are a variety of non-native Mosses that grow more orderly and form a more attractive effect than Java Moss. Singapore Moss is one of the easier to find.
Despite coming from largely tropical regions many also are subtropical and grow well in unheated aquarium. In fact, the best way to acclimate a new moss is to use cooler than tropical fish temperatures.

A mix of 50/50 10K/6.5k lighting works very well. If I have to choose but one I go with 10K. The intensity is important. I use only T-5 Normal Out put lamps. Despite their lower watts they emit as intense light as any other higher watt NO lamp of the same length. Very efficient lights. Dual lamps are normally sufficient for good plant growth if you go low tech. Excel has deleterious effects on many plants. Proceed with caution. It is not really necessary to grow plants with any CO2 supplements unless your lighting is intense. In which case a CO2 gas injection system is superior. I only use substrate fertilizers in my planted tanks and then mainly with primary rosette show plants which are placed in containers concealed by the substrate so all the fertilizer goes to the plant. Enough fertilizer does diffuse into the water column to feed floating plants like Hornwort or your Mosses without stimulating unwanted algal growth.

I don't care much for any set up using a soil base. They are more like interesting experiments than trouble free, easy maintenance types but that is just my opinion. Sooner or later something will come along that will bring up the soil underneath and once that happens your tank is trashed.

Edited by apistomaster, 17 January 2010 - 06:18 PM.

i just went out today and bought SeaChem Flouralite substrate and mixed it with my black gravel looks nice. i put in 3 plants from petsmart just to see how they do with the 10k lighting and ill go from there. id like to find some java moss/fern and hornwort for the tank also.

I use the combination of 18,000K and 6700k bulbs on all of my tanks... This allows the fish and plants to look there best also allowing for great plant growth... I like the Glo HOT5 bulbs by Hagen..... In my opinion they are the best bulbs on the market at the present time.

So i just found some Hornwort at a LFS. of course the person couldnt tell me anything about this plant. I know it can be floated. that is what im going to use it for. What is this plant like for lighting and all? maybe you guys can give me some info.

There's a ton of good info out there now. Plant tanks can be super complicated with special substrate, pricey lighting, CO2 addition, fertilizer etc. The one thing I think is way underestimated by most people is the battle with algae that results in beefing up the light and nutrient levels.
I've reevaluated my desire to keep a true "Plant Tank" which for me has always been a losing battle between budget and algae.
Having said that, almost all my freshwater tanks are loaded with greenery. My wife called it my "Swamp Motif". Actually, they are natural systems design to use plants as filters as well as habitat and food source. Ultra-cheap shop lamps with [carefully selected] cheap "grow" bulbs not only replace expensive lighting but filtration equipment as well. By saturating the tank with large amounts of plants as possible, as well as as much fast growing, nutrient consuming, light dominating surface plants as possible, algae is a non-issue. I use no substrate rooting plants and no plants that demand high light, nutrient or CO2 levels. My system is based on java moss to fill tons of space and consume plenty nutrients while needing little light or CO2, duck weed and other floating plants to consume tons of nutrients while taking advantage of proximity to light bulb and CO2 available from air, java fern which grows super slow and prolly uses little nutrients but has that classic leaf shape that makes up for the lack of rooted plants.
Cheap, simple, low tech and effective, it also provides a natural habitat complete with critters to eat that fish love. I like the look too, but not everyone agrees.

I have found that it needs mid-strenght lighting, and higher water hardness. If your water is very soft, you might consider tinkering with it.

Letting it float will help it get the light. If you try and plant it, it will wind up floating anyway as the buried section rots, and it doesn't put down roots.

If you ever treat this tank with hydrogen peroxide, be sure to remove the hornort for a couple days.

thanks for the info guys. Mikez is there any fish in there? I'd like to find a place that sells some java moss to attatch to my driftwood and rocks.

It's not strictly a case of higher is better. The K rating is used as an approximation of the color spectrum of the bulb, so something that most closely replicates the spectrum of sunlight is the best thing. Plants have pigments adapted to absorb and photosynthesize particular wavelengths, so you can get a bulb that's either too high or too low and produces light to which some or most of the plant's pigments are transparent. The tropical people seem to recommend between 6500 and 10K as optimal.

thanks for the info guys. Mikez is there any fish in there?

Bottom one has 3 blackbanded sunfish, top has a mixed school of molly fry, half grown fry and a few small sub-adults. I actually see all those fish plenty. Not sure why none showed in the pics. I just shot quick without thinking of the fish.

Edited by mikez, 16 February 2010 - 02:53 PM.

Having tried hornwort and vals in the past, my current setup (and for the foreseeable future) is just java moss and rocks or driftwood. I think it looks nice, and it requires no special care or lighting. I get no algae whatsoever (not sure how much of that to attribute to the java moss and how much to my snails). Just let the java moss be in proximity to rocks or driftwood and it will take care of attaching itself. If you can't find it locally, you can get it very cheap on Aquabid or Ebay.

My experience with hornwort is exactly the same as nativeplanter's. At first I tried to root it, but the part I stuck in the substrate rotted off. I had it work just floating for a while, but I found it would grow a bubbly algae scum at the surface of the water. I did have some success with keeping it down without rotting by passing stems through a loose loop of black thread attached to a rock. I had one tank setup where hornwort was healthy green and adding new growth, and others where it just slowly died off over a period of weeks/months. When/if it does die, all the individual leaflets break off and clog filters quickly.

Edited by jase, 16 February 2010 - 04:57 PM.

Having tried hornwort and vals in the past, my current setup (and for the foreseeable future) is just java moss and rocks or driftwood. I think it looks nice, and it requires no special care or lighting. I get no algae whatsoever (not sure how much of that to attribute to the java moss and how much to my snails). Just let the java moss be in proximity to rocks or driftwood and it will take care of attaching itself. If you can't find it locally, you can get it very cheap on Aquabid or Ebay.

My experience with hornwort is exactly the same as nativeplanter's. At first I tried to root it, but the part I stuck in the substrate rotted off. I had it work just floating for a while, but I found it would grow a bubbly algae scum at the surface of the water. I did have some success with keeping it down without rotting by passing stems through a loose loop of black thread attached to a rock. I had one tank setup where hornwort was healthy green and adding new growth, and others where it just slowly died off over a period of weeks/months. When/if it does die, all the individual leaflets break off and clog filters quickly.

that looks awesome jase. I think that what i wanna do and get rid of some of the ugly plants i got from petsmart.

that looks awesome jase. I think that what i wanna do and get rid of some of the ugly plants i got from petsmart.

I deleted the image I posted yesterday because it got resized (enlarged) and looked bad. Here's a better one. And yes, that is a goldfish in there along with some gambusia. He's overwintering inside while his pond is frozen.

The whiter "daylight" compact florescents I switched in recently wash colors out and the java moss seems less healthy than it was before. At least for this look, I preferred the warmer tone of regular compact florescents.

 java_moss_800px.jpg   178.95KB   4 downloads

I deleted the image I posted yesterday because it got resized (enlarged) and looked bad. Here's a better one. And yes, that is a goldfish in there along with some gambusia. He's overwintering inside while his pond is frozen.

The whiter "daylight" compact florescents I switched in recently wash colors out and the java moss seems less healthy than it was before. At least for this look, I preferred the warmer tone of regular compact florescents.

 java_moss_800px.jpg   178.95KB   4 downloads

yeah that definetly looks awesome. what light were you using before? I was thinking about getting the "Flora" something lights you can buy at petsmart. maybe it will help lush up what i have in there so far.

yeah that definetly looks awesome. what light were you using before? I was thinking about getting the "Flora" something lights you can buy at petsmart.

I was previously using just regular CFLs, nothing specific for aquariums or plants. I'm far from an expert on lighting or plants, but I've yet to buy any bulbs marketed specifically for plant or aquarium use. Last season I succesfully started a few hundred seedlings for my garden using 4' florescent shop lights with a combination of daylight (whiter) and kitchen & bath (yellower) T8 tubes. I don't doubt that specialized lighting can give better results, but in my experience just regular lights work well enough for my needs. I would tend to guess that many bulbs marketed specifically for plants or aquariums are the same as other bulbs in a company's line, just with 2-3X the price...

Here's the same aquarium with the "regular" CFLs. This photo is significantly more yellow than real life, probably due to auto white balance in the camera.
 regular_cfl_300px.jpg   30.77KB   1 downloads