Plants

[zackish]

How Important are plants really?
Looking at some peoples aquariums on other websites I see some of them the whole tank is covered with plants.
Is it preference or is there a minimal amount of plants to have?

[cocoa_pleco]

you can have lots of plants or no plants. Most people use live plants for a natural look and if you plan to overstock the tank. My 20g is really overstocked and heavily planted with a fluval 205, and all is good.

[Chrona]

Preference, though lots of plants will usually result in better water quality and more comfortable fish.

[zackish]

you can have lots of plants or no plants. Most people use live plants for a natural look and if you plan to overstock the tank. My 20g is really overstocked and heavily planted with a fluval 205, and all is good.


So basically if I wanna squeeze in a few more fish than should be in there I could throw in a few more plants?

[cocoa_pleco]

it allows more room for error. Plants take in ammonia and convert it to less harmful chemicals. Adding one plant and buying a bunch of more fish wont help, but if you add 5 large plants you can always add 5 more tetras or a extra dwarf gourami

[Chrona]

5 large plants, 5 neons, dwarf gourami is completely arbitrary as it depends greatly on what kind of plant, how often you feed, what kind of lighting/substrate/fertilizer/co2 setup you have, etc. Basically if you have plants, it increases the biological filtration of your tank, as well as giving you the ability to remove nitrates. Thus, you can support a higher bioload. However, more plants = less room, so you need to watch out for physical overcrowding, which leads to uncharacteristic aggression/stress among fish.

[troy]

Most fish are healthier and less drab in a tank with plants.

[nanaglen2001]

I have a planted tank, cause I want some "natural" environment for my fish (now comes the question how "natural" a planted tank really is....)

But mostly its for the fish keeper. A planted tank in a good shape is an eye catcher, like a graden within your living room. The fish like it too, they have hiding places can lay out their territories much better, and Cichlids wont get bored, cause there is always something to dig out, when it comes to spawning. I found out the fish behave much more relaxed in a planted tank, than in an empty one, and show off their colors much better.

Water quality, you can have lousy quality even with plants growing out of the tank. And overstocking is overstocking. The plants dont use up THAT much

When it comes to PWCs and other stuff, you need the same time, or even more, when it comes to the weekly job of cleaning and grooming. With my 110 gal. tank my weekly water change is about 70 %, even with two fat canister filters filtering and plants using phosphates and nitrates.

One disadvantage of plants, they are pretty expensive, especialy when you have a big tank and need motherplants, one plant can easily cost about 15 to 20 € (and you need at least 10 of them:help: :help: )

[zackish]

I want a tankwith a lot of plants but some nice looking rocks and maybe a plastic ship or somthing in the middle.

[nanaglen2001]

Instead of that ship, which could be an ugly fish trap, I would look out for some nice roots. For example, you can bind up some Java fern on that root. That really looks great.

For example:

[RobbieG]

I can't imagine having a tank without plants - but it seems like I spend twice as much time taking care of them as I do the fishies.